Simple Concrete Ruins for Modern or Post Apocalyptic Tabletop Games

[@adamscholtes]

"It's a mater of implication being more important than realism" - absolutely. The terrain needs to be easily read and understood for what it is. Could not agree more. Great video.

[@fakeplasticsoldier]

If "more realistic" made for good art, photography would have replaced paintings completely. Even 'realistic' painters know that you need to focus on having implied detail and making something artistically good, and that sometimes you actually need to sacrifice realism to get there.

[@ethanbest9110]

Definitely gonna hop on this train. Look at movies, TV, and all of art history: what you create is only as real as it feels in context. These ruins aren't for a scientific diorama, they're for showing of the broken remains of what humanity has wrought in an actively hostile universe in the grim darkness of which there is only war.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

@@fakeplasticsoldier YES YES YES!!!!! That's a great analogy!

[@adamscholtes]

All of this. Yep. Our jobs in running our games at the table is to immerse those around the table in the story as it unfolds. Minis and terrain are set pieces that add to the narrative - not replace it. And in specific tactical situations they can assist greatly in our verbal explination as the action unfolds. At times - a super detailed mini or very elaborate terrain piece can even distract - even though I love super detailed minis - this has been my observation.

[@readhistory2023]

Agressive dry brushing in a circular motion is called scumbling. It's a fine artist's technique used for clouds and whatnot.

[@jezeski2011]

That shot of the deer in your yard was totally awesome.

[@spinaltapification]

Modern fantasy and modern settings in general are fun for me to think about, and for such a simple build this really put the emphasis down on that? The texturing and everything looked great, the grey prime, the rubble, all the little details looked fantastic but what really hit home with this one was the rebar? It just looks SO good! I lost it, I was so excited when you shoved those paper clips in there, and then the extra pieces of concrete sticking to the rebar? This really takes the modern cake - you took something awful that happened and turned it into one of the most strangely exciting builds I've watched so far. I'm so sorry about the foundation cracking, but with positive unstoppable force, no immovable object can stand in your way!

[@MrSarwat]

7:30 BMC's friends: Yo, when's the next session so we can see dem new terrain?

[@Aluvial]

I have an older home in clay. A solution for us, was to dig French drains down to the basement footer. By trenching around the house, we created drainage, and relieved pressure on the basement walls. Two birds, one stone. You use a rubberized surface on the outer wall, put in drain pipe, stones, etc, and then tamp the earth back in. We have had about 4 inches settling over 20 years, walls realigned, and doors, cabinets work better. Our house is on piers, and floats over the basement on them. I think that helps relieve pressure on the outer basement walls. Just a thought!

[@DiningTablePrintPlay]

If people do have trouble with spray over foam, the easiest base coat and undercoat in one that I've found is masonry paint. When doing some desert-themed table base boards a while back I bought a huge tub of several litres of it in "sandstone" colour for the cost of about three bottles of Citadel paint, and still have most of it left today. You can slap it on with a decorating brush, then so long as you chose a good colour a simple wash and drybrush leaves it looking great. I guess it probably fulfils the same job as the mod podge mix just without having to buy mod podge.

[@elfbait3774]

Absolutely love that you drew inspiration from real life crap. It's easy to take the glorious, wonderful natural inspirations from the places we live - forests, lakes, etc and turn them into awesome projects, but it is a certain something special to take adversity and turn it into art. I guess that is the mark of a true artist, drawing inspiration from pain as much as anything else.

[@blakeanderson4022]

Damn dude! The first second of the video I was like "I hope thats not his house!"

[@ishnifusmeadle]

I love how much even in the last 6 months you have upgraded your channel. It's clearly obvious how much time effort you put into both your crafts and into your videography and editing. Fantastic. I know it was a little impromptu but my favorite part was the deer clip. I live in Maine witch shares quite a lot with Canadian Neighbors. I have noticed I find most of my inspiration 4 whatever project I'm working on Beat It dungeoncraft Or metal working from the surrounding flora and fauna.

[@FrankyDCrafter]

That was amazing. I feel like you can still apply these techniques for medieval style ruins, like for dessert ruins.

