Because the FLOOR IS LAVA!!!! - Damn I love this effect :D

Hi Guys!

So before I got started this week I thought I'd drop some preview pictures of what the Lava effects now look like using the new texture, crackle effect etc once painted :)

The new crackle technique worked REALLY well combined with the lighting, it lets you see tiny cracks that would be near invisible to the naked eye easily, even at a distance! even the very thin, stippled areas at the edge that blend into the lava have natural looking cracks that make the skins look like they're melting into the rest of the molten sludge...

Colour on these photos is pretty accurate, though they're even brighter in person, the images where you can see my desk behind the pieces are taken with FULL light overhead from my massive overhead light - and I had to dull it down that much to get an accurate colour on the lava and bank for you guys! The mountainblocks are lit even brighter and more orange in real life... 

Should give you an idea of how powerful the lighting effect is - no need whatsoever to turn off the lights to get the full effect from these pieces - though if you did, a lava lake or flow would pretty much underlight the whole room 😁

As you can see the modular bank shown below on the left is unpainted as yet, but the light bleeds though so it should glow like the other bank ripples :)

I have plans for how to easily seal the light gaps between tiles too, so only the light you want should be bleeding out, as well as an extension cable I'm going to link for you guys so you can easily thread multiple lightboxes under the same table cleanly and have the dimmer switches blu-tac'ed to your DM seat for easy control mid game 😉

Finally you can see below the difference in texture effect between the original lava tiles, which were pretty good, to the new versions. The original crust just felt too smooth for me, the cracks too 'drawn on' and the ripples at the edge felt too sharp and 'sculpted'. plus the open lava was very smooth, which I wasn't totally happy with - all fixed in this version though! 

And you can use this sculpting technique if you ever did the pools yourself, instead of the original method :)

Hope this is a nice little preview to keep you going guys, I'm ploughing on with getting the bulk of the tiles done before recording and including any tips I learn in the process...I really need an assistant 😂

See you all soon!