Weta Workshop Sculptor's Tabletop Miniature World!

**Johnny Fraser-Allen: Crafting Immersive Tabletop Game Worlds**

**Introduction**

Johnny Fraser-Allen, a masterful creator in Wellington, New Zealand, has captivated the tabletop gaming community with his exquisite miniature projects. From intricately sculpted labyrinths to expansive forests and modular castles, Johnny's work is a testament to creativity and craftsmanship. His latest project, Hagel Thorn Hollow, offers players an ever-changing landscape of adventures, transforming ordinary game nights into extraordinary storytelling experiences.

**The Birth of a Creative Vision**

Johnny's journey began with a simple idea: creating a miniature labyrinth for tabletop games like HeroQuest. The positive response to his initial video inspired him to expand his vision. Over 18 months, he transformed the concept into a bustling fantasy world, complete with modular elements that allow endless reconfigurations. This project isn't just a hobby; it's a labor of love that has evolved into a passion.

**Materials and Techniques: The Artistry Behind the Scenes**

Johnny's creations are a blend of high-tech and hands-on craftsmanship. He uses 3D printing to ensure affordability and accessibility, allowing anyone with a printer to replicate his designs. His pieces are scanned using high-quality technology, capturing every detail in vibrant color. Yet, Johnny doesn't shy away from traditional methods; he hand-sculpts trees and buildings from plasticine, ensuring each piece feels uniquely crafted.

**The Modular Magic of Hagel Thorn Hollow**

Hagle Thorn Hollow is a testament to Johnny's vision. This modular set includes forests, swamps, ruins, and even a castle inspired by the Millennium Falcon. Each piece is designed to seamlessly connect, offering players flexibility in creating unique scenarios. Whether it's a hidden treehouse or an ancient tower, these elements encourage immersive storytelling.

**Trees: The Heart of the World**

Johnny's trees are more than just scenery; they're sentient characters in their own right. Inspired by Miyazaki films and Jim Henson's work, he sculpts each tree to feel alive, with details that invite exploration. His approach ensures that every angle reveals something new, making players feel like they're stepping into a living, breathing world.

**Buildings: The Backbone of Fantasy**

Johnny's buildings are crafted to reflect various architectural styles, from medieval castles to rustic taverns. He pays attention to every brick and beam, ensuring each structure feels authentic. His designs allow for customization, enabling players to adapt the environment to their campaign's needs—whether it's a prosperous village or a crumbling ruin.

**Creatures and Accessories: Bringing the World to Life**

Johnny's world is teeming with life, from tree dragons to quirky creatures like Rick the stag. These elements add depth and personality to his sets, encouraging players to interact with the environment in creative ways. Whether it's a hidden creature or an ancient relic, every detail invites exploration.

**Playability: The Ultimate Test**

Johnny's focus is on creating pieces that are not only visually stunning but also functional in gameplay. He ensures smooth transitions between sections and avoids visible seams, allowing players to immerse themselves without distractions. His modular approach means each piece can be rearranged, offering endless possibilities for storytelling.

**A Community-Driven Passion**

Inspired by the positive feedback from his community, Johnny continues to innovate. He shares his designs through platforms like Kickstarter, making his creations accessible to a wider audience. His journey began as a personal passion but has grown into a way to inspire others, showing that creativity knows no bounds.

**The Future of Gaming Worlds**

Johnny's latest project is a modular castle system, promising even more immersive experiences. He envisions using this system for a Smuggler's Cove, blending medieval fantasy with sci-fi elements. His ambition is matched only by his creativity, ensuring that each new piece builds on the last, offering players fresh adventures.

**Conclusion: A Legacy of Creativity**

Johnny Fraser-Allen's work is more than just gaming accessories; they're storytelling tools that bring worlds to life. His passion for sculpture and innovation has redefined how tabletop games are played, encouraging others to embrace their creative potential. As Johnny continues his journey, the gaming community eagerly awaits what he'll create next, knowing it will be a masterpiece of detail and imagination.