[@adriannaranjo4397]

This video really demonstrates how you don't need expensive materials or fancy tools -except a wire cutter board- to make truly outstanding work

[@drewharner3387]

I just found your channel yesterday looking for videos on how to paint minis. Ive watched about a dozen of your videos since then. I love your content

[@Wookie_oo7]

I found him as welll a few weeks ago and have watched so many of his videos now. This bloke has honestly made me decide not to bother with dungeon tiles, it was his video of why he is going to switch back to a battle map that did it. A drawn map with terrain features and embellishments gives you so much more freedom to quickly place down maps and also duplicate maps on a large scale.

[@megacdrw]

Something that I use for small terrain bases is the foam card stuff. They sell it at art shops for kids you cut out animal shapes and things from them, usually come in A4 size. The trick is to contact adhesive printer paper 2 to 3 sheets between two of the foam pages. Ends up being about 4mm to 5mm thick if not bevelled down. Relatively cheap and cutting it with scissors is so easy to make crazy shapes I love it.

[@steveallen7400]

Loved this. I also made concrete ruins, for Gamma World. I made the basic forms, cut out features like doors/windows, and trimmed all the edges for damage/wear. Then I sprayed I with Krylon dark grey primer from point-blank range - about 4-6 inches, and applied it on the heavy side. Yes, it ate right into the foam! And left melt runs, pitting, eaten edges - all the goodies to look like these poor walls were the survivors of a nuclear attack 350 years ago. The only down side to doing this was it took about 5 hours for the fumes to finish voxing off. Once done, it was a matter of a slightly lighter wash and dry brushing to get the paint effects. I wish I would have thought of the rebar, and I loved the suspended concrete bits. Kudos to you on this job!

[@teddytorres8454]

You discussed the use of spray paint in previous videos. I just recently used some of my graffiti paint on my foam board for new dungeon tiles and it works great. I tested 6 different paint brands and found that IronLak and Sugar, both can be found at most Hobby Lobby stores DO NOT eat away at the foam. Huge time savor for doing base coats

[@nekrataali]

To make moss: mix some green flocking with Elmer's glue and paint the mixture on random places of the piece. This adds some more character and color to individual pieces. This is something I like to have on my urban terrain so your game board doesn't all blend together into a grey pile of rock. I'd also recommend adding graffiti, traffic markings, posters, etc. if you want some more color on each piece, but these take more time than adding moss. You can also just paint some wooden dowels or straws (even the bendy kind!) metal (or white to simulate PVC pipes) and glue them so they're flush and parallel to a wall. Yellow static grass growing out of corners or where walls meet the ground also add a lot of color without being so in-your-face the way green static grass/flocking can be. The rebar is definitely a nice touch, so you don't even need to add this stuff to each piece...just a few places on select pieces to make terrain more identifiable at a distance.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

I have many videos using moss. I even have a dedicated video showing this technique. I also have many video using static grass tufts and multiple videos reviewing various brands. You should check out some of my other vids as you’re suggesting a ton of stuff I already do. I also have a video doing small posters. I haven’t played with graffiti yet because I work in medieval fantasy usually, but I plan to now.

[@nekrataali]

@@BlackMagicCraftOfficial Your channel is probably where I got the technique from then lol. I have a couple of hobby channels I watch, forgot you were the OG for the moss technique!

[@thelastlaugh9724]

"Don't run into BMCs Garden Bambi!" Love this craft straight and simple but looks great.

[@BobGiannelli]

Just got into fantasy terrain building a couple months ago, and Gaslands a couple weeks ago. Love breaking the monotony of stone and wood with post-apocalyptic rust and corrosion on metal and machinery ... and the kids love it. Will absolutely use this technique on my board.

[@cameronf5893]

I don't even make terrain and I like watching these videos. It's really cool what you can make out of foam and tiny little bits.

[@dude37]

From a visual storytelling point of view, having some of the rebar painted gun metal gray actually does make sense. It could indicate that the area that isn't rusted over was until recently still encased in concrete. It could be time and nature that caused it to break apart and fall away, or it could be because of recent combat that blasted it off. It creates the feel of playing in a living world instead of a static one.

