It's recently become the
in thing to do to create "cd terrain". That is, create some terrain that uses
a cd as its base. This actually has several good things going for it. First, you can create something rather
quickly because it can only get so big. Second, it helps to get the creative juices flowing because you have
to be judicious in your use of space. And third, it's great for storing the pieces, since they'll fit just
about anywhere.
I had recently ordered the first two (of hopefully many more) cavern molds from
Hirst Arts.
I'd cast the molds a few times just to see how the pieces looked, but i hadn't built anything from them. I know
what i'm eventually going to use them for but i was itching to try them out right away. A simple and quick "cd
terrain" piece seemed to fit the bill nicely.
As i glued the pieces together i had the idea of a door that leads to a dungeon or something. But all by itself
the door seemed rather drab. My first thought was to have it cracked slightly open and try my hand at the source
lighting technique (which is basically, paint the light and shadows that would be there if there were a bright
light source such as a lamp, torch, fire, or lightning bolt). I was going to have a bright beam of light coming
out of the door. Some excellent examples of this technique can be found
here,
here, and
here.
But it still seemed rather uninteresting. Almost sci-fi alien, and I wanted more of a fantasy feel. So I decided to
go with one of the horror movie 101 tricks: Show just enough of a monster to make the audience imagine the rest.
Hence the tentacle was born. Who knows what scary creature might be lurking behind the door and what treasures it
might be guarding?
This top-down view shows off the cavern floor tiles. As I glued them together there were a few largish
gaps between several of the pieces. In order to correct this, i decided to mix up another small batch of plaster and
pour it into the cracks.
This image shows a close-up of some topaz and geode crystals that i've added. The crystals are from various rock hunting
trips that some of my co-workers and our families went on a few years ago. On each of the various trips, we went out into
the desert to dig for rocks. It was loads of fun. As a result, I have buckets full of geodes, trilobites, and topaz.