Urban Terrain, drybrushing is hell.

 

Greetings, this is the third part of the build of these first scatter terrain pieces (I swear I will get round to fnishing the Municipal Building and the Bar I started).

 Part One and Part Two are here for the building process.

This third part is after the last details were added, and the floorboards were blended into the "Bolt Hole" piece. I also added some final drybrushing in a further grey colour and some black on around the upper windowframe of the wall, to simulate where soot had built up as if the building had been on fire and that was the last standing part of it...until a shell drops and blows that bit to smithereens, but I digress.

Here is an overview of all four piece's together:

They really came together well, here's a photo of the two rubble piles, with some Imperial Fists for scale:

The smaller of the two comes roughly to the Primaris Marines waist and the larger obscures the miniature, except for the very top of their helmets and backpacks...or the back-banner in the case of the Sergeant.

The "Bolt Hole":

You can see the darker areas where I drybrushed to make the soot effect. I nicknamed this piece as the Bolt Hole because I originally had in mind gaming using Terminator:Genysis models (more on that in a later post) with this and based the idea a lot on the Future War look with the piles of rubble and randombits of wall left standing which the resistance are using for cover. Adding to this the oil drum (which could, rather dangerously, be used for a firepit) and the fact that I added boards over the window made it seem like an old hideout type place.

Finally, the telegraph pole which I need to finish the detailing for, but is functionally complete:

I took pains to add some black drybrushing towards the top half of the pole, as in real telepgraph poles (at least in the UK) there is often a tar which is applied to the poles, this helps stop the wood rotting, considering our famously wet weather here and was something I wanted to add.

I do have to modelling up the connection box and wiring to add to the piece, as well as finish the camper van for the flat area, but it is usable as it stands.

I'm going to focus on my Orktober project for the time being this month, and work up some more terrain once I've gotten the greenskins sorted I think.

Until next time....

 

  - Lewis

Urban Terrain - LET'S GET READY TO RUBBLE!

Hello again, in Part 1 when last we left our terrain making efforts, I had just glued the former pieces of polystyrene (and been told off because one of the cats managed to snag a small piece without me knowing and was playing with it downstairs in the hallway!).

So this time I will be adding the actual terrain to the pieces and working them up to the beginning of the paint stage.

We'll start by grabbing out the bag of Modelling Compound from Geek Gaming.

This stuff is great to work with, it's a PVA, plaster and paper mix which forms up with three parts compound to one part water, goes on like papier-mâche, and is workable about twenty minutes or so after you lay it down.  Reasonably priced for a kilogram bag, it'swell worth it simply for the ease of use (I am not affiliated with Geek Gaming, just like their products).  

 

Anyway, once a good layer was down, I had to smooth it off to provide a nice key for the next stage to glue to the modelling compound once it had dried. In the words of Luke when he's been advertising/using this stuff in his Terrain videos, "Get your fingers wet and get in there!".

 

This is what I ended up with:

 Looking a lot more natural, rather then bubbly polystyrene all over the place.
The front corner of the bar hasn't been worked up, as this spills outside the walls where they have been broken down, so I'm going to add that section once the interior is finished and the walls glued in place.

I forgot to take a photo of the next step, but it basically involves a thick lyer of PVA glue and then some smashed sheets of plaster which I cast up in my own baking trays (not the ones from the kitchen) glued on as larger pieces of rubble/concrete.

Once this is dry, I start to add various smaller rubble sizes:

 

I have a tub of builders sharp sand, a big tub of smoother sand and a tub of cat litter (clean obviously, I'm not going to be practicing chemical warfare on my gaming table). 

Again, with a liberally thick layer of PVA we end up with this:

 

 

 I stopped work on the Bar at this time as I was having to work on the kitchen side, and there wasn't room for all my terrain AND to keep the room functioning in it's primary capacity. 

Once I had the extra sizes and layers of smaller rubble down, I decided to try out a layer of Mod Podge mixed with grey paint as a sealant/primer coat:

Unfortunately, near disaster struck.