[@biosaber585]

a good idea with the rebar is the bend pieces as if parts have been bent out and cut away. A common ideology in games and also irl is that rebar being such a sturdy material and encased in concrete when exposed makes wonderful tools and weapons (as it's basically steel bar stock) and as such it's commonly stolen if and when possible. Incorporating this might give a very post apocolyptic appearance that some players might be able to pick up on for game elements.

[@MRMorris81]

I don't even build things like this, nor do I play tabletop games. But I absolutely love your videos. So interesting and creative! Thanks for the great content!

[@draughtoflethe]

You make an excellent point about realism versus verisimilitude. The latter is far more important in most creative contexts. How often do people in real life say, "um, uh, er," and other bits of verbal filler when speaking? And how often do they do so in movies, TV, or books? Sometimes realism just doesn't "read" right in a fictional or creative context. It's better to do what sounds (or looks) right, and gets the job done. Excellent point, and excellent build!

[@FireSpriteSpirit]

Thank you so much for another great video. Sorry about your foundation problems. I hope it ends up not being as bad as you are assessing to to be right now. There will be another up on your roller coaster,...the downs just kinda suck. Sending you lots of happy and hopeful vibes for you and your family and home. You have a beautiful yard btw. Love it! Thanks again for all your hard work and dedication.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

I bought a yard, it came with a free house. A house that needed a lot of work.....but again, I bought the yard, house was just on it. 🙂

[@jasonbolin151]

How timely your video was I had literally just started building concrete Rubble Terrain your tips have certainly made my efforts look all the better. As per usual your channel is always so helpful good luck with the foundation issues and thoroughly enjoy the outdoors scenery shot.

[@jerramiemiller]

nice little piece of serenity @7:40

[@wonderboy2402]

This is one of your better video. Always informative and inspirational to others!

[@AzraelThanatos]

If you want some easy barrier fences, get some of the wider tongue depressors, plastic canvas, thin wooden dowels (I just use the ones in the craft isle of Walmart), and some staples (Along with glues, paints, sand, and some gravel). I first cut the dowels down to just taller than the height I wanted for the fences. For each piece, I used 3 of them per tongue depressor, one in the center and one at each end using hot glue to have them vertical. Then I cut the plastic canvas sheets to pieces the length of the depressor and a height I wanted the fences to have and mounted them across the dowel pieces, attaching them with superglue. Then I used some wire snips with the staples to make the visible attachments of the fence to the posts, sealing with superglue. Hit the rest of the depressor with some sand and gravel before hitting the entire thing with a spray prime. Painted in a gun metal, then used rust effects to make them weathered before a bit of a highlight with a shinier silver. If you want a more tech fence, make the middle posts slightly larger and after painting, mount a jewel bead of a light (Or use a bit of toothpick as a cross with a pair of lights on either side of the post. I'd first made some years ago in the early D20 era for the Star Wars RPG, using them when I first used the High Alert adventure (Which is actually relatively easy to use in just about any setting or system by just swapping the enemies out and switching what skills fit the uses).

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

I actually just finished some metal barricades using plastic canvas tonight. You’ll see my approach next week.

[@WylochsArmory]

Rockin, perfect line of sight blocking features...weekend project!

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

My line of sight blockers I just finished (for next friday) are even better :).....and they are full of granny grating, chipboard, and paper. Totally your jam!

[@dfw_sleepypillz1007]

I hit like for the deer footage :) Rock on J! Great content as usual. Keep us updated on the foundation repair! The behind the scenes stuff is always interesting.

[@716cbeach]

I just found your channel, amazing....I am teaching my son about D&D...This adds so much more to the game...We are about to try are first house built watching your videos....wish us luck. .

[@soulfirez4270]

Good luck but I honestly do not believe you will need it , after watching the channel for about a week I jumped in and made a simple mausoleum and the experience was actually great . From a humble first attempt I went straight to trying a Tavern complete with balcony beer garden and first floor rooms .Just kept following the simple but very effective methods he shows in his videos and well the result I was quite proud of ( nothing like the look on the tables face when you can create the battle scene with enter able buildings to inspire the imagination and tactical thought. Between black magic and the DM'scraft channel you will have enough material to fuel a life time of wonder and joy .

[@PeterLiebetrau]

Great once again! I love your attitude to set the user experience above realism, for the metal look of the steel parts. These ruined concrete looks perfect. Thank you.

