So I got to thinking, our adventurers can't spend all their time in manky old dungeons. No, there has to be a period of travel TO the manky old dungeon. So what happens directly before the heroes reach the dark castle/evil dungeon/ancient temple?

No, not role play, you fools.

The haunted forest!

SUPER HAUNTED FOREST EXPLORE!!!

The brief: I already have the modular plaster cast dungeon that you can see here

However, casting the pieces can take a long time and I'd like something I can update a lot quicker. It won't replace the dungeon, just give me a cheaper, quicker alternative so I can play new scenarios as quickly as possible.

Also, won't it be cool to have the heroes fight their way through the forest, into the dungeon, and away with the treasure!

Features:

Must be easily stored
Must be transportable and robust
Must remain in keeping with the 16bit theme

Inspiration:

I need look no further than the king of top down RPG's, Links Awakening for my super chunky old game boy!

This is basically all I need. Open spaces bordered with trees. Simple eh?

Design concept:

This is the plan; I will start with a fold up gridded battlemat, which has a grass or simple woodland texture to it. As I use 30mm lip bases, my grid will have to be 30mm or 1.5" squares. You can get 1" square battlemat online, I'll probably need to get mine printed.

I will then use corkboard tiles to cut irregular shapes that fit over 1, 2 or 4 squares. These will have trees attached (removable) and will act as dividers.

Simple eh?

The battle mat:

If you're using the standard 25mm bases with your SDE models, you shouldn't have a problem acquiring a 1inch grid battlemat from the Internet, they're fairly common, and you can get them with grass or stone designs. If you want a bigger grid AND a design, you're outta luck, I wasn't paying £50+ for a custom one! 

Fortunately, my brother works at a graphics company, and he made me a simple battlemat out of an offcut of vinyl. 

This thing folds, stores and transports nicely, looks the part (very 16 bit!) and has 30mm squares. Job done!

Trees and borders:

If you look at the pic from links awakening, you can see that the forest areas are made up of open spaces bordered by trees in order to give you the impression of paths through the forest. I'll basically be emulating this on the board.

To make a border piece, I measure out and cut a piece of cork tile to cover the right amount of squares. For instance, a four-square stretch needs to be 120mm x 30mm. Make sure you measure out the squares though, it's one tree per square

Next, I visited antenocitis workshop. ( http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com).basically, if you want scenery supplies, go here first, the man knows his stuff and stocks the very best. I found these tree armatures by woodland scenics...

http://www.antenocitisworkshop.com/2-1-4-4-conifr-grn-trees-42-kt.html

I chose them for 2 reasons:

1) they look pretty good, and about the right size, and I can get enough of them for not too much cash (I think I need just over 90)

2) they appear to be removable from their stands, so could be packed away easier.

I ordered three sets. I chose conifers as they are less likely to interfere with the tree next to them!

Here's a tip- unless you're incredibly bored and enjoy everything sticking to your fingers, don't bother sticking the clump material to the trees, leave them bare. They look fine for the haunted forest, and the gluing will just drive you mad.

I take the cork strips, and using a piece of coarse sandpaper, I sand the edges down. 

Next, glue down the tree bases into the center of their squares, and texture the base with PVA and sand. Leave to dry for several hours.

When it's dry, paint it. I sprayed mine with Tamiya T69 spray,followed by drybrushes of GW tausept ochre and bleached bone.

Finally, add static grass patches

You should now be able to slot the trees in, and set up your board!

Spawning points:

Woah woah woah! You're not done yet! Surprisingly, this next step caused me masses of stress. I really wanted the Kobolds to spawn out of a spooky old tree bole with a scary face and an open mouth. No such thing exists in the world of online terrain companies. I searched for a good alternative...hollow trees, mine shafts, bottomless pits, to no avail. In the end I settled on an old favourite

www.thomarillion.com makes lots of really nice dungeon pieces. I ordered two of these wells, seen here with a brown undercoat 

The two together was less than £5, and it's 35mm round, just over my square size, but that's negligable. Now Ive bought them, i like the idea of a secluded well in the middle of the forest, it's certainly got precedent in the world of 16bit RPG's!

They got a paintjob to match the plaster dungeon, so they can be used in there too.

So it's done! I enjoyed building and playing on this so much, it's inspired me to make a proper dungeon version tutorial! Coming soon!