The Mod Podge mixture held fast over a lot of the smaller rubble and created this wierd, honeycomb texture is the only way I could describe it:

 See how it has smoothed off a fair bit of the rubble and sand but left holes in the surface...not ideal when I wanted this sort of texture like on my Municipal Building:

 

Not a major problem though, as once they'd all dried properly, I threw down some more PVA and sand, then gave them a primer coat witha  rattle can of grey paint:

 The standing windowframe and wall got some texture through using baking powder around this time, probably before the rattle can if i'm honest but I can't remember:

 Just some cheap own-brand baking powder, sprinkled over PVA which was smeared over the building wall by my finger to ensure good coverage.

I then thought about adding some boards to the base of this piece as well, seeing as there were floorboards on the ground and some had been used to block off the window, I figured there would be some more littered around the piece

 

Fortunatley, before the 2020 pandemic began and everywhere was open and running as normal, I had steadily been grabbing a handful of coffee stirrers everytime I bought a cup of tea from the cafe next to our depot where I work. I have a tub full of these which are very useful for modelling projects.

I guess I'll have to buy a pack of them off eBay unless things go back to normal anytime soon...which I can't see happening.

 

Before I added them to the piece though, I started painting and made a black wash using Black Emulsion tester pot and water with a couple of drops of washing up liquid added, this breaks the surface tension of the water and allows it to seep down through the various cracks and textures. (I didn't add this to the Mod Podge and that may have been the error there).

Then a couple of drybrushes up through different shades of grey emulsion testers I picked up specifically for this project.

A few spots of colour on the oil drums and the interior wall and windowframe of the pieces left me with these:

Finally, adding some sand to the ends of the floorboards and painting them up to match the base piece gave me this effect on the "Bolt Hole" as I am calling this piece:

 These are coming along well, and in my next post about them, I'll add some finished photo's along with some miniatures added to give a sense of scale to the pieces.

Until next time...

 - Lewis

Urban Terrain, let's make some more.

 So, at the beginning of the year (February if i'm not mistaken) I bought a load of MDf and supplies to build a ruined city for 40k/Bolt Action/Any other 20th century on forwards game in 28mm.

I began building a municipal/government building type piece and sort of got sidetracked...this happens a lot I find. One of the main things has been the whole pandemic situation as I originally thought what was the point as I wouldn't be able to get it over to my friend's house where we have a table set up, and won't be able to use it, etc...blah blah blah, I procrastinated because I was using the pandemic as an excuse.

I thought it was about time to actually get the lead out and make some progress with this project, especially if I actually want to use the bleeding stuff and not have it sat around taking up space. The fact that I'll be able to use it for slo games until I can get over to his house and drop it off has spurred me on a little.

So, I gathered supplies, warned the family that there may be some polystyrene loose and set to...

Well...

 

After I'd spent half-hour looking for my terrain knife I did, the "tidy-away-fairy" visited when I upgraded my display cabinets, and my knife had been put away "somewhere safe", yes, somewhere so safe even I couldn't find it!

Anyway:

The usual suspects for terrain, MDF bases which I had precut and snaded the sides down on. Some cardboard and roof insulation polystyrene. I managed to bag a load of this which was going spare from another friend who was moving house and had tons laid around not being used. 

I began with a couple of smaller scatter pieces, which I plan to just be cover or LoS blocking rubble piles:

I think the hardest part of the first ten minutes of building was trying to not let polystyene balls fly everywhere as I was cutting it up.

Preservering on, I becan a smaller ruined piece:

 

This smaller piece is kind of whats left of a majorly bombed building and a sniper hole all in one I imagined.
The floor started out as a piece of underfloor insulation which I carved with a pencil to make the floorboard texture (too bad most of it got covered up later one). The window panel is from an MDF building which was left over from the municipal building I already started. 

It's based off of this photo from somewhere in Germany in 1945:

With the singular standing area and the crashed ruins around it, the polystyrene was placed to this end but I didn't want this piece to be as big as the previous attempt. It's more of a smaller piece of scatter terrain which could block LoS if needed to a specialist or provde cover to an infantry unit moving through.
The resin oil drum was added along with the boards over the windows to give the impressions that it has been used at some point as an ad-hoc fort/command camp.