[@mikezunter2011]

Brilliant build, awesome inspiration taking the concrete basement problem and turning it to use it to create one of the best builds you have ever done. The use of concrete with rebar to create a terrain feature that is highly visual and highly useful. My world for my game is in the age of magic currently, having had the world during the age of science go through an event to destroy itself turning the axis and repositioning the titanic plates causing an ice age. Now the ancient cities of the past are but pictures found in books, but places have survived where concrete ruins exist... again great work Jeremy - adding to my build list!

[@1525kat]

If I had that back yard I don't think I would ever go back into the house! (BTW - great build and tips!)

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

You say that until Canadian winter....in the coldest part of Canada 😂

[@forgefather]

floral wire is also a great idea for rebar and easier to bend.

[@TheMalfestor]

I have been anxiously waiting for modern projects. Thank you so much.

[@jesternario]

One thing I've always wanted to see is a decent build for a laser hologram platform, meaning a raised platform that looks like its made of a blue light.

[@austinlambert6078]

I love this channel because there's such a variety Reviews Builds Construction Nature It's got it all!

[@veronly2]

would be dope to have a piece with graffiti on it, kinda like an inner city hellscape lol

[@VengerSatanis]

Damn, absolutely!

[@357Dejavu]

I agree, that would be cool!

[@Hnlamqe]

It is good to step away and make something else every now and then. We would hate for you to burn out. Great job and look forward to making these myself.

[@notreallydavid]

Just paint over the basement cracks with Modpodge blended with some grey and light tan acrylic. The terrain-chunks look as great as all the others do.

[@MistImp1]

Terrain video is awesome as usual. Better, you made me feel good that we don’t have basements where I live. I have previously been jealous of all that extra space.

[@caitlynnellens1260]

Gimme more of this! I love the fantasy focus but I would be delighted to see more sci fi future/ post apoc terrain. Keep it up!

[@danielecampbell5836]

These concrete ruins are awesome! My husband and I have been playing Savage Rifts, and this would be awesome to make. I'd like to ask you what would you imagine for using as broken asphalt roads? Your creations are very inspiring for me, the crafter in our friendly games. Thanks so much!

[@duncanpetrie2374]

I was using your tapping and scrubbing technique the other week to create concrete on foam I liked the effect too.

[@beeezlebub]

As soon as I saw what this video was about I said "f*** yes!!!" In my head like 100 times 😂😂😂 SO stoked you're heading down the Post-Apoc terrain route!! EXCITED

[@beeezlebub]

Also, 126k subs!!!!!!!!! Holy crap man!!! Inspiring as all hell

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

Dude, 126k was sooooo yesterday. 127k today!😂

[@beeezlebub]

It's growing so fast it's insane!!! 😂😂😂 So fun to be a part of this community man

[@GeneJordan]

Nearly my whole city is built over mines. Most of them are closed today. The shifting and collapsing in these subterranean mines causes what is known as mine subsidence. It looks a lot like what is going on in your basement.

[@garnermcculloch2778]

Great tutorial! I myself am just now getting into 40K after years and years of dungeons and dragons, really cool to see you expand into this universe. I use thin sheets of Styrene instead of chipboard to base my modular Terrain, easy to cut with a knife and is really durable. You should give it a shot!

[@Jux925]

Now I get why purchase a house with cracks on foundation. You've got bucks back yard! That's fantastic. In this age of urbanization a man has distanced himself away from nature, not knowing that it makes us unhappy.

[@wagrimm]

I love that you use the same music that Scar uses from his Hermitcraft videos

[@Drunkninja101]

Hey bud. If it ends up being a problem with moisture, I've fixed a bunch of those basement cracks by injecting resin into the cracks and sealing them. If its not a structural issue, you should be able to do it yourself.

[@BigMike8]

Great video! Very inspirational, too. Using this technique, it'd be really interesting to see what you would come up for a post-apocolytpic modern building with the rebar showing, the building half fallen over, etc. Great builds! Keep up the amazing work! :)

[@Khether0001]

I _think_ you can soak superglue into chipboard to get a *very* sturdy and durable material, but I'm not 100% sure... definitely worth to try though!

