Stone Cold - Ice World Terrain

[The Laughing God]

Those turned out great. The highlights look awesome.

[Covering Fire]

Like the shape and colour of your ice blocks, going to give then a gloss varnish to make them look icy?

I'll see. But it's definately worth trying out!


There's been a some changes to my project during the last days since I wasn't too happy with the current look of my board. I thought the board looked far too blue (more like a frozen lake than snow-covered ground), so out came the white paint.

Old look on the right:



Old look on the left:



You can still see some blue shining through the white, so this is much closer to my original idea.


I've finished my two snow drifts as well. I experimented a lot with these, but they ended up being covered in snow flock and painted white.




I've started on my ice block formations as well. They're still far from finished, but you get the general idea.

[SamVimes]

The white is > than the blue.

[Covering Fire]

Today I've glued the crystals to the bases with my hot glue gun. I'm thinking of applying snow flock to cover the gaps between the crystals and the base later on.



A Salamanders combat squad advances through ice crystals on the frozen world of Tendathor:

[Covering Fire]

The ice crystals again - now with added snow flock at the base:



I think it did a world of difference! It ties the pieces together and makes it look a bit more realistic.

[Vermin_King]

Varying the thickness of the flock around the base of the crystals would make it look like the snow drifted more, maybe ...

Already far better than anything I've done

[Covering Fire]

Varying the thickness of the flock around the base of the crystals would make it look like the snow drifted more, maybe ...

Already far better than anything I've done

Thanks for the idea. I might try this later on. Right now I'm working on my ice blocks and the icy river. I hope to have some more pics up this week.

[Covering Fire]

I've done a serious amount of styrofoam cutting lately, and I've finished with the ice blocks. Using a foam cutter produces some nasty vapours so be sure to work in a well-ventilated place if you plan on getting one...



These will be painted to represent piled up ice blocks covered in snow.

[The Laughing God]

Those look like they'll work great for blocking LOS and you can still climb over them without the risk of models falling.

[Covering Fire]

Those look like they'll work great for blocking LOS and you can still climb over them without the risk of models falling.

Thanks! I find that when building terrain you always have to balance between realistic looks and playability (being able to place models on the terrain features for example). In this case I've tried to make sure that it would be possible for models to stand among the ice blocks.

Today I've done some work on the ice river. I cut out four pices of hardboard (30 cm long and around 20 cm wide) and then glued on strips of 1 cm thick styrofoam to make the river banks.



As for how to use the river in the game I'm thinking that the river will be impassable terrain (after all, who would want to go into those icy waters voluntarily?). In order to allow ground-based units to get across I made an ice bridge that would allow vehicles and infantry to cross safely (perhaps it could be classed as dangerous terrain for vehicles to represent the danger of crashing through the ice):



I also added a patch of ice floes that will allow infantry (not vehicles) to cross, but it will count as dangerous terrain

[Svorlrik]

This is looking real nice. I've always wanted an ice themed board for some space wolf action, but have only built half of a maiden world board and cat bring myself to start a second one!

[Covering Fire]

This is looking real nice. I've always wanted an ice themed board for some space wolf action, but have only built half of a maiden world board and cat bring myself to start a second one!

Thanks! I saw a bit of your board in your Eldar log and I think it looked great!


I've managed to paint the first basecoat of blue on the ice blocks and river sections:



Next up will be some heavy drybrushing!

[Disposable Hero]

Very cool stuff you have there!

Any polar bears?

[Covering Fire]

Very cool stuff you have there!

Any polar bears?

Nah, no polar bears in sight I'm afraid. However, I do have an idea about a terrain feature involving a...furry critter. Stay tuned for more info on this

Some more work done - starting to look quite good I think:

[Vermin_King]

The river is great, but what really impresses me is the highlighting on the blocks piled up on the back corner.

<---envious

[Pickle_mole]

Looks good, any plans to use wet effects?

[Covering Fire]

The river is great, but what really impresses me is the highlighting on the blocks piled up on the back corner.

<---envious

Thank you! I'll have some better pics of the ice blocks up later. The method is pretty basic: basecoat with "Ice blue-ish colour" - drybrush with "Space wolves grey-ish colour" - light drybrush with white.

Looks good, any plans to use wet effects?

Yes, that's the plan. I've ordered some, but haven't received it yet. I'll paint the water with darker blue as well.

[Covering Fire]

Today I glued the ice blocks to the two bases:




Closeup on the surface of the ice (Ork for size comparison):




"Oi! Oo's stickin' all dis 'ere slippery stuff all over da place?"

[The Laughing God]

Nice updates. The river looks great so far, I like the ice bridges and dangerous floating ice blocks. The wet effects will make it look 10X better. Can the three pieces be switched around?

[Covering Fire]

Nice updates. The river looks great so far, I like the ice bridges and dangerous floating ice blocks. The wet effects will make it look 10X better. Can the three pieces be switched around?

Thanks mate! I'm quite pleased with the results myself. And yes, the pieces can be arranged in any order.