Using SketchUp for Gaming Board Building

The free 3D modeling software SketchUp is a great tool for planning tabletop wargame boards and I have started to use it for my own projects.

I had a brief look at SketchUp years ago when it first became popular after being acquired by Google. Then, I totally forgot about it until I read a recent blog post by Clarence Harrison over at Quindia Studios. He is building a new game board and uses SketchUp for the early layout work. This seemed super useful and as I have been somewhat stuck with my own gaming board - the Port of Gierburg -  because I am rather clueless as to how to continue with the layout and set-up of buildings and everything, I decided to reproduce my current board in SketchUp. This would give me a good basis to start experimenting with different configurations of buildings, walls and levels.

Workflow and Asset Structure

After a bit of fiddling I quickly settled with a "workflow" and structure for my assets:

1. Individual terrain pieces such as buildings, board sections, etc. are created and saved in separate files.
2. Another file is created for the entire gaming board. This is where everything comes together as the individual assets are imported as components.

I found this to be the easiest way of handling things as it allows me to focus on individual pieces and later combine them. This is not so important for the board sections, but if I ever end up with buildings, barricades and other items which are also "movable" in reality, I can try out things in virtual reality. Similar to how you would experiment with different furniture configurations of a room.

The Port of Gierburg in SketchUp

For my Gierburg gaming board this meant that I created the following three pieces (corresponding to their real-life pendants):

• Dock Section I
• Dock Section II
• Water Board

The digital version of Dock Section I

The digital version of the current state of Dock Section II

The dock sections put together

To get a better sense of scale I also made two quick sketches of the Town House and Tavern models from Stronghold Terrain. They are particularly well suited because of their simple architectural structure. I only did very rough versions of the buildings without detailed timber-frames, windows, etc. I might spend more time on such details if I am ever in the mood, but for now these models will definitely suffice.

Sketch of the Town House from Stronghold Terrain

Another view of the Town House

Sketch of the Tavern from Stronghold Terrain

The current board with the two houses

Now I have a great basis to try out different things for Dock Section II. I have a couple of ideas and visualizing them like this will hopefully help me make a decision so I can finally continue working on the board. Last but not least, this is also a great way of working on my game board when I am not in the mood or don't have the time to do actual modeling or painting work, yet still want to be a bit productive.

Tavern from Stronghold Terrain

The Tavern by Stronghold-Terrain is the latest addition to my collection of 28mm houses. Let's take a look!

The contents of the Tavern kit

I already painted up a couple of buildings from Stronghold-Terrain's range of medieval terrain: the Townhouse, the Guild House and the now out of production Facades. The Tavern now is the last building from their range (except for the Stables, which I am not interested in for now).

Like their other houses the majority of the pieces is made from hard plaster, except for the roof, the base and a few extra bits, which are all cast from resin.

Porcelain (tooth)brush stand

This is a little thing I wanted to share: A small toothbrush stand.

The Porcelain Toothbrush Stand
from MUJI

After a couple of months pause I recently got back into painting. And I finally got around to see how this little piece worked out... A few months ago my girl-friend dragged me into a MUJI store (because they seem to have very good pens). Even when on a hobby break I'm always on the look-out for things to put to use in the hobby. When I saw these small porcelain toothbrush stands I immediately thought that they will probably work well for holding brushes. It was also cheap enough to give it a try.

So, short and sweet: Yes, it does work well and I love it! The stand can easily hold a number of brushes (especially the thin ones used for wargaming/tabletop/modeling). What I like about this solution is that the stand is such a small elegant piece and the brushes are perfectly accessible (in contrast to the usual bulky brush stands). When I am working on a certain piece I usually keep using the same 4 to 8 brushes and they all fit into the stand. A great addition to my workbench, well worth the under 3€.

Whatsup?

It's been a long time since my last post and indeed I did as little hobby activity as the lack of updates would make you believe. Nevertheless, as the year draws to a close I feel like a little looking back and ahead.

The Port of Gierburg board is still a big work-in-progress. I find it hard to decide on how to proceed with the intended upper level and I really need to make up my mind and just go with something.

The British Unrated Cutter
from Games of War

In October/November, Games of War secretly released a new ship: A British Unrated Cutter. I immediately purchased the ship as their quality has always been absolutely top-notch and I don't want to again miss the oportunity - like their Sea Prince, which went out of production before I made sure to get one. What is funny is that I actually previewed their work-in-progress ships back in 2012(!) on this very blog (under the tag line "coming soon" too). How time flies...
Anyway, if you are only slightly into pirate gaming you should absolutely pick up their products. The cutter is a very very nice ship with superb quality once again. I shall do a review some time soon. In fact, the ship is already primed and it shouldn't be too hard to paint. Probably a good way to get back into the hobby.

The huge stunner last month was the release of the gigantic Town Gate by Tabletop World. This thing looks mind-blowing. Fortunately they also made the Guard Tower available again. My order is on its way and I can't wait to see these two pieces in the flesh.

The Town Gate from Tabletop World

Then I recently backed the Kraken Mat kickstarter because of their Cobblestone City mat. Usually I am not fan of gaming mats but their unique approach to producing the designs won me over. They actually build the terrain and then photograph it and only make final touch-ups in Photoshop. This gives the mats a very realistic look - realistic in the sense of wargaming terrain, of course. This will make it blend well with the actual terrain pieces on top of it. So that's the theory. I really can't wait to get mine. Hopefully it will be a great alternative to my never-ending Gierburg board so that I have a great board for setting up my finished buildings.

The Cobblestone City mat from the Kraken Mat kickstarter

So lots of toys to draw me back into modelling and painting. Also, I already look forward to next year's Tactica convention at the end of February. The visit always gives me a huge motivation boost to finish some projects.

I also heard that Games Workshop intends to resurrect the Specialist Games section. Will this mean an eventual return of Mordheim in some way? This is definately something that would spark my interest - even it were in the weird Age of Sigmar setting. Though I hear that all the (attention, pun incoming!) cool kids  are playing Frostgrave these days. Hopefully there will be a demo game at the Tactica to get an idea of the rules. After all, I was playing Mordheim in the snow already years ago.