Johnny's story is a celebration of creativity, showing that with vision and dedication, even the smallest project can become a universe of endless possibilities.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys data from tested I am inWellington New Zealand at my friends theWetty workshop alongside my scent ourfriend here now you may remember thelast time I was here we covered wet atworkshops sculptors Johnny FraserAllen's personal project personalpassion project of making the labyrinthfrom labyrinth hand sculpting everypiece of it so that he could make it ata miniature size well he got atremendous amount of positive responsefor that video when we posted it and itwas inspiring to him just as we wereinspired by his build and he's made atremendous amount of progress in theintervening 18 months let's check outwhat he's donealright Johnny I'm a little overwhelmedbut I think it can speak last time wesaw you what we saw was this unfinishedyou know and now it's 8 meters long yeah16 feet okay no as I said get a bitcarried away with it but I was I was soflattered with so many of the commentsand stuff on the last video I thoughtwell I'm gonna put a bit of serious timeinto finishing so you're telling me thatthe YouTube commentsyou actually read the youtube commentwhich I named a terrible idea and theywere all really positive I think it maybe the most positive collection ofYouTube comments in one place theirenemy you know but it really just mademe feel rich I felt like I wasn't justdoing this as some geek with a hobby itmade me want to finish it but I imitatedyou were vindicated in your and your inyour passion about I'm doing it for meanyway and I finished it because it'staken long enough and I want to play onit you know ok so this is actually agaming platform yes what it started offwith me kind of fooling around with justwanting to have a little section of alabyrinth that I could also use forother games that I play like Hero Questand stuff so I built something thatcould work completely modular but I'd Iwanted all the sculpting to be reallyand depth and stuff so there's timeswhen I can actually even find right butyou can't even see which ones are themoveable walls yeah and that's awesomeand so you know if you're role-playingif you've got other people playing agame because when you're in a labyrinththe idea is you can't figure your wayaround or in a dungeon or something likethat but um whoever's in control of itcan fool the people into being able topull out a wall and so they don'tautomatically from a bird's-eye view goon doing the ear untie you know rightand I could change and and then you knowall of this is compiled Wowmodular and this walls everywhere andstuff like that but then can we walkfrom one end to the other of course yeahwe talk how this all goes so one wellyou saw some of this forest last timebut I'm just not there's not reallythere's not really that many realistictabletop trees on the market and for meone of the things I love most aboutfantasy or quests or adventures there'salways in the forestyeah it's Robin Hood or its you know theEwoks this the stuff as a kid that I gotreally loved building treehouses andstuff probably always been fascinatedwith trees and I've also been working IElla straight on my own books throughsculpture and one of the stories I'mtelling is one called the wanderingwoods which is where every single thingin the forest is cognizant like forexample you saw this before this is athat's a tree Sara topshe's a sentient tree and it's just ahell that so so the idea that I love theidea that you could be in a small forestthat you'll never find your way out ofbecause it's always kind of lumberingaround you and the forest knows thatyou're there and isyeah altering your perception and it'snot necessarily harmful but because Ilove the idea of a forest being able toprotect itself from from you know me andcutting down the forest and everythinglike that so all of this is modular andall of these you know trees oh my godbut I've done them in a way that you canput them anywhere and they blend in tosee it you know well I mean every time Ilook down and put my head down it's likewe have an entirely believable worldhere and so it starts off here with thissome wizards cottage and so I wanted toI wanted a visual narrative through thisthat you could also play an entirecampaign through okay but also you canjust mix it up and match yeah andwhatever your story's done and then yougo through this kind of ruined Towerydungeon maze here and then we get tothese swamps where I've made these somemodular ruins no way and so it's samewith this so you've got a dungeon therenow you can use you can use that dungeonjust on your tabletop as a piece of as apiece of dungeon yes and you can seeinside that like that and then or youjust stick it was really important to methat this was just place and play youdon't have to click a whole bunch ofwall sections together because that wayit's seamless but ya know just when youput lots of wall sections together likea lot of products do you have someslightly oh you have so much playabilitybut you visually you're always kind ofaware that it's a place it you can buildup or you can build out right yeah butand I wanted something that once youjust easily set it up on your tableyou're ready to go game wise but also itvisually looks like a film set yeah itreally does and it I had no idea thesewere that these were that Margit andthese are both the same part yeah so ifyou so this is these are the two ruinsso this this is um that's seven piecesyeah if you um if you 3d print anotherpiece of this which you're going to beable to do you stick it on on top ofthis because what I've been able to dooh it's and