Tale of Terrain Builders month 8 (and October's WIP)

[DAGabriel]

@ Little Joe: Am working on printed posters, Newspapers and so on, but still cant get the effect i want.

Finished the oasis in 2 days while my cam was away with my wife, so no WIPs there but now i have some time for my timbered house (along with the skeleton warriors for ToFP, the Gremlins for ToSGP and the things for the ToBGP).

[Little Joe]

@DAGabriel I am amazed you can keep all that up. I will surely sign up for the next ToSGP and ToTB and would like to aim for the ToFP next year if I can get my VC army build by then and have the time.
I will admit to having been a bit lazy lately, but my max. would be half of an goblin army within the year and nothing else. On the other hand my pile of models has been growing at alarming speed and needs paint fast.

Here is a small update on Gobbo-Mountain, I finished the cutting and adding of foam. The pictures are from when I was almost done. Then I added some texture with toilet paper and lots of thinned white glue.
Now the pieces are drying and I will add a layer where they join later on. I will glue them together there and cut them apart later again to have ongoing details from one part to the other.

Tomorrow morning I want to add a bit of sand and stones and then it is time for the bitz box.

The first part will have an outcrop for a war machine and an entry to the cave system. The other part will have a dwarf statue in destruction and a bit more of snow and trees. The latter will get done in any case, not so sure about the first but at least it will get almost done.

I want to use the collectors model “the chase” at the back for a good laugh. Not sure where exactly to put the three models but they will be added.

[Narcissus]

Is the rust done by weathering powders? While making the large tooth on orchenge a bit rust I found the painted effect fine but to the touch a very fine surface might have been better.

And a research question to you all: “Does anybody have experience with these bolts?”
They look the right size to me for not having to make rivets.

Little Joe-thanks for the compliments. I did the rust by painting the base color and then using a ripped up sponge brush to paint successive light spongings or dark brown, reddish brown, boltgun metal, and vermin brown in the same areas, going lighter at each pass. I wrote a little tutorial on my blog: http://rustandthecity.blogspot.com/2...eathering.html. This is the basic formula I have been using.

1.5mm for bolts would look nice. Not accurate to scale, but would provide a nice shape. They are pretty expensive when you factor in shipping though. A few other ways to add bolts and rivets.
1. Get a 1/8" or 1/4" (I use 1/8) hole punch (at Michael's or other craft stores, around $5-10), punch thin plasticard or plastic cups and things, then glue the rivets in place with white glue or super glue. This is the method I currently use and it is pretty fast and looks good.

2. Get a rod of plasticard (can even be hex), cut it in little slices. It works, but is time consuming and hard to get them straight. And the bits tend to get lost.

3. I have tried making little screws out of greenstuff. Take a tiny ball of greenstuff, flatten it in place on the structure, then use an exacto knife or sculpting tool to create a cut through it, creating a largish but interesting looking screw. You can see an example of these here:


http://rustandthecity.blogspot.com/2...il-holder.html

My goal for next month is to complete my warehouse that I am also planning to enter in a terragenesis competition. Not planning to win, just to push my ability and try some new techniques and complete a model in a bit of a different style.

[Narcissus]

@ Little Joe: Am working on printed posters, Newspapers and so on, but still cant get the effect i want.

What have you tried for posters and newspaper? I can show an example of what I do, that I think looks alright. I printed posters and some newspaper on a decent printer. I then cut them out and lightly coat the back with white glue and glue it onto the terrain. When it dries I then lightly paint the front with glue to seal it. I then streak GW gryphon sepia or devlan mud over the sign, add some streaks in washes, and sponge browns over it to simulate wear, dirt, and some rust poking through. They look weathered and grimy. I haven't tried newspaper too much, but plan to add more. Here is an example for you.



And after my two long posts, here are some comments for everyone:

Little Joe-I like The Chase. The mountain looks like it is coming along and I can't wait to see the chase modelled into it. I also really like the banner in your first piece.

Xazil-The rock drybrushing looks very realistic. Good job.

f2k-good to see airbrushing on terrain!

DaGabriel-I really like the painted interior. Nice that it has some furniture too.

Daniel36-The tower looks really cleanly painted. Could be a box picture model it looks so clean.

Glad to see everyone's terrain. Sorry if I missed anyone with completed projects.

