Tabletop nativity scene for Frostgrave

Yes, you heard right, I built a tabletop nativity scene for Frostgrave!

One of the projects I planned at the beginning of this year, was to build a nativity scene set in the frosty ruins of Felstad, Frostgrave‘s setting. Sounds crazy? Maybe, maybe not.

I wanted to build something which I could use as both scenery in said game and as decoration for the festive season. A 2-in-1.

Also, I was hoping to kickstart my terrain crafting again through this “quick” build. More on that at the end.

Another goal of this project was to use only crafting materials I had lying around.

I had some leftover scrap material from previous projects like XPS and EPS foam, as well as cork and cast plaster bits. But above all else, I had lots of left over foam bricks.

So, I started to glue everything together in a bit of a haphazard way to see where the build would take me. I used one of my trusty painting dummies to check sizes and playability. I was pretty happy with how it turned out eventually. Except with the position of the hole for a LED tea light, which I changed before the next step.

Adding a plaster-PVA mix to the whole build suddenly brought the composition to life and tied it all together.

Also the tea light holder was now very well integrated. I used a broken one to block the time hole. I’d use a fresh one, which I’d prepare later to insert into my build.

After letting the plaster dry for a good 24 hours, I applied that famous mod podge mixed with black acrylic paint mix on the whole terrain piece, only to let it fully dry for some hours.

Painting the ruins

Then, I should have added sand, stones and other mineral flocking material. But instead, I went ahead and primed the terrain using black followed by grey and white paint from the rattle can in a zenithal highlight kind of way, if you understand what I mean. The picture below might be of some help:

To paint the bricks, I decided to try out the Army Painter Speed Paints for the first time on wargaming terrain. I used brown tones to randomly paint the brickwork. It turned out quite alright I’d say.

Next, a dry-brush with tan and followed with white brought out the details in the texture of my bricks.

I did the wash step later in the build.

Then, I finally added sand and small stones to the base using watered down PVA glue. I left that to dry once finished.

I also built and integrate the LED bonfire.

Painting the base

Once the basing material is fully dry, I proceed with painting the terrain. I simply used cheap acrylic paint. I went for brown. I also added that miniature winter wire tree I made.

Now, it was also a good time to build a makeshift roof to the ruins. So I cut/ripped/broke/textured some pieces of a wooden fruit container to simulate rough planks I would stick on top of the walls. Adding small stones as weight to sell the realism. Note, that I didn’t glue the construction to the walls. This way I’m able to paint the roof separately and take it off to get to the the inside.

Then, I painted, dry-brushed and washed the whole roof structure. But also the logs in the bonfire.

Next, I dry-brushed the walls and the base with an off-white to enhance the texture. I then used my homemade wash to tie all the colors together and to increase their depth.

Snow … or big failure!

Even though, I rarely add snow to my Frostgrave terrain (in order to keep them multi-purpose), I decided to add snow to my tabletop nativity scene for Frostgrave.

To achieve a somewhat realistic look, I applied my trusty snow recipe. That’s fake snow flakes from the cheapo s t ore. Make sure to buy before the festive season in winter. Since it’s too coarse, I ground it to a finer powder. Then, I mixed it with PVA glue, a bit of water and enough white paint to make it opaque. Then I applied it with an old brush everywhere where snow would gather. That said, have a look at my (failed) game board tutorial. I realized by the time of writing this post, that the snow on that board came off completely. Great. This time, however, I made a kind of a texture paste. It seems to be more durable this time, but it’s still very, very fragile … .

Before the mixture was dry, I sprinkled some snow powder on top and sealed everything in place using PVA glue and water in a spray bottle. Then, leave everything to dry for at least 24 hours.

Just to realize, that somehow my snow was stained brown (look at the image below) from the underlying base coat. So, I used snow from the can: the kind you get for frosting your christmas tree.

“Be careful with this “canned snow”: it’s not a durable paint.” I told myself. “It’s rubbing off right away, when you touch it.” “bla bla bla.”. I thought I’d remedy that by sealing the snow using matt varnish from the rattle can.

Spoiler alert : Doesn’t work at all!

So I was left with snow rubbing off at the slightest touch and a bloody brown mess, instead of model snow.

Nice!

Hay

As a final flocking layer you could add tufts, grass or bushes, but, since my nativity scene is set in Frostgrave, I wanted it as barren as possible. The only flocking I added in the end was longer static grass to simulate hay lying on the ground. I locked it into place by dropping watered down PVA glue on it using a pipette.

I left everything to fully dry (which took me 48 bloody hours!!!) before proceeding to the final step:

Adding miniatures

Finally, I painted some 3D-printed miniatures using the Army Painter Speed Paints, applied some flocking to them, and added them to the scene.

At this point, I decided, I’ve had enough. In the future, I might add additional details and figures to the scene, or not. I’ll update this article accordingly.