there's all the way up itgoes all the way up and so you can havethis necromancer at the top or some bigkind of sword fight you know but it'salso completely playable who you are youa pirate Robin in the oven toyou can dothere all the way exactly right but alsoyou can see just want you don't need thedungeon base to make the ruins work youcan just stick them straight on to thegroundI just found this guy look at thateveryone's a creature yeah so I'velittered the swamp with tree creaturesso this is a stag oh my god this is athis guy's my favorite this is the treeRick's you've given him bigger arms werejealous yeah exactly this guy canactually make the vehicle urges well itlooks like a tree from one angle man yougo around and you know this is kind ofthis one's a bore because visually whenI was making this it was important likeI wanted to capture all the things thatinspire me and one thing so look themovies of like miyazaki movies JimHenson movies I wanted to kick it wasimportant that this still felt likesculpture so it's highly detailed but Iwant to broad just I want it to feellike a like a sculpted kind of felt ithip it goes anywhere I know they're allmade to last and so it's a tree dragonand stuff like that and then this movesup into um it's all of these hills areindividually modular as well they allyou know so you can set this up any wayyou want you know just once you're doneyou can just sprinkle it with stones Iuse these um you cut these off aquariumscenery and just plug them in any getyeah and so it looks like it's a fullfully made thing every time yeah but youhave the modular option to make itwhatever you want when you play it andthen we get to these guys so there'ssome so this this is the real so thisentire set is called Hagel thorn Hollowand the whole idea behind it is that forminimal pieces you can create adifferent world every time so you've gotthis tower here and so you've got thestitch world that could be Conan's youknow an Colonia or barbarians or Vikingsand stuff but now you can also you knowgo up market to it completely differenttown oh my god revisit a town you'vevisitedthere's many years are near this sceneand I'm but if you if you don't wantthat's kind of a watchtower but if you'dlike it to be more of a Wizards Towerthan you describe one of these that goeson there and then we've we've donesomething extra with this where um Ijust get some space yeah if you grab oneof these dungeon bases or ruins down youstick that there okay so now I'm you canthis is a fetched hut that can just goon the ground like there yeah or you canget kind of a bit of a uterus horsemanyeah look to it and you can stick it onthere like there or you could use it onthis house here and put it like there orthat can go on yeah this can go on therelike thisand this can go on this like this andand so suddenly what was the localtavern is now the chieftains right orthe Thrones Hut and then if you want togo up market again and so it works thisway as well so the idea is you can youcan remake your town every single timewithout it feeling like ah we're goingto the same town rightso if you're playing if you're playinglike a role-playing quest and you'redm'syou know it's like you'll need to go outof town for this information orsomething yeah you canwith the same pieces that he canimmediately set this up and it's notsomething you've seen before you becauseI understand something different andthat way you're maximizing on the timeyou put into painting these things andso we've scanned all of these with youknow high-tech film quality technologyand well they've actually in color aswell and so every single one of these isnow fully 3d printable and we'relaunching it very soon on on Kickstarterjust basically because I'm I made thisfor myself anyway but we found a way toUM but anyone can really affordably dothis so you go through if you broughtthat at a shop it might be $80 but youknow I don't know it's like 80 cents toa couple of dollars material if youprint it yourself at home yeah and thenyou know you can see our lightweightit's gonna be and you can have so muchfun painting this you have to paint itin any way that you want and I paintedthis with house paints I mean I you knowyou go to a Home Depot and there's allthe the color range that was my favoritepart of this process was choosing aconsistent color palette for head northon hollow okayright that's tiles that's walls that'sbricks and I went up with these cardsand I got for $5.00 a pot I just saidmost me a test pot of that and all ofthis is painted with house paint andthen I put wood stain wash over it whichages are and and you know I mean my wifeand some friends would sit at home withNetflix on the background and begin topaint the individual bricks every floorevery fifth brick can you just paint nowand then also I've got some pieces overhere I love that you painted it withhouse paint that's really good and wasso affordable and it's so durable it'snot going to scratch off no because if Idid it with model paint a you know superbrand I imagine yeah it probably cost meforty five dollars over painting exactlyand again if you if you want this wallto work for a thick because you cancompletely separate fetch there's a townto tile mm-hmm or what you can do isshow that there's a class system in yourtown right so you've already paid alittle behind the wall and the peasantshave to live close to the Haunted swampwithout protection or something otherbut you know if you want this to be forthat great if you don't you just stickone of those on it and now it's moreancient and rustic and stuff like thatmm-hm and so yeah everyone I do also theway I've Scott sculpted them as wellget in there like that button inside ofit