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The Hirst Art Studies | Miniatures 

Well time for something completely different;
After making 2 pirates tables I picked up the mold making and resin casting again. This time I was inspired bye the fact that the board game “Catan” is celebrating its tenth birthday. Due to this event there will be a special edition of the game in 3D. The shots of this upcoming version looks awesome and the price is baffling. So there is not much choice left then to try and make my own 3D version of the game.

I will not explain the nature of the game here however I do want to give an impression of the way I made this 3D Catan version of it. The project took me 3 weeks. Starting with the idea in my head up to the final pictures you see in this topic.

The game consists out of a bunch of six sided tiles that form one or more islands surrounded by water. These islands tiles are pieces of land that provide different types of recourses. In all I had to make 11 different hexagonal tiles that make up water, corn fields, mountains, woods, water and so on.

Well time for something completely different;
After making 2 pirates tables I picked up the mold making and resin casting again. This time I was inspired bye the fact that the board game “Catan” is celebrating its tenth birthday. Due to this event there will be a special edition of the game in 3D. The shots of this upcoming version looks awesome and the price is baffling. So there is not much choice left then to try and make my own 3D version of the game.

I will not explain the nature of the game here however I do want to give an impression of the way I made this 3D Catan version of it. The project took me 3 weeks. Starting with the idea in my head up to the final pictures you see in this topic.

The game consists out of a bunch of six sided tiles that form one or more islands surrounded by water. These islands tiles are pieces of land that provide different types of recourses. In all I had to make 11 different hexagonal tiles that make up water, corn fields, mountains, woods, water and so on. The first step was to make a hexagonal tile that is close to perfection. I got it perfect enough by simply cutting one out of 5mm thick foam board using an original tile as guidance for my cutting knife. I made a silicone mold out this foam piece so now I can cast resin hexagonal tiles in larger quantities.

The resin tile is the base where upon I start modelling the landscape. For this I use self hardening clay and I use different dentist tools for shaping it the way I want. I discovered that making a mold of a sculpted tile when the clay is still fresh, does not effect the mold and its result at all. So after molding a tile I simply scratched the clay out of the mold, washed the mold out and used the clay again for the next tile.

Since all tiles have to be cast more then once I used mold release after every second cast. This makes the tiles greasy coming out of the mold. Before painting them it is best to wash them in hot water using a bit of dishwasher soap. The mold release is essential since it will endure the live of a mold.

The water tiles:
Most of the tiles have water structure on them. The wrinkling effect was made bye simply pressing my thumb into the thin wet layer of clay while dipping the fingers into water every now and then. I made two different water tiles and once I made a mold out of them I used the first cast to add the wooden walkways on them and the numbers. The round surface was done bye using a speed drill. (this area is for placing resource counters)
I used three colours on the water tiles for the water itself being dark blue, blue grey and a very light blue. The walkways where painted raw umber and yellow ochre.

The Mountain tile is just a big lump of clay that I worked with some dental tools up until I liked the form of the rock itself. The woods that surround it were added later. Small flat pieces of clay that I worked with a sharp pin by twisting it around. After that I gently pushed a stiff brush upon this part to level the stirred up clay again.
I painted the mountain into two different colour settings. On both I used grey and browns for the rocks. The one with snow got a blue grey brush at first and a white brush afterwards.
The other got a dusty green colour brush and a slightly lighter brush. I also painted a blue grey and light blue stream on the mountains plateau.

Other tiles:
The other tiles first where modelled in height. In this case the lump of clay was formed by pushing the clay in a way that I get a more diverse and unlevelled piece of terrain.

The desert tile was smoothened by simply using water and fingers the little oases was done at the end where three tiny round rolled pieces of clay where pushed into the desired form of possible palm trees and a tent using the dentist tools.
I worked with one brown and 2 types on khaki on this tile.

The surface of the grass land was roughened by pushing a stiff brush into the clay. After that the lat pieces of clay where placed upon this rough surface, stirred and smoothened again to make the trees. I even managed to add tiny clay dots that represent sheep.
The dusty green colours make up the grass

The wood tile was made bye simply stirring up the entire tile and smooth it again using a stif brush. It looked dull at first so I decided to add a little road with a dirt water pool in it I simply scooped out the clay and levelled it using a brush.
As all wood upon all the tiles I used a dark, lighter and very light green to paint the trees

The stone tile was created bye pushing the clay to a certain direction in order to create a kind of ramp. I then used a sharp tool to make some horizontal texture as if this is a stone layered field. I also roughened this surface again with a brush.
My favourite tile since the terracotta colour in combination with the ochre colours gives this tile this nice look and really brings out the texture.

The Grain tile was fun to do. I simply divided the tile in to different fields and I carved a line pattern in each field differently. I scraped some clay away where I would like to have the road and widened some cracks to make the different fields more visible. Finally I added the tiny forests.
A medium brown that was brushed several times using plain yellow.

Most of the tiles have dusty green edges. This was done in order to make the tiles look better when they are placed together.

The resource tokens where made using 2 euro cent coins with some clay on them. All the items that are upon these tokens where carved out of plaster, pushed in to the clay and molded.

The city and village are both made upon a 1 euro cent coin. In this case I pushed some tiny square blocks into the layer of clay and made a mold. From the plaster cast of it I carved the object further in to its final state and made another mold. The road is just a tiny plaster part that was also, at first, carved out of a piece of plaster. The boat was carved out of plaster as well. The mast and sails however where made of cardboard. Finally the wave pattern was done in the end where the boat was glued to a surface and where the clay was modelled around it.

Some final shots of the entire catan world: