Terrain - Ministorum Temple begins!

After working on a fair few individual models, I had the urge to switch scales for a bit and do something big! When Killteam was announced I was rather interested in the new buildings that came with it, and though I ultimately decided against buying the starter box I couldn't help but order up a couple boxes of just the terrain!

I knew that I wanted to combine the Basilicanum and Sanctus kits into one big Ministorum Temple and though I was initially miffed that the wall heights were different from the earlier City of Death buildings, I have to admit that I'm really impressed with the kits one I got my hands on 'em!

I figured that for utility and storage that I'd do it up in multiple sections that fit together into one cohesive building, but could also be used separately and as such it breaks apart into 3 standard "ruined corner" sections, and one little sniper perch.

I started the painting process via a bunch of rattle-can primers, beginning with an all-over black primer than progressively lighter browns and tans using the zenithal method to lay in the initial shading. Will have to break out the big brushes soon and start laying in all the detail!

Necromunda - Shipping Container Shops Complete!

Got some brush time in recently and was excited to finish up the container shops for the Necromunda board! Sadly, after painting the interiors, I dry fit them together and in doing the painting and washing of the exteriors they essentially glued themselves shut. Doh!

 

First up, The Gun Show! Found a Chronoscope miniature with a wrench and a power fist which I thought worked well for the salesman, and am quite happy with the technicolor weaponry - Suitable for the neo-punk nature of the Underhive!

Next up is Don's Downhive Deals - Dealin' Don ended up looking pretty manic, which I thought worked well! "DO YOU NEED ISOTROPIC FUEL RODS? DEALIN' DON'S GOT ISOTROPIC FUEL RODS! ...AND A 50 GALLON DRUM OF RECAFF! ...AND I'M ON MY THIRTIETH CUP!"

Finally, Doc Granger's Emergency Services. Really happy with the interior of this one, but less happy with my sloppy brushwork on the sign. I think I'm going to re-white over the text and draw it in with Micron Pens instead to give it a bit more clean look. The sloppy brushwork works for the other two as hand-painted signs but I think the doc box could stand a bit more 'professional' lettering...

All in all I am really happy with how they turned out, and am looking forward to getting them on the table!

Necromunda - Shipping container shops built!

Saw a rather cool use for the GW shipping containers recently and knew I had to follow suit - Had a set lurking in the Closet of Doom so on a somewhat rainy afternoon I set to chopping, drilling and gluing my fingers together to make a few hopefully interesting pieces of scatter terrain for Necromunda!

First up, welcome to The Gun Show! This is a rough approximation of what I'd seen elsewhere online and had to emulate - Took a little doing to drill and cut out the 'windows' on the side, and also carved out the hatches on the tops to let a little extra light in. Still looking for a salesman model to stand behind the counter, but pretty jazzed with how it turned out!

As I then had two more containers to work with, I figured a couple more shops would be in order! Next up is a little general store, Don's Downhive Deals, with Dealin' Don excitedly showcasing an Isotopic Fuel Rod for the enterprising adventurer aiming to set up camp in the Underhive!

Finally, as the Underhive is a dangerous place, a little Emergency Services is in order! Gangers have to have a place to go to get their bionics after all, and Doc Grainger and his orderly Mister Snips are always happy for the business...

Rather fun to build and should add a little more flavor to the battlefield once I get 'em painted up!

Necromunda - Deadbolt's Derelict Corridors build begins

With the holidays behind me, I'm finally able to get back on the hobby horse and start putting together some of the goodies that arrived for Christmas! Figured I'd lead off the new year with another terrain project - Some MDF wall sections designed to work with the floor tiles in the new Necromunda set from Death Ray Designs!

Over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales, they had a heck of a sale on their terrain kits, with the Deadbolt Derelict sets going for almost 30% off, so I snapped up a couple sets. Due to the volume of orders however they didn't arrive at my place until after Christmas. Nevertheless I eagerly unwrapped them and started punching out approximately one zillion little MDF chunks.

Lesson learned from my previous foray into MDF work, use the proper glue! Previously I'd gone with superglue (not knowing any better) which was very brittle and didn't stick well. Following some recommendations online I picked up a couple bottles of Titebond II wood glue, and have to say that my experience with it during this project has been a revelation. Highly recommended!

