Hi there again.

It has been a while since i've posted anything of notice. But I've been busy as hell designing and building a 3 part battle board pro-style for a client of mine. I tried to document as much as I can along the way to show you guys my progress and the things i've learned.

The wish of the client where quite simple:

" Big... and it must be more than awesome! And also lights.. Yes I want lights. And it has to be modular.. and also I want it to be a display board for my Space wolves army. And it must be cold and snowy but not all snow. And I want to be able to drive my tanks across the board. And I also want water.. Yes water is awesome! ... Oh and while your at it... I want hidden or secret diorama's that tell a story about the place. And I want lights so I can play in a night setting. O and I also want objective points across the board. Oh and not entirely unimportant... it must also be balanced and packed with details! ... oh and... I want lights... " Well you get my point. This was going to be anything but easy to do.

After allot of tinkering and sketching, I came up with a cool Idea for a three part battle board of 125cm by 60cm per part (roughly 4 by 2 foot) that could be laid out in different ways.

The first board had a mountain embedded ancient temple fortress with courtyard and backside diorama's (including a great hall, subterranean hall, cave tomb and an alt entrance),

the middle board would divide the two sides with a river that has 2 natural crossings and a bridge some coverage and some gun turret support objectives to capture and use agains your enemy,

and the final board would have Mountain slope with a ruined and abandon city laying at its feet so that it could still hide entire squads and provide cover for an advancing force. It also would have backside a big diorama and it will matchup with the backside of the first board, so he could switch the boards around.

A "typical Fenrisean summer temple fortress and abandoned city ruins" would be the general theme.

And last but not least; he couldn't press enough that he wanted lights across the boards so he could also play in a low light setting to simulate night and day fights. (which I've never done before but certainly would look freaking awesome if done right.)

So here are foto's taken with my smartphone of the progress. Feel free to comment or ask questions. Or if you have any tips...

Enjoy!

This might just be me being a complete idjut..
But I don't see any photos.. :p

Sketches






Starting the build:




Backside diorama's:
Tomb cave


Subterranean hall


Rockwall first level to second level:








First layer of my special sand-glue mixture.















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Here's an update on the tomb cave


Progress on the temple wall and courtyard. Also pre fitting all parts before I glue them.






I Constantly checking sizes with models to see if they fit and stand well on all parts of the board.

Progress on the wall:


To live up to the detail part and save me a lot of time modeling parts, i've bought a load of resin parts from Forge world, Scibor and Puppets war. Must say I'm very pleased with all parts I've ordered. Details are great and it fits really well within the theme.

Okey.. I'm subbing this thread..

After some work I've on the entrance I wasn't quite pleased. It looked to obvious and didn't really fit into my vision. So after conceding with my client I changed the design.

Here are some pictures of the dummy front work to see if the client liked my changes:


Here is another photo of the gate with a dummy plate to get a feeling for how big the mountain part would be.


If you look closely you'll see that one of the columns in the more finalized version is missing...

This column:


It is because I've ruined it! I was so excited about the line arts on the column I wanted to paint it to see if it would give the wanted effect. So I pulled out my GW black undercoat spray can and rubber gloves and sprayed the thing black...

Little did I know that it would melt / mutilate the High Density foam until there was nothing left of the artwork! I was sadden't but also VERY relieved not to have used that spray onto the rest of my build yet... So PLEASE do not use the GW spray (Or any sprays that uses nitrogen as gas) to spray High Density Foam.

It's the solvent in the spraypaint that reacts with the polystyrene foam.. Try making a mix of PVA glue and water.
Coat a piece of foam and try to spray..

And Finally the materials for the lightning were delivered! (Side note. I still need to close the gaps between the HD plates)







Top view with the cables tugged away nicely. The wall standing sections will get covered with air drying clay so these will not be visible anymore after i'm done.


These wall lights will get a cover. And Ill use the Puppets war anubis termos shoulderplates as light hoods.


Gate lights:




Tomb cave top lighting tryout with different colors:


Here are some pictures of the 12V adapter plug and power switch I build from a spare plastic plate with a dremel tool and some newly ordered parts from conrad (which is comparable to radioshag I believe)







And since normal white foam doesn't let's itself be manipulated really carefully ive build a placeholder from the HD foam and placed that into the side of a small hill side:










As you can see in the last photo the white foam doesn't lends itself to be worked with that accurate as the edges are all roughed.



