How to make dungeon tiles for D&D, Dungeons of Orkney and Dungeon Saga – Part 2) The Mold

Hi Everyone,

This is part two of my tutorial on how I made my dungeon tiles. For part one, please click here.

We’ve gotten as far as producing one, but hopefully two or three unique masters. By that I mean we’ve got three tiles sculpted in greenstuff. You’ve let them set and they’re ready for casting!

You’re going to need some instant mold. It’s also known as oyumaru (I belive it’s a Japanese invention). Basically this is a silicon type material, which when you dunk it in boiled water for a minute or so becomes super flexible. As it cools it dries over a period of a minute or two, capturing almost perfectly the details of whatever you may have pressed into it. Including fingerprints! When you’ve done with it, you can just reset it by dunking it back in boiled water and then you’re ready to cast something else.

You can pick it up online from most places, but I’ve linked you The Outpost, which is my FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) in the hopes that if you do buy some, you’ll get it from him (always good to support your local businesses!).

Anyway, Onwards. Boil the kettle. Have a cup of tea. Also, get a bowl of boiled water (be careful and don’t burn yourself kids!). Take your instant mold and drop it in the water.

Leave it in there for about 2 or 3 minutes. It’s not going to hurt it, but it should ensure that the instant mold becomes fully malleable. After this period has elapsed, grab a fork or similar and fish it out. Be careful again here as the instant mold ain’t going to be cold!

You’ll find that it’s changed from being a slightly flexible solid, and instead become something akin to a putty. Whilst it’s in this state you want to splat it down on one of your masters. The best way to do this is to put your master, detail side up, on a clean cutting mat. Then push the instant mold down on top of it from above. You want to make sure that the instant mold covers your master completely and overlaps the edges.

Once you’re happy that the mold has covered it firmly, leave it to rest. If you can transport it without too much effort, you’ll speed the curing process up dramatically by running the whole thing under a cold tap for 10 seconds or so.

When it’s completely cured, peel the master away from the instant mold. If it’s too sticky (and it really shouldn’t be) try doing the peeling with the whole thing submerged in a bowl of water.

If you look at what you’ve got now, it should be a big blob with a dungeon tile imprinted into it. If you’re like me you’ll want to trim away the excess instant mold from the sides of the tile impression using a hobby knife.

You should be left with something that looks like this:

If that’s the case, congratulations, you’ve passed phase two and are ready to move on to phase three!

Unfortunately you’ll have to wait a day or two for me to write it and publish it!

As ever, if you’ve got any questions, feel free to drop me a comment below the line. Honestly, do it. Seriously. I want you to do it 🙂

Also, if you’ve found this useful, you’d be being extra helpful by visiting and joining my Facebook page by clicking on the button below.

Jimmi Waz ‘Ere

Thanks for reading,

Jimmi