[DAGabriel]

@ Narcissus: Have done nearly the same, but i wanted to have that look with loose edges, like if the poster was rolled and the upper and lower end are coming off. And that step is the problem.

[Little Joe]

@Narcissus Thanks for sharing those insights.

A few WIP pictures to show where this project is going, I arranged the trees until I was happy with the density and the next stage is bitz bashing!

As you can see the mountain is now textured and sanded. I will need to greenstuff some roots here and there and will add lots of bitz at the cave side. I will need to get some grey paint tomorrow because I do not dare to spray it.

Next step: make sure it is a goblin mountain.

[DAGabriel]

@ all:thanks for the positive resonance to the house.

Here the first and only WIP for the oasis and a WIP for the November aimed Timbered House:

[EmperorNorton]

@Little Joe: Looks cool. The banner is a nice touch, sewn together like that. IMO it could use a few more patches of grass to add a little more colour.

@Xazil: A very interesting piece. What is that thing in the middle? And where did you get the little trees in the corners from?

@f2k: What scale is that? It looks good to me, even though the pictures may not show all the detail.

@DAGabriel: The wood is very well done. I find the pink bedsheets a bit out of place, though.

@Green Feevah!: That is a pretty bold colour scheme. I was tempted to go with red bricks, too, but shied away from it.

@Narcissus: It looks like you turned a few fairly simple parts into an absolutely awesome piece of terrain. The weathering is incredibly well done.

@Daniel36: Now where have I seen that before? What can I say, I still like it.

@ EmperorNorton: I am looking forward to see what you will make of it.

Well, we'll see, I guess.

@EmperorNorton When that kit came out I was happy with the new age of terrain sets, but a bit disappointed by the thickness of the crenulations and all the supporting beams. It is however a nice set and I am looking forward to seeing you paint it.
I would not worry about time you are without jokers.

The kit has its weaknesses, but I like it alright overall.
Being without jokers is a nice surprise and a bit of a relief, as I was sure I was at least one joker down.
It's a good thing, because I'm going to need them.

My WIP isn't very far along at all, or so it seems, despite having spent a good number of hours on it already:

[Abraham Danglebreech]

Little Joe: Orc henge looks grand. Favourite part has to be the metal plated stone. Great stuff! Quote "The first part will have an outcrop for a war machine and an entry to the cave system." Cave system. Oh yes!

Xazil: Fantastic job. Lovely warm colour and weathering on the stone. Very authentic.

EmperorNorton: Looking forward to seeing this finished. I didn't realise it was was such a large kit. I think most folks would be hard put to get that done in a month!

f2k: Nice looking station that! Ought to be nominated for tidiest platform award. Maybe add some rust, mud and battle damage Can you get model railway Station posters?

DAGabriel: Lovely looking model. Painted well. Only thing I would suggest (and this is me being REALLY picky) is to add some subtle variation in the colours on the roof tiles and flagstones. They look great as they are, but I think maybe they look a bit uniform? I only mention this as I have done EXACTLY the same thing with my craters which has made them look a bit unnatural. Like I say, I'm being picky, still a great job.

Green Feevah!: Looking forward to seeing the end result. Going well so far I reckon.

Narcissus: Magic! Great job. Favourite bits are the posters. I shall be looking at this more closely later to copy

Daniel36: Nice job on Dreadstone Blight. I fancy that model myself as it happens although I understand an even bigger piece of architecture is to be released soon! The colour wheel, what are the chances!


Apologies for my late entry this month. It's been a busy one. I only managed to paint up the two craters I had as last month's WiP yesterday.



Not as interesting to look at as everybody else's entries this month I'm afraid. I think with the next lot of craters I shall attempt to add a streaked effect radiating out from the centre, to be contained within the crater itself, to make them look more fresh.

Had first game on the new board last weekend. Seeing as I only had shots of the board in pieces last month, heres a shot of it stuck together (more pics in my terrain blog)



WiP this month (well, a collection of materials at least.....)



Cheerio

AD

[Narcissus]

Abraham Danglebreach-your board looks really nice. Your flock looks fairly natural. Sometimes it just looks a bit unnatural but yours appears to look suitably irregular. Looks like a really nice board to play on.