I've tried to make sure every singleangle looks like a different house sowhen you print out foreign stuck them ona table it doesn't just look like ablack that's what because I got to scopethem as large objects as opposed to justmodular kind of pieces you clip togetherI was able to tackle what I reallywanted to see in this range which was alot of Assam cemetery and a lot ofreally leaning over walls and kind ofbroken or like I wanted it to feelancient but at the same time I avoidedputting anything like chewed or beamsand because I wanted you to be able toplay this whatever fantasy campaign andfeel like it's predates the 14th centuryor something like that right like YUM Imentioned so this could be if you're aLord of the Rings gamer this could bebrie or Rohan or it could be anythingthat's in your pathfinder campaign andso forth it was the idea I mean it'slike you you created a system thatallows the the messinessof the natural world to be put intobuildings you can assemble them and theyin the same way that the trees all lookexactly like they belong there eachbuilding looks exactly like it belongsthere no matter how would you put ittogether it's right and and um wait thatgoes there as well yeah and or on thistower over here so if you want to wearthis this some tower somewhere it goesso I tried to make short here it is thisone I'm getting lost myself and theseare all the just that these are theprototypes you know we're we'resharpening them up even more for the fora product and stuff but as I say it wasit was just as a project of of love sothat I could have a broad range of stuffto play with because I work in a placewith lots of Technology with being ableto use the highest and scanningavailable yeah and then like you saidwhat modular wise is a follow-up to thelabyrinth thing all I've got to do hereis plug out the forest here or there andthere's huggles gate oh right right in aminute again it's still just modular andyou can see how I've made but so I wentto some- if everything is hand sculpted inplasticine yeah um cuz I really wantedit to feel sculptural and I also reallywanted to get that detailing and Iwanted to avoid a lot of the 3d terrainthat's made in ZBrush that just has kindof a stamp I wanted every brick to beconsidered and have a gravity and to beweighing in on the next one yeah becauseI'm a glutton for punishmentand so we molded and cast and so this isgonna be the hedge maze and this is thewise man's butt here but in case you dofall into the boob Lia I've made thatremovable there and this is the tunnelwhere the cleaners go through but inthis box there's some I thought you'dget a kick out of this because this isyou know if this sum is a feasible thingand people are into it yeah we'll dofurther further products campaign stuffso I've been I couldn't wait to startthe next one and so I've already startedworking on a modular castle system thatyou can put together as a dungeon or youcan stay in different ways like that butif you put this down like that I'm alsoworking it away because I want to do acampaign we get a Smuggler's Cove but Iwant to replay the legacy Star Warstrilogy but and medieval fantasy so I'mbuilding a castle version of theMillennium Falcon so like Chewbacca isgonna be a Viking enhancer pirates andthis can be wooden walkways and like atree growing out here that's the cockpitand stuff like that oddly oh my god cuzit's already a medieval fantasy there'sjust a purple ray gums you just have topencil me in I'm gonna buy one of thoseI'll send you one gotta go please that'samazing I'm a Millennium Falcon obsessedyeah me tooit's the greatest shit my secondfavorite ship is the one in the adminpirates movie that's just cobbledtogether at other shows it's beautiful Ialso love the actually I love the pirateship from Time Bandits yeah yeah yeahyeah that's a cosplay for you somedayyeah yeah when I gained a lot fun aspart of doing the costume right are justeven lots of pasta yeah pasta as youwould say yeah testa Johnnie distill itI'm gobsmacked as you would say I'm justreally happy this year it's so inspiringmakes me just seeing this makes me wantto cast and sculpt and paint well youwon't need to do the sculpting partbecause all you've got to do is pressprint now oh my gosh well I you know thefiles are going to be accessible thisyear and as soon as those go up we willtrumpet them on test it I'll put themout through my Twitter feed I I'm like Iso love supporting exactly this kind ofthing and you really like you've openedit up so that gamers could have adifferent adventure every single timebut it's so much fun it's just anythingthat kind of gets I love storytellingyou know and and but I'm also I reallyadmire anyone that can sit there on arole-playing campaign with just pen andpaper and do it in their heads I've donethat and I loved it as well but I'm alsoa model maker and a sculptor and stuffand I've seen those campaigns and everytime they say you go into the tavern andthat you know the bartender guys justreally look you say I could make thatwouldn't it be better if we were playingwith it so I'm very tactile yeah andyeah so I start so I started making onebuilding which became four buildingswhich became much of the buildings andyeah Johnny thank you so much forshowing me and giving me this windowliterally into an entirely differentworld that could be different everysingle time thank youI I can't really share with you I can'twait to see how much more you expand itit's probably I've got the bug now youknow and this was meant to be a littlebit of labyrinth in one building andyeah so I think we really nice next timeyou're out it'll be three more this wayI think yeah if you did this in 18months you're on a roll yeah yeahyou\n"