Hirst Arts is an web-based company that offers a line of rubber molds. Those molds produce plaster-of-paris blocks that can be used to build castles, dungeons, buildings and table-top gaming terrain elements.
From the 20 Hirst Arts molds that I currently possess, I am creating a set of three-dimensional dungeon tiles, complete with walls and dungeon dressing, to add some visual interest to our dungeon-delving sessions. Thus far, I have produced nine different kinds of dungeon floor tiles.
Each dungeon tile shown below is 3" x 3", comprising a 10' x 10' section, so that the tiles can fit together to make hallways and rooms. The walls will sit on the inside edges of the tiles, providing sufficient room in the middle of the tiles to have two 28mm miniatures walking abreast down a hallway.
The above picture shows my favorite set of tiles so far. Those dungeon tiles have a decorative edge running along the borders of the tiles. The edging appears to be made of runic script. I will use those tiles when the players find a section of dungeon that is more skillfully hewn from the surrounding rock, and the path of the runes will carry them to specific encounter or dungeon elements.
Most of the dungeon tiles will be comprised of these chipped stone numbers.The benefit of this tile configuration (with the one-inch blocks in the center and smaller blocks around the edges) is that you can put the tiles together and the half- or quarter-blocks on the edges create full blocks when placed side-by-side. Those tiles can be used both for room and hallway tiles.
For a time, I agonized over the configuration of my dungeon tiles. Based on the design, the floor scale is 1" = 3 ft. 4 in. Compare that to 28mm figures, which translate to a vertical scale of 1" = 5 ft. Ultimately, the convenience of laying out connectible dungeon tiles (with the walls internal to each tile) won out over my need to keep the horizontal and vertical scales congruent.
This 10' section of dungeon tile is for cobblestone floors. It has an irregular edge so that the seams between floor tiles are less obtrusive.I envision using this style of dungeon tile for hallways such as the entrance to the Tomb Of Horrors. In the ToH, a path of differently-colored stones winds its way down a 20' wide hallway.
Here is a dungeon tile with a herringbone pattern. The tiles lock together. This particular set will take some time to produce, since there is only 1 of the 1" blocks on the Hirst Arts mold, so I need to cast that mold 9 times to create one 10' x 10' section.
The same is true of the above tile. This decorative tile will be a good choice for royal chambers, temples and other lavish rooms.
The above dungeon tile has a neat octogonal pattern, however, the seams between the blocks is too pronounced. I'm still trying to find a way to fill those seams so that they don't distract from the tile pattern.
Don't ask me to tile your home. As you can see, I didn't do a very good job of laying down these smaller blocks to create floor sections that have tiles set at a 45 degree angle to the direction of the hall or room.The first of these two tiles is of chipped stone, the second in smooth tiles.
This last dungeon tile is made up of cracked, smooth blocks. I prefer these less than the chipped stone blocks, since it's more difficult to give the final, painted version of these tiles visual interest.My next task is to start working on the walls and dungeon dressing. Fortunately, I have well over 120 different elements to choose from, based on the Hirst Arts molds I already have access to. I will post some pictures of some of those other block elements so you can see the breadth of elements available in creating a three-dimensional dungeon environment.
