Kraken Ain't Easy

I came down from my euphoria and found ways to improve the Kraken's base.

When discussing terrain and basing, I often reference telling a story. I don't just want it to look good, I want things to have a reason for being there. So when I looked at this, I couldn't come up with a reason for it looking the way it did.

From a distance, it's hard to tell the green stuff is supposed to be grass. It's just too fine, and almost looks like the stuff leftover from mowing the lawn. That's not to say the material is bad, but it just doesn't work on its own. It was also far too sporadic; the area is supposed to look somewhat unkempt, but the way the patches were laid out looked too planned. Real grass grows until it has a reason to stop.

The water, while good looking, was too flat. I don't mean that I needed to create ripples - instead, there needed to be more than just water and a bank to make up the mini swamp. It felt like it was trapped between being a newly-formed puddle, or something that had been there for awhile.

To fix the grass, I started off by adding some static grass. Rather than being miniscule green cubes, this stuff looks like actual blades of grass. I didn't take it to the edge of the green turf; instead, I wanted everything to coalesce from the edge of the base. To better achieve that, I added some of the turf closer to the edge, and put it around the swamp bank. Rather than looking like grass was growing unevenly for no reason, now things started looking like the base was ripped straight from the world.




The pond was a simple fix. If I had my way, I'd turn back time and add a small log (i.e. a stick from outside) to the water. Instead I opted to add a very simple piece that was a 100% improvement. I took 3 pieces of paperclip, painted them green, and added a bit of epoxy to the ends. When they're dry they'll be painted brown to look like cattails. Now it's clear that this bit of swamp has been here awhile, and helps to add a bit more depth to the Kraken.


I really like how the base has come together. You'll get to see the finished cattails in the gallery, but I think this will be my last blog post on the subject. I've had a blast putting my process into writing - it became a much more cerebral experience, and I feel like I was able to make more direct decisions about what I wanted to do because I knew I'd have to tell you all about it. I'd like to do this again during my next big project, so I hope this hasn't been too much of a bore. But thank you for being a part of this process with me; it was great to share more than the end product of a project.

See you tomorrow!