Emperor Norton-The manor looks like it is coming along. Basecoating is the slowest part.

Here is the final, final pictures for my entry for this month. I added some water effects with camo green mixed in that adds some nice bright color to my terrain collection. I also put a small rat in the large pipe.

Highs: I am quite pleased with the garbage in the water, the dirty effect, and the interesting color of the water.
Lows: 1 hour cleaning a clog in my airbrush or 1 hour cleaning the bathroom after a spray paint incident. Both not much fun.
Goals for next month: Build a warehouse. Finish some walkways.

[Little Joe]

@DAGabriel Another fishing model? I would sure like to see a fish skeleton on the end of the line. Is the cloth you adde hardened by glue or is it added and does not get painted?

@Little Joe: Looks cool. The banner is a nice touch, sewn together like that. IMO it could use a few more patches of grass to add a little more colour.

@EmperorNorton Thanks for the criticism; yes I agree it needs a bit more. I looked at it again and want to add a bit so I got myself a new colour mix of short static grass and will backtrack some terrain with it. I also want to add some ivy and when I feel up to it to add a bit of blast effect where the prism-thingy points.

@Abraham Danglebreech Those craters fit well with that nice board, a good one piece picture. Make it four next month or something slightly larger as 6”x6” because you got a done for this month. WIP is for boys and counting halves seems silly, so I added a done with a discrepancy note to the list.

@Narcissus The green look through smudge looks good, but that rat at least need a wash.

[Narcissus]

Little Joe-the rat got a wash, it just looks pretty washed out with the flash in the picture. I'll try touching the head of the rat up again with another wash. It does look pretty bad in that picture. It was hard to photograph.

Edit: Just gave the rat a badab black wash. Toned it down a little.

[DAGabriel]

@Little Joe: Which cloth? And another fishing model, it was the one i first developed the idea for. Tried for a thinner rod and really was thinking about a skeleton fish (forseeable me).

[Little Joe]

I assumed the cloth on the bed was actual cloth. Are you telling me it is cast?
If so wow for realistic looks.

[DAGabriel]

Yes, part of the original cast, that`s what i love those ttw guys for.

update 28th of October: after the 7th or 8th try at a skeleton fish and no acceptable result i will settle for a long line and a float. Wasted some precious hours, my sculpting isn`t good enough, printed ones look really bad and you can`t really paint on dried water effect.

[Xazil]

Litte Joe: Love the Orchenge. Great detailing, given me inspiration for this month. The water is supposed to be constantly flowing so I held back on the murk.

EmperorNorton: Nice project for the month, good progession on a complex multibuilding model. Basically instead of a normal fountain its a magical vase that spouts forth water endlessly. The little trees are just that, trees brought from a model train shop made for one of the tiner scales.

f2k: Good stands of buildings, can see them all arranged into streets.

DAGabriel: Very detailed building with lots of attention to all that detail payed. Love all the furniture. There is water effect in the top basin and over the decanter itself, my photography sucking mostly although.

Green Feevah: Nice little warhammer chapel with detailing.

Narcissus: Very creative use of various plastic containers, looks great. The water and rust effects with depth is breathtaking. The little posters just take it over the top.

Daniel36: The base colour wheel makes me want to do a diaroma based just around that alone.

Abraham Danglebreech: Nice blending of the table with those craters.

[f2k]

Thanks for the nice comments on the station. I’ll return the favour at a slightly later time – as soon as I’ve worked though the backlog of emails that are waiting for me...

@f2k Well that is something new well executed. It makes me wonder if there are people out there using train buildings for their tabletops and if they come in all the scales needed. I always assumed them either to large or to small.

Well, at HO scale it’s a fair bit too big for Flames of War. In fact, trying to find buildings at that scale can be quite a royal pain in the behind. There are some companies producing buildings at that scale but getting them to Denmark is rather expensive in my opinion.

I’ve seen some players who used HO scale track and trains though. Still look a bit big but not quite as bad when using just tracks and smallish steam locomotives. In truth, you should be using the British TT scale tracks and models but if you thought the buildings were expensive...

f2k-good to see airbrushing on terrain!

In all honesty, now that I’ve got a decent airbrush I simply cannot understand how I could ever live without one. It’s just so much easier to paint with an airbrush...

f2k: Nice looking station that! Ought to be nominated for tidiest platform award. Maybe add some rust, mud and battle damage Can you get model railway Station posters?