With alternative entrance door in place that covers the wires behind the switch and adapter plug:


TIP: Oh by the way. The best way to glue foam to foam (or to whatever) is to use the white transparent hobby glue (the one with aceton in it) its mostly sold next to the pva glue (or the white hobby glue). Make sure you put glue on one side of the foam and press the foam in place. Then, while blowing on to the foam, pull the foam parts apart (or whatever you want to glue to it) and repeat this proces until long hard sticky strings start to form. After a few times the foam parts will stick together really solide.





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Here's some photo's of the progress on the board with some more sand-glue coatings.





Also did the Tomb cave with the sand-glue and before I did I've put in a base plate for the tomb encasing:






The Coffin I didn't use because I found a better idea along side the items I got to decorate.




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Panorama of the Backside diorama's


Here are some images on the progress of the great hall and the rock bridge from the temple to the forward rock pillar.














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Here is the seal I've painted from (almost) the start to end in 12 steps.






























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Here are some images of the first almost finished diorama.

Tomb cave.








And with top lightning:




Size comparison of the Tomb cave



Also playing around with bark pieces for a rockface:



Hope you like it until so far.

Will post you guys more updates as I progress.


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@ Tjomball: Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely try that one out.

This is simply stunning and inspirational! Great work so far. One question: why all the vegetation in the tomb? It looks cool enough, but wouldn't it be more fitting to be dank and dark with minimal lighting? Almost looks too cheerful lol. Still, better than anything I have done!

They also sell spray paint specifically for Styrofoam.

Stunning! I can't wait to see more progress!

ooooohh....Me LIKEY!

Realy good question:

as I read about fenris (home planet of te space wolves where this scene would be situated) it is told its a planet of fire and ice. So I pictured that closely underneath the temple rivers of magma would flow (which also would made sence sinds its almost constantly cold and freesing outside. How could anyone survive constant winter right?).

So my plan was to make the Subterranean hall be like a forge with fires from the lava flows from deep underground. So therefore the cave is damp and warm making vegitation to grow like it would in tropical rainforrest but then only with types plants that would be able to grow in those area's. Like varns and mosses.

Here are some refference and inspirational concept art photo's that I used to picture the feeling and use as a guidance to how i'm going to finish the board.

Cave refference:


Great hall and subterranean level inspiration:


Here are some refference photo's and a concept art photo's that give you an idea on where I want to take the top of the boards to:

Very cool build so far. Can't wait to see the development and finished board

New update:

This weekend I've worked on:
- the wiring and lightning on the Battle board so I have 2 main connection points on either side of the temple mountain with the power switch and adapter plug fixed in place.
- Added the tomb cave lights so it shows the light fall from the ceiling and the reddish glow from the deeper cave lava. (took in the comments made by you guys on the cave and removed some greens.)
- I've also filled in gaps on the wall sections and mountain sections above the tomb cave.
- I've test fitted and hotglued the bark and coals for the rockwork on both the side hills.
- Also sandglued the seems between the rockwork to finish of the two smaller mountain hills on either side of the Temple mount

Enjoy the pictures and as always, comments are more than welcome!





You can't really see it as good on the photo as you can in real life, but the reddish glow in the back side of the cave is much more prominent than it is on the photo.


closeup on the reddish lava glow in the back side of the tomb cave.


Tomb cave mountain










Pre fitted the bark and coal pieces for the rock work




After hot-glueing them to the board


Added some more coals to make the rock work flow more easily into the board and filled up the seems with sand-glue.






Rockwork on tomb cave mountain.


With unpainted ornaments


Well thats all for this update. Next update will contain some more painting (doors and ornaments). I also hope to finish the lighting in the subterranean hall and the pathway to the secondary entrance / escape route. And maybe even get started on finishing up the two other diorama's.

wow man, just....wow

This is simply awesome.

What is the sustainability on using things like bark for building? Won't they rot over time? Also, are you coating the coal with anything to prevent it making a mess in the future?

paint over the bark/cola should make it pretty durable.

It looks pretty damn cool so far. Only thing I'm not completely sold on is the ornaments on the hill. They look like ruins that were just dropped there.

Hey guys thanks for the comments so far.

