Update - It looks SICK used with the stairblocks...

Hi Guys!

The Lava itself is DONE!

For any new patrons wondering, this project is taking me twice as long as usual because I'm having a hell of a time recovering from Covid and find I need to pace myself - but enough about that LOOK AT THE LAVA!

Damn I am happy with this result 😁

As you can see I decided to switch up the crackle placement from the last video and have it as a kind of loosely attached skin around the edge of the lava when used as a lake like this, and on one side of a stream of lava when used as a 'river'.

I did this because the old look of random patches felt a bit unnatural to me, it looked too 'placed', not like it had occurred organically. At the edges it feels more like the lava is cooling at the edge (or one edge in a stream, which also seems quite common in my reference sources), and then that skin is cracking away from the edge of the lava as it moves and flows on top of the lava, or is torn from the edge by the roiling, bubbling lava in the middle of the lake....you get the idea :)

The stairblocks magnetically attach to modular islands that can be placed freely anywhere as I mentioned previously, so you can create the windy Moria staircase of your dreams and imperil your players at your leisure...

My one niggle is the visible lines, but they're a bit less visible/noticable in person, and unfortunately the only real ways to disguise them require either a) advanced sculpting skill, which I didn't want to work on only for some of you guys to not feel comfortable replicating it, or b) covering most of that glorious glowing lava in crackle paste, which would work, but dull that gorgeous orange glow that underlights everything nearby. 

Neither were sacrifices I was happy with, so I focused on disguising the result by drawing attention to the crackles, islands, edges and underlit terrain/accessories, rather than large open stretches of raw lava. I think that turned out pretty well, but what do you guys think? I'm very curious to hear your thoughts :)

As for next steps, the photography/build plans I have for the video involve showing off the new mountainblocks in full, so I need to get to work making some more of those. The core blocks are all but done and only need the card indenting, I just need to do a fair bit of rock carving and painting for the facings - magnetising them all for climbing etc can easily wait til later :)

Then finally I have some new scatter terrain to give the builds that extra 'pop' - but they should be simple enough to quickly paint in a basic scheme with the airbrush.

Onwards!