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

You can! I do it on small pieces sometimes, doing a bunch of bases would use a crazy amount of glue though so not really that feasible.

[@Nico-gs8il]

So looking for modern and sci-fi stuff. Tkz a lot man, keep the good work!

[@bobsomething4733]

I'd love to see you handle futuristic and/or metallic tiles and pieces, maybe some sort of spaceship part or pieces of a Forge World for Warhammer 40k.

[@Corvus-fw2hr]

"Welcome to This Old Black Magic Craft. Today we'll be looking a concrete work...." Great video. I'll be making some for Last Days (one of your countrymen's zombie game. Frostgrave-ish by Ash Barker)

[@sandbergmachineandtool6226]

I am the exact opposite, I have been sci fi wargaming for years and I just started making medieval fantasy stuff.I just discovered you channel and am working through the backlog, keep up the good work this channel is awesome!

[@malcolmfitzgerald6801]

Holy crap your back yard is pretty, one of the things I like about loving in Georgia is we're a very green state.

[@chrislacomb2043]

I love the post apocalyptic feel man!!!!!

[@nicholasvinkler1635]

This is a fantastic build! Good work for your first shot at it.

[@fishsticktacohimself6508]

Watched the long boat video today. You've come so far and have turned me on to a great new hobby. Thank you and keep 'em coming

[@kraven0675]

Great video. I liked the look before the wash. Reminded me of like a sun bleached desert type terrain.

[@ddesouz6]

Awesome! D&d is my main table top game, but recently I’ve been messing around with crafting some stuff for call of Cthulhu. It’s fun to change things up every now and then to get the mojo flowing.

[@seamus6387]

Love the terrain! (And my condolences on the basement)

[@axeltheredpanda]

I would love to see you do more post apocalyptic builds

[@johnkennedy3403]

Lovely job! The concrete texture looks fantastic, and the little touch of the rusty rebar and the streaks really sell the piece as concrete ruins. Looks awesome! After Fantasy, post apocalypse is my favourite genre, so this is right up my alley.

[@johnkennedy3403]

Man, I really wanna go home and play some fallout 4 now...

[@scooteroo1701]

These are really great! If you wanted to do some futuristic or Sci-Fi terrain or tiles that would be awesome. Some stuff that isn't ruined or destroyed as well would be cool.

[@Soulessdeeds]

lol I live in BFE Tennessee and we have so many deer out here that its more shocking NOT seeing them than seeing them.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

Yea, I get about 20 in my yard a day. They are rats to me, but figured others would enjoy seeing them.

[@cheneymoss3432]

Great video! Hope to see more modern/future type builds in the future! (I mainly play Star Wars Legion, so those types of builds will be really helpful!)

[@Starolfr]

Gorgeous! You know, for being blown to shreds, rusted, and all,. ;) (Some of those fire/smoke scatter terrain pieces would look great here, too!! Barrels, perhaps?)

[@HeroesBosses]

Super glue and baking soda. Problem solved! tbh - that sucks man. I'm in the maritimes, it's a problem here too. It was the first thing I checked when I bought my house. At least your deer run away when you go outside. Ours walk down sidewalks like they own the town and just saunter away when you try to shoo them.

[@ramiusbuilds3051]

I use chicken wire to make re-bar and chainlink fencing. Works really good.

[@samprastherabbit]

I am now heavily invested in the saga of your foundation- Has the engineer been? Did you get a quote? Or did you say ah screw it, and demolished the whole thing to rebuild it out of xps foam and dollar store rebar? Great video as always, dude :-D

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

Engineer coming next week. Once I know his recommendations it will take me months to plan out all the repairs and get quotes from all trades involved. Probably won’t do the work until next summer. It will have a snowball effect.....he will probably advise removing my front concrete steps for example that will mean removing the stone above it which will end up redoing my whole front exterior. Some stuff I was planning on doing anyway but now I have to do a bunch all at once. I’m expecting the actual foundation repairs to end up being $15-$20k but with an additional $30k of snowball work.

[@brianmccarthyjr2551]

Love the pox walkers. That's my army!

[@artsguy515]

Excellent build! Without the Rebar, i can see this as a sewer/ damaged sewer build!