Having liked the texture made by the underfoor insulation, I decided to attempt a larger piece and began with this:

This piece will end up as another major ruined building, so after the floor was finished, I snapped off some polystyrene to create the rubble piles just as in the municipal building, I pushed these more towards the corners to create spaces for miniatures to be placed later on. I also ripped off the celophane of another MDF kit I had picked up, the Wild West Furniture pack from TT-Combat. I only built the bar for this piece yet, but the tables and chairs will be added once this piece reaches a better state to add them:

With things in place, I turned to the outside a little and had ordered some 1cm square Balsa wood sticks, with a little cutting to create an indent, I managed to create the impression of concrete support pillars on the corners.

I placed everything together to get an idea how it was shaping up, but left the buildings removable as yet for ease of modelling the interior:

Finally, I began work on the final piece for this batch.

One thing I have always wanted to see on ruined city boards, ut which are often impracticle, are things like streetlights and telegraph poles. They are everywhere ad here in the UK are a distinctive part of any town or village you pass through.

Not worried about practicalities on the tabletop I set to work with some 1cm dowel rods I picked up from the DIY shop. These were cut to eight inch lengths, this was based on looking out of my house window at the one across the green where I live. The telepgraph poles here are just taller then the rooflines of the houses oppsite mine which are two storey tall semi-detached. 

With a guestimate at the roofline of a two-story MDF ruin I had in my hand I landed at eight inches roughly, which seemed right so I went with it. I'm going to work up the flat juntion boxes which the ones round here have using some plasticard layering and then I'm thinking of using garden wire for the actual cables. Yes most of this stuffis oversize in diameter, the doweling certainly is, but it's a tradeoff between looking right and durability on the tabletop which I am going for here.

I am toying with the idea of using some magnets to mke wires which are still attached to the ruins, but I feel that they may get in the way of gameplay too much..
Finally I decided to add a crashed vehicle to this piece. I've been collecting a few of the Roadsterz 1/48 toy cars as and when I can find them at a reasonable price (not going to pay premium pounds for something I am going to smash with a hammer!).

A quick root in the supply drawer and this camper van was selected:

Two minutes with a screwdriver to take it to pieces and then a hammer to wreck the front ennd and it was nearly ready to go. As an afterthought I decided to add a couple of 3D printed damaged fuel barrels I bought off eBay at the beginning of this project.

Next post I'll be adding the Scenic compound to make everything smooth and then starting to texture these pieces.

Until next time...

 - Lewis

Post-Holiday update

Well a busy few weeks after my last update with the Stormcast as we've been away on holiday for a few days to get away from everything.

I managed to pack a little wagaming kit to take with for when we were back at the cottage relaxing at night.

Just a cheap £4 make up/cosmetic travel bag which had movable sections inside and room for everything.
Paints, Brushes, Glue, Files, Clippers, Knife, Water Pot, some paper towel hidden in the zip pocket and most importantly some Miniatures wrapped in bubble wrap for the journey.

I took a couple of Stormcast Eternals, a Chaos Knight, a Primaris Marine and the Flamer Ecclisiarchy Woman from Blackstone Fortress (her name escpaes me).

Out of everything, I managed to get the flamer woman completed and a black basecoat and highlights down on the Primaris.

I tried to push some painting skills with this model, as I deliberately kept to a muted, monochrome colour scheme in order to make the gold and flames stand out.
The flames were painted following along with a Warhammer TV tutorial on Youtube, and i'm really pleased with how they turned out for a first attempt.
One of my friends said that I should have thinned the paints more to make a glaze like paint, so i'll try that next time.

Aside from the little painting done, I did pick up a trilogy of Sci-Fi novels and spent a bit of time starting to read the first one.

So far they've been enjoyable, good old fashioned Space Opera stuff.
Varying alien races which get along (to a degree), this is set after the war, so there are worries about Marines in peacetime, and diplomatic relations between the races which were allied and stuff.
Good inspiration for a sci-fi skirmish game if you ask me.

 Anyway, things will begin to return to normal soon, as I have a couple of large projects lined up.

 Until next time...


 - Lewis