Tutorial: Skull Fountain

A little fountain has many uses: the party may benefit from the healing powers of an ancient god or needs to stop the endless flow of blood part of an evil sacrificial ritual. Oh, and it’s easy and quick to craft.

Tool & Materials

• polystyrene (a.k.a. foamboard, insulation foam, XPS foam), 5mm thick
• scalpel or X-ACTO knife
• hot glue gun
• white glue
• sandpaper
• tinfoil
• sand or gravel
• 1 skull shield (MOM Miniatures: Escudos de Bárbaros 2)
• 1 skull (various companies, e.g. Tabletop Arts: Skull Set 2)
• colors (black, grey, white, green, blue/red)
• clear water (various companies, e.g. Secret Weapon Scenics: Realistic Water)

Instructions

1. Cut the foam into the right shapes with your sharp blade as seen on the picture below. I used a plastic base to help me trace the half circle. You might need to smoothen the sides with sandpaper.
   
2. Mark your desired stone pattern with a ballpoint pen/toothpick.
3. Make a small ball out of tinfoil and roll it repeatedly over the entire surface to create an aging effect. You might need to redraw the stone pattern you previously created afterwards.
4. Carefully bend the lower wall of the fountain into a U-shape.
5. Combine all three pieces and the skull shield with hot glue – just make sure it isn’t too hot or you may melt your foam.
6. Use white glue (mixed with water 50:50) to add gravel and a skull on the fountain’s ground, especially on the edges where might be some holes between the foamboard pieces. Wait a few hours for it to dry. By now the entire piece should look like this:
   
7. Seal the entire piece with your white glue-water mix and again pay the most attention to the areas between the foam-board pieces. Let everything dry.
8. Take a small amount of tinfoil and roll it up into a 3-4 cm long piece. This will be the water coming out of the faucet pouring into the basin.
9. Carefully create a thin layer of hot glue around the tinfoil roll so the entire piece is covered. Then glue it to the fountain’s faucet (the skulls mouth) and the ground of the basin.
10. Prime the entire fountain in black.
11. Drybrush the stonework grey and then white, but do not cover the ground and the stream.
12. Drybrush some green around the faucet to have some spreading mold.
13. Paint the bottom of the fountain and the stream in different shades of blue (water) or red (blood) and let everything dry.
14. Add the artificial water and let it rest for 24 hours.
15. You’re done, happy gaming!