[@SOTMead]

Nice yard! About the same size as my backyard, with more trees

[@coleenknickelbein8063]

Those freakin' deer getting that close were crazy cool! I'm so glad you included it!!

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

That’s normal around here. Every day. I’ve shown em in a couple vids actually.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

Check this one out kzbin.info/www/bejne/apvShn1-rM6Aadk

[@coleenknickelbein8063]

@@BlackMagicCraftOfficial pretty amazing. Ive never been that close to one in nature. Good stuff!

[@andrewsmith2880]

Nice! I would love to see more modern looking buildings. Hospitals, schools, office buildings etc.

[@SerenityGene]

More Modern/future builds please!

[@EricWilliams-ms3ro]

Love the look of these and it helped me focus and get out of my crafting slump. So thank you for content. Also, you now need some broken glass doors now to go with these tiles.

[@forgefather]

Awesome, i'll make some for our Twilight / Merc 2000 games :)

[@scottlowe5961]

I’m mostly interested in fantasy builds but I must say this build was very interesting.

[@scottwalker1300]

Just caught this video as it popped up ( yes, subscribed!). Great terrain ideas. More importantly, hope everything worked out/is working out with foundation. Best to you and family.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

I recently had it all repaired.....only cost $18k 😂. In my most recent vid you can actually see the inside repair.

[@virtan94]

I got an idea from this video that I should try to brush my mdf terrain with steel brush and hopefully get some texture on it.

[@stevethepirate2875]

I know how to fix your foundation. The problem is I'm 1500 miles plus away from you in Alabama. It's not cheap, but it's not rocket surgery either. Really depends on how badly it's affected the rest of the house. As far as the video goes, a line of holes punched into the foam would make pretty nice bullet holes. Maybe even a few RPG blast marks. And some BMC graffiti across one wall is a must.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

I know how to fix it too, doesn’t mean I want to do the manual labour part of it which is HUGE (trenching, membrane, weeping tile, gravel back fill outside. Bracing inside....and removing a few tons of tyndall stone on the exterior and huge concrete landing to get access to part of it). And even though I know what needs to be done I need an engineer stamp to have it done. I will GC it though.

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

And underpinning if I want to go all out, but I won’t. That’s excessive.

[@leonardo91681]

Another great video. Nice to see how anything can become a source of inspiration for crafting.

[@nathanmiller8694]

Awesome vid. Great build! You let dinner run away though.

[@creationcomics6542]

I've been watching through your backlog of your videos and I just love 'em! I am into post apoc gaming but so much of what you do still applies. I know you want a balance on the channel but please...post apoc specific terrain and techniques are very under-represented on YT so consider a regular PA project every month, or every other week ;)

[@abmackay]

Oh man, I hope your basement is doing better these days. Nice video as always!

[@BlackMagicCraftOfficial]

Actually the repairs are about to start in two weeks. $18,000.

[@barbaraleaweaver-mercado1820]

Thank is so fabulous though I don't play games that would use these, I like them so much, I might try some anyway for decorations. I make costumes and would love to make some futuristic models in this setting. You have inspired me again! Thank you!

[@coldwind]

I'm having a hard time coming up with pieces for a Vampire the Masquerade campaign. This was really cool though, to see a more modern build.

[@DarkMatterWorkshop]

Looks cool, I use guitar string to model rebar.

[@hijinkstodeath1722]

What a versatile piece!

[@norcalonline1]

I really like this a lot. I play a combo of fantasy, apoc, and future RPGs and this would fit in the later two nicely. It'd be really cool to watch you build a modern building like a bunker using these concrete techniques. Just a thought!

[@AJsWargaming]

good project. This technique could be applied to damaged areas of WWI and WWII bunkers.

[@GG-si7fw]

When you said you were wanting to do sci-fi crumbling concrete. I thought that meant you were going to paint the walls in your basement and apply your techniques at real size. 😁

[@whatskraken3886]

Really cool to see something not medieval fantasy based! Loved the build

[@DnDOldGuard]

WOW!! I will totally use these for Fallout Wasteland Warfare!

[@waynehumber8906]

Very cool! Now I'm gonna have to make some! The thing is, I really don't need then now but they're do cool I just gotta! Thanks bud!