Yes bark and coal on its own arn't really that strong but with two light coats of watered down pva plus a couple of acrylics coats and a mat varnis coat on top will make it quite durable. Not as strong as pure resin mountain casts but I don't think my client will use the boards for snow-boarding

Coal and bark are the most inexpensive and most realisticly looking miniature rocks you can use.

I've used it before:

Coal chunk


Bark


And about the ornaments..

Yes I'm not entirely sure either but they arn't mixed in to the mountain just jet because I need to paint them seperately. Also the paint will do allot for blending it in and so will the vegitation and snowy frost effects I will add when finishing the board. So it might just work out ok. If not... Gone they will be!

Oh my balls. This is amazing! Keep up the great work.

D

You have my attention.

Excellent artist skills

Engineering not so much, so here's my advice to making your art stronger:

- Drop the white foam altogether, it's just not worth your time. Use only insulation foam, it's tougher and easier to work with, and also often free.

- When making caves, you'll want to have much stronger materials - I would definitely use wood for your tomb cave. Otherwise if somebody just leans lightly on it it'll be destroyed. And leaning on gaming tables happens.

- Basing the whole board on a stronger material is not necessary, but it does a lot to improve longevity, strengthening the sides is even better.

- The LEDs seem to be intact, you can try sanding their bulbs to diffuse light better, it should give a nicer lighting effect.



Your dioramas are awesome, the coal for the rocks looks excellent and you've got the right ideas. I'm not sure the table will be really playable but at least it will be beautiful.

Hi guys,

Thanks Morgoth for your complement, advice and comments, this is why I post here. Let me address all your points one at a time.

The white foam you see in the pictures already is the strong insulation construction foam. And I've given it a coating with a realy hardned 3 layered coating of a homemade sand-glue mixture. It is as hard as rock (comparable with cement but then more flexible and it bonds to the foam realy well). And I exidentilly battle tested it because had it laying on the floor and exidentilly stepped on a corner. The board still looked the same. (Must say there was a solide part of foam underneath and I don't want to try that on the cave part!)

So I will definitly look into creating the backside dioramas with wooden roofs support layers to make sure that the cave collapsing will not happen easily.

I was also thinkering and concidering about putting the boards on a wooden plate with wooden hardboard sides but that would make the board really heavy and almost imposible to handle on your own. The coating I used in the sand-glue mixture is so hard, flexible and durable (and I also think allot lighter than wood and way more cheaper) that I was considering on using that as a coating for the entire board sides instead of the wood construction. And then finishing the sides off with a final layer of black industrial "vilt" (the green toplayer stuff they make pooltables from). So what would you advice me to do?

And really thanks for the tip with the leds I will definitly try that!

And again thanks for your comments and advice. Really appreciate that.



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Small Update:

Yesterday evening I've painted the basic colors for the main entrance and the smaller side way entrance. These will form the base for all kinds of weathering additions to make the heavy alien-like metallic doors even more ancient and worn.

Enjoy and as always C&C are welcome!





With lights turned on:

Just plain epic!
Where will this beauty be shipped to? Would love to see it in the flesh sometimes.

One more electrical engineering remark:
Put some 100 Ohm resistors between the LEDs and the supply to stop them from overheating.

And as to the moddeling:
Gruwelijk goed!

Oh thanks Bathroom1!

This board will stay in Tilburg, Netherlands (where I live), client is a friend of mine. So I'm always happy to know I can go take a look at the board If I'm starting to mis it. I think that could be arranged. I could ask my friend to take the board to our local gaming store where we could have a battle on it?

I've put resistors in, based upon individual series of LED's on a 12v adapter with a 1,5A capacity (which means it could support roughly on the save side 70 LED's with a 20 mili ampere usage).

Different colors mean different Voltages: red 1.8v, orange 2.1v, White, blue and green 3,3v. So I've got that covered as well.

Thanks for mentioning it anyways!

 Remco_Tuerlings wrote:

Thanks Morgoth for your complement, advice and comments, this is why I post here. Let me address all your points one at a time.

The white foam you see in the pictures already is the strong insulation construction foam. And I've given it a coating with a realy hardned 3 layered coating of a homemade sand-glue mixture. It is as hard as rock (comparable with cement but then more flexible and it bonds to the foam realy well). And I exidentilly battle tested it because had it laying on the floor and exidentilly stepped on a corner. The board still looked the same. (Must say there was a solide part of foam underneath and I don't want to try that on the cave part!)