Battle damage? LOL... Naaah... I’m not sure the rest of the guys at the club would be too happy if I started playing war on their table. Although modelling a model railway with a focus on the late war German railway, complete with armoured trains, would be interesting.

I’m not sure if you can get posters. I had a quick look around but found nothing.

f2k: Good stands of buildings, can see them all arranged into streets.

Unfortunately that will probably take a while. This building was a rush-job for the exhibition and won’t be followed by more for a good year or so. Right now we’re still hard at work getting the lower levels of the table ready and some of us (myself included) have been tasked with making electronic controls for the rails.

I swear, just because I happen to be a Master of Computer Science everyone seems to think that I can do just about everything relating to electrics and programming...


In any case, I’ll be posting some WIP pictures in a short while. With what little time and energy I’ve had this last month I’ve cut out some cornfields (and spent a lot of time scratching my head, wondering how on earth I’m going to get that glued down) and started working on smoothing out the polystyrene with newspaper-clippings in preparation for the final layer of grass.


I’ll be continuing that work next month but I’m at a point where I’m making no promises anymore.

As I’ve mention in some threads I’ve been suffering from what I thought was a stomach-infection and I’ve been in and out of both my doctor’s office and the hospital throughout this month as they’ve tried to figure out why I continue to be sick. Not a whole lot of fun, I tell you...

As a result I’ll be scaling way back on my projects – I simply have neither the time, not the energy, to keep up with three tales when I also have to take care of myself and try to hang on to my internship as well.

Combining this with the fact that I still haven’t heard anything, nor gotten any payment, from the guy that I’m building this for... Well...

[Narcissus]

F2k-what type of paint do you use for terrain for your airbrush? I recently purchased an airbrush but have found that cheaper craft paint clogs it, even when I dilute it with paint thinner. Any tips for economical terrain painting with an airbrush?

[f2k]

F2k-what type of paint do you use for terrain for your airbrush? I recently purchased an airbrush but have found that cheaper craft paint clogs it, even when I dilute it with paint thinner. Any tips for economical terrain painting with an airbrush?

Economical? Weeeeeeeell...

I use mainly Vallejo colours with the odd Games Workshop colour thrown in for good measure. The station, for example, was painted entirely with Vallejo paints with the exception of a Devlan Mud wash.

But most hobby-type water and alcohol based paints should do the trick. Provided, that is, that you thin it down.

I usually thin the Vallejo with water in a 1:1 mix. But if that starts to clog the airbrush I might change to somewhere closer to a 1:2 mixture of paint and water.

Mind you, some paints will clog the airbrush no matter what you do. For example, I’ve found that the White Primer and all kinds of varnish play absolute havoc with my airbrush, requiring quite a bit of pressure on the hose as well as a very thin solution – possibly as thin as a 1:3 mix.

So far I’ve stayed away from the cheap craft paints. Or rather: I have a few of them but I only use them when mixing up my usual wall-filler and white glue mixture. I wouldn’t dare use them in my airbrush.

Remember that it’s not just a matter of getting the paint to flow properly. It’s also a question of preventing impurities from building up within the airbrush itself.

If you feel the airbrush starting to clog up you can either increase the pressure, hopefully blowing all the impurities out, or you can thin the paint down a bit more. I’m not claiming to be an expert on this though, playing it mostly by feel, adjusting both the pressure and the paint/water mix as I go along.

Also remember to clean your airbrush thoroughly when you’re done. Don’t let residue paint dry in the airbrush – that’s just a recipe for disaster.

A final advice would be to not be afraid of mixing the various techniques. The concrete effects on my Flames of War table, for example, was done by hand painting a somewhat thick coat of wall-filler, white glue, paint, and water onto the surface of the polystyrene. Then, once that was dried, I airbrushed a light coat of three different grey hues onto the base coat thus saving paint by using a cheap paint for the basic work while still being able to produce a nice feathered effect using the airbrush.

I hope that answers the question somewhat...

[Dreffbuilder]

Blast it! nothing done in two months! grrrrrr... *lets bro kick me to the ***** I need to do something spectacular, keep yourself up little stupid man!

Cheers...