Really impressed with how the kit is designed to fit together. It's a mix of cross-lap and tab-and-slot joins which all fit together beautifully with the barest minimum of sanding/trimming. While they do all press fit together, some glue is definitely needed to hold everything in place - they will not simply hold together under their own power.

  

One of the more mind-numbing portions of the build is all the little detailing work - each short wall section requires a 9-piece detail on either side. They fit together well once I got a handle on the build order, but boy does it get tedious...

...Especially when you have to repeat it 20 times!

  

The central columns were a comparative breeze to assemble, just 8 wall sections, a base and a top. Easy peasy! Which is good...

...Because there's 24 of them to do! You'll note the slots in the sides, which are designed to allow the wall sections to hook in place in a rather clever way so inadvertent bumping of the table won't toss wall sections around like dominoes.

  

In addition to the short wall sections there are also a further 24 two-wide wall sections with various detailing - some with just two-sets of X-shaped details like on the short sections...

  

Some have vents in one panel, which should look neat with various slime oozing out of them as part of the painting process.

...And some have little hatches built in. Thank the Maker that the doors are just single-piece additions. Of course, there's still approximately half a zillion little X-shaped detail panels to install. Eurgh.

 

Before I went completely mad installing all the details I wanted to see how the walls looked on the boards and overall I am well pleased. Interestingly, the kit is technically short a couple columns to completely populate the boards, but a spare short wall section fills the gap well enough. I'm not sure it that's a conscious design decision on their part, or if I may have gotten a mis-pack - it does seem as though I had a bunch of leftover walls and not enough columns, perhaps there was a sheet swap somewhere along the way? In any case I am really jazzed about the kit for use in both Necromunda as well as Zone Mortalis on the Heresy front. Good stuff!


...Now if only it would warm up enough that I could get some primer on 'em!

Terrain - Combat Cars complete!

Alliteration! The painting servitor had a fairly productive session yesterday and managed to get the five combat cars to the 'off the factory floor' state, which for now I'm calling done!

By far the most ostentatious of the cars, this one deserved to be done up in imperial purple. Or is that Emperor's Children purple?

The most militaristic of them got a grimy green scheme. This one is the least inspired of the sculpts in my opinion but I do appreciate how different in aesthetic it is to the others. Variety is good!

I'm unclear on how the driver actually sees where he's going in this one, guess that's why they make autosensors! The red turned a little chalky on me with this one, not sure what happened there...

Really happy with how the gold sets off against the blue on this one, though my choice to do blue windows as well meant they sort of fade together.

By far my favorite of the cars, it's got a great mix of Mad Max and Batman about it, so obviously needed to be done up in basic bad-ass black!

All in all a fun little project and it feels good to get them off the unpainted shelf after well over a year. Feeling recharged and ready to press on - Next up on deck is Gor Halfhorn, underhive bounty hunter!

Terrain - Combat Cars painting continues...

Quick hit this morning - Got a little more brush time in over the last couple days and laid down the main body colors and the gold trim on the combat cars from Wargame Exclusive - since I've picked these up it seems they've come out with another half dozen or so further variants. I must have them!

Rather happy with how they're coming along so far - Similar to the servohaulers I'm not going to go super overboard on detailing them as they're just intended to be scatter terrain. Some base metals, some bone-colored skulls and a smattering of weathering and they'll be good to go!

Terrain - Galvanic Servohaulers complete!

Finished up the Galvanic Servohaulers over the last couple days, providing some more tasty scatter terrain to the table!

Picked out a fair bit of extra detail and added some spot colors but didn't go too crazy, they're just going to be terrain after all. Don't want 'em upstaging the actual armies!

Added some rust effects using Typhus Corrosion as a base and then stippling in Ryza Rust on top of it, after which a little boltgun metal was lightly drybrushed over it to pick out a little of the texture where it would have rubbed away to bare metal. First time I'd really used the two technical paints in conjunction with each other, and really dug how they turned out. Definitely warrants further experimentation!

The crane is a beast! I was tempted initially to do a lot more yellow on it, but in the end like the darker iron tone overall, keeps it from dominating the playing space in color - dominating in size is enough!

Overall I'm quite happy with how they turned out and it was a nice little palate cleanser after the time and effort that went into Horus. Sort of on a scatter terrain jag, so next up I'm planning on finishing off the combat cars from Wargame Exclusive. Finally!