So I will definitly look into creating the backside dioramas with wooden roofs support layers to make sure that the cave collapsing will not happen easily.

I was also thinkering and concidering about putting the boards on a wooden plate with wooden hardboard sides but that would make the board really heavy and almost imposible to handle on your own. The coating I used in the sand-glue mixture is so hard, flexible and durable (and I also think allot lighter than wood and way more cheaper) that I was considering on using that as a coating for the entire board sides instead of the wood construction. And then finishing the sides off with a final layer of black industrial "vilt" (the green toplayer stuff they make pooltables from). So what would you advice me to do?

My pleasure.

1. I had no idea - it looked so much like the usual white packing foam that loses beads all the time that I thought you had picked it for being cheap or something else.

2. WRT coating, mike from terranscapes told me he uses a product called "foam coat" which makes a hard surface on top of the insulation foam. I don't believe that the sand+PVA mix is any protection, did you use another glue ? Good job with the testing

3. Wood can be light if you don't add too much of it. I use hardboard but I advise checking the quality of the hardboard before (some are more dense and better glued than others) or just using MDF. A layer of hardboard on the bottom and the sides will keep it relatively light. It's really cheap too. If plasticard was affordable I'd tell you to use that, like Mike does, but then I don't think you're looking at the same budgets

4. The "vilt" stuff sounds like an awesome idea, it would take care of most of the micro-gaps while also looking like grass - as long as the colors match that is.

morgoth wrote:

 Remco_Tuerlings wrote:

Thanks Morgoth for your complement, advice and comments, this is why I post here. Let me address all your points one at a time.

The white foam you see in the pictures already is the strong insulation construction foam. And I've given it a coating with a realy hardned 3 layered coating of a homemade sand-glue mixture. It is as hard as rock (comparable with cement but then more flexible and it bonds to the foam realy well). And I exidentilly battle tested it because had it laying on the floor and exidentilly stepped on a corner. The board still looked the same. (Must say there was a solide part of foam underneath and I don't want to try that on the cave part!)

So I will definitly look into creating the backside dioramas with wooden roofs support layers to make sure that the cave collapsing will not happen easily.

I was also thinkering and concidering about putting the boards on a wooden plate with wooden hardboard sides but that would make the board really heavy and almost imposible to handle on your own. The coating I used in the sand-glue mixture is so hard, flexible and durable (and I also think allot lighter than wood and way more cheaper) that I was considering on using that as a coating for the entire board sides instead of the wood construction. And then finishing the sides off with a final layer of black industrial "vilt" (the green toplayer stuff they make pooltables from). So what would you advice me to do?

My pleasure.

1. I had no idea - it looked so much like the usual white packing foam that loses beads all the time that I thought you had picked it for being cheap or something else.

2. WRT coating, mike from terranscapes told me he uses a product called "foam coat" which makes a hard surface on top of the insulation foam. I don't believe that the sand+PVA mix is any protection, did you use another glue ? Good job with the testing

3. Wood can be light if you don't add too much of it. I use hardboard but I advise checking the quality of the hardboard before (some are more dense and better glued than others) or just using MDF. A layer of hardboard on the bottom and the sides will keep it relatively light. It's really cheap too. If plasticard was affordable I'd tell you to use that, like Mike does, but then I don't think you're looking at the same budgets

4. The "vilt" stuff sounds like an awesome idea, it would take care of most of the micro-gaps while also looking like grass - as long as the colors match that is.

1. Haha ok. Well no problem. I spare no cost on building these boards when it comes to quality. And for a pack of 5 white insulating foam plates of 5cm by 100cm by 50cm cost me € 7,95. So It ain't that expensive. The HD foam on the other hand was quite expensive thou... € 37,50 to be precise for 10 plates of 2cm by 60cm by 125cm.

2. Yes I've used a different glue than PVA. And there's also only 1 shop in the Netherlands where I can find it (in Amsterdam near where I work). And its just 2.25 euro per 200ml bottle. It is washable and can be thinned by water. And I've used 4 bottles on the whole sand-coating just yet. Thats 9 Euro's in total. To make the mixture I used to thin the glue down in a big bowl with 1 to 6 ratio and then add mortar sand. And then use gloves to mix the two up until you have a pasty clayish substance. And when you want to apply it to a surface you need to rub it on there with your hands because initially it will not stick directly. But if you have a bit of patience you can manage to smear it on to almost anything. It needs a day or 2 in a room temperature to set entirely but it becomes really hard.

3. Yes I will look in to that. Indeed I want the quality stuff. It's all about balance between weight and durability I think.

4. Yes I wanted to buy the black one for it comes on rolls of 1m width and for 8 euro's per meter. Which will cost me another 45 euro's to do all boards, but I think it will mean the difference between a really good home made board and a pro board. I was also thinking of using cheap acrylic kit (which I have laying around) to smoothen the surface of the sides first before glueing the "vilt" on (after i've added the glue coating off course). And I could indeed use my airbrush to give the black vilt a color if I want to blend in the tops...

I'm so excited to read all comments and looking so much forward on the placing a photo series on the finial boards... it really pushes me to keep working hard on the project! Thanks you guys!

Small update:

Yesterday i've basecoated and painted the basetones on the mountain statue. I wanted an realy worn special stone work statue that had both some deviating colors and colors I am going to use on the mountain. Weathering, vegitation and snow frost effects will be added lateron when I'm start finishing the board. C&C are welcome!











Hope you like it!

I dont know what to say....

other than you make me want to make terrain! and I barely have time to make mini's!

This is indeed all kinds of awesome, some truely fantastic work, I love the style, your painting skills really bring the whole thing to life, they give it such lovely texture and the colours are awesome.
omg... I just realised that your 'basestone' is a mix of foam for the body and then plastic details? and a GS beard! oh wow... I thought that was a bought piece from somewhere like scribor..... impressed to say the least.

Man I wana make some terrain :( Stupid job! Ima just go quit and go home!
Oh yeh! also really enjoyed the frizbie in the initial photos or atleast it looked like a frizbie

Somethings I would consider...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHmk6kgYA-w
Oyumaru if you've never come across it before, but it rocks my world and im sure you could use it to great effect.


its very useful for making broken rocks, pieces of statues etc... and saves you quite a lot of money if your doing this alot

Stunning work, particularly the tomb cave, it's oozing with atmosphere. Thanks for posting this up -it's a real inspiration for my own planned terrain projects.

First of thanks guys for the flattering words. And thank you Solar Shock for making me laugh my ass off and the great tip on the Oyumaru modeling clay. This would save me allot of cash indeed! Already ordered a couple packs of the stuff.

New small update:

Couldn't help my self to finish the basic paint of the other Tomb cave mountain ornaments. So here are some photo's of them.

























Hope you like it and as always C&C are more than welcome.

Awesome stuff!

Fantastic.

Beautiful and inspiring work!!!!

Holy cow this stuff is just amazing and so well thought out and executed!

This is amazing stuff

This is a ridiculously epic build! How much do you charge for something this scale?!

Beautiful, detail-packed, build.

The "hidden" scenes add a great extra touch to it, too.

Following.

Wow thanks for all the nice words you guys! (It's really motivating to here you all like my work.)

@Gohkm: Oh thats a though question to answer:

Normally I would ask for around the 300 euro per board which would have no real complex work on it or electric components, just a modest landscape with some natural features. And a board is 125cm by 60cm (Roughly 4 by 2 foot). But it really depends on how complex, detailed and finished the client wants the build to be... It's mostly hand craft work so it's quite time consuming and I'm doing this in my spare time more or less as a overgrown hobby. The board i'm working on currently has € 434,75 worth of materials when its done. And I already spend over the 250 hours work on it with still some what of a 100 to 150 hours to go (and that would be part 1 of 3). But the more work I have to spend on a single project the cheaper my hourly rate will be of course. I estimate this entire project will probably cost around the 4K in euros (where 750 euros will be material cost and the rest will be payment for around the 1000 hours of labor). So yeah.. there you have it.

For the weekend update you guys have to wait a couple more days because I want to finish the diorama's first and post the entire proces pictures from begin to the end as a single post. It will be an nice update I can ensure you that. Because I've experimented with different lava / fiery forge elements and found a really good way to do the lava thingy.

So please excuse me for letting you guys wait a bit longer! And I hope to finish them soon so I can share my findings with you guys.

I don't care for Space Wolves in the slightest and I'm checking this thread regularly.

WOW... VERY nice work...

Incredible. I'll be watching this!

Oh my god... Fantastic!!

Wow this is amazing can't wait to see the end result.

Incredible work. Can't wait to see more!

I need some more time to finish the subterranean diorama's but here's a WIP sneak peek on my magma / lava fountain with a home made green stuff wolf head and lightning. Camera on my mobile doesn't really catch the real dark reddish light it really is, but it still gives a nice impression what is about to come after next weekend. Enjoy

Would love to play a game on this board some day, looks EPIC!

Oh my balls................this is so gorgeous. I hope to be able to do this one day.

Absolutely great job! You definitely have an amazing imagination and skill set that I would love to have myself.


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Absolutely great work so far! You have an amazing skill set and imagination that I wish I had. Keep us posted and I hope to see more work from you in the future!

The amount of ability displayed during this project upsets me for some reason....

Every time you post new stuff the level of awesome outdoes the previous posts! Seriously, this is just disgustingly awesome. I've never seen a better Space Wolves themed board except from the GW studio itself when Space Wolves were updated in '09 or so. And they didn't even have all the cool light effects. This may be the coolest board I have ever seen.

You thought about making a crashed space wolf flyer or tank to put as a bridge, just a idea that popped into my head, paint the inside and leave doors open. It would look epic, in my opinion. If its going to be used for games other than 40k leave it interchangeable with like a bridge made out of ice.

Thank all you guys for all the nice words!

@gardeth: Will it make you feel any better if I where to decrease the level of craftmanship dramatically and show you the worst figure i've ever done?

@StormBringer328: wow thanks dude! That is about the nicest complement I have ever had! Really don't know what to say man.. i'm feeling humbled to the bone. Makes me want to push my self even further in getting better in all trades and making the most awesomest battle board ever created. Just thank you so much!

@e.earnshaw: wow dude that just surpasses my original idea of a stone bridge tower with a broken and a whole bridge setup, that is removable due to build in magnets. To make things more interesting I could also let the river run through/under the plane (that would have my preference) with vegitation overgrowing the hull and cabine. So they can use the top of the plane + wing to cross. Parts could be placed also down river to simulate a partially flushed rubbish... My imagine is overflowing with ideas right now! Special thanks to you my friend!

Can't wait to finish the subterranean diorama's and overload you guys with awesome pictures of all the nice details!

Cheers!

This is really great inspiring stuff. I'm also generally more interested terrain building than painting units, but I've been on the cusp of moving across an ocean for a while and don't want to create stuff I don't have space for. Looking at this at least allows me to live vicariously through your creations. Can't wait till the next update!

Holy gak this is amazing!

At the start I saw you said that the client wanted objectives. here's a couple of ideas.

1) a techpriest harvesting helfrost crystals, have him trying to cut though one with a welder or plasma on his servo-harness. Servitors helping him carrying them off to be loaded into the back of a rhino or chimera. One of the servitors inside a crystal he got frozen!

2)convert a tryrnid ravenor or tyrgon into a Fenrisan beast and have a lone wolf trying to kill it.

3) have a wolf priest dragging off a native Fenrisen to be loaded into a land speeder taken to the fang and turned into a space wolf. Fenrisen made of a fantasy chaos marauder.

Stunning project dude! This table looks great already!
Also great paintjob, can't wait to see this whole thing painted!
Keep up the great work

That is simply stunning! Can´t wait to see the rest / other projects.

Great project, can't wait to see the finished piece.

Hi guys.

First off, thanks agian for all the nice c&c!

@e.earnshaw: I already had 5 automated turret objectives. But I liked your cristal objective so much I've ordered a blue cristal right away.

Furter more I've really worked hard on the diorama's and done so much work. The clay coverage has to dry for 2 days before I can finally finish the paining on the diorama's.

Here are some sneakpeak detail photo's, because I couldn't post a comment here empty handed. Enjoy and in a few days I will post you guys the full update with all the nice pictures and details.

Forge thingy close up.


Wall section with floor and ceiling light.

Subbed. Your work is awesome.

Did you make molds for those wolf heads? You've called them "Tomb cave mountain ornaments" in your gallery. they're brilliant. I could see them being very popular for SW players to scatter around their table or even make objective markers out of.

I think i need to ban myself from this thread.... i just started to amazon for cheap foam board.... i spend enough time on my 40k hobby that i really really cant get into scenery... but the more i look the more ideas i have! damn your inspirational work! stop being so inspiring! perhaps post some really crap scenery to un-inspire me?

I agree about the crashed plane as a bridge! that would be unbelievably epiic! definitely have moss growing into it from below and the stream for sure! would allow you to play so many inspired missions. maybe the space wolves are attempting to rescue a relic it was carrying? or maybe it was shot down just bwfore it could reach the hangar and his unit could start there? so many possibilities.

hmm how good are your electronic skills? as i see you use leds to great effect, but with a little extra work you could really make them unbelievable. i myself am an electronics engineer and am working in a few more ways to include more into my hobby.

examples would be for you: it would be reasonably easy to not only make that magma glow, but it could pulse, with a mix of red and yellow leds give the effect of the surface below flowing. That would only require a couple transistors and a couple more resistors than what youd currently be using for just red. another easy thing would be having the lights at the gate flicker every once in awhile. like how old street lamps do.

anyway! i need to get back on topic before i get too excited! excellent work mate keep it up

Allright guys... I'm done for the most part with the diorama's. Only some minor details and small additions will follow but I can't hold back the work from you any longer. I'm so anxious to see what you guys think!

But before I'm gonna post the selections of the 160+ Photo's that will be one of the most epic post i've ever made, ill first answer the two question that where asked.

@mars2024: no those where base additions from Scibor. They have allot of awesome scenery and figure additions. I could have made all of them my self but spared me the trouble and time that it would cost me. The head of the lava/forge fountain is a greenstuff sculpt I made myself. I also use some amazing stuff from Puppetswar. Who have really awesome wall sections and figure enhancements for good prices. I really recommend them.. Also I have Forgeworld stuff that is classical good quality. It just isn't worth it to try to model all the details your self.

@Solarshock: haha I so sorry but I don't have any pictures of my older works. Before I joined dakka I never photographed my work. And yes I've done the craziest thing: I've ordered a storm eagle from forgeworld to serve as my downed airplane bridge. Not yet sure on how to position it and if the squads can get across only via the back or also from within; this is one of the few crafts that where epic enough in size and shape to function as a bridge and also the only one that could allow figures to walk all the way true the hull from back to front... That also was a big pro for the decision to go for it.
Also I thought about the fading light and read allot about the 555 and the 4017 chips.. but still it was a bit out of my league. I'm quite handy if I might say so and I would love to learn it though... I really could use the extra awesomeness. Would you be willing to teach me?

And with no furter adue; I hope this will inspire manny; the finished diorama's of the subterranean forge and escape tunnel / side entrance.

Enjoy!





























Here are some photo's with figures posing to get some size comparison:





And here you can see the redish glow that filles the forge room but that the camera can't capture as well as it is when you look at it.



And here are some more pictures.









C&C are welcome!

Next update I will work my way up towards the great hall and the rock face facade. For now have a good one! Cheers.

Excellent.

It's really good in general, but your forge suffers from the "Yoghurt Pot Syndrome", where people just recognize an everyday household item and the effect is ruined.

I would change the straw pipes by something more professional (think plasticard rod bent with heatgun + thin plasticard detail maybe), and add some texture to the centerpiece, which looks like my airbrush hose connector at the moment.

Other than that the atmosphere is badass and your camera looks like my phone camera, i.e. does not do justice to your work

I've had better luck with my GF's digital camera - somewhat more recent, in the €200-300 band IIRC, it does better on tiny things and low light.

If pictures are important to you (i.e. you need to show your work), I would advise a cheap tripod so that you can just get any picture you need no matter the light level too.

Yes, Thank you Morgoth!

Good suggestions and I will go work on it as soon as possible!
- I will look for a different piece to use as pipes..
- I had already planned to add some smokey effects that come from the forge compressor piece (which is actually a bicycle ventil glued on to some metal rings) to add the texture and detail. WIP images on the progress will follow quickly in adjacent posts.

Thanks for you concern about the "bad" camera: Yes that is a phone camera . I have a pro cannon camera with pro lenses though, but this was at 12 o' clock in the evening and I had no intention to go pro on my WIP images at that time. Just was interested in sharing the work with you guys as soon as possible, but If you guys need better quality images to give comments I will gladly make them and post them. .

After the board is done my uncle Marc Jacobs, who is a professional photographer, will take pictures of the entire board for my portfolio. I'm also looking into creating a promo movie of the entire set when I'm done. But first I need to finish the boards "Duurtlang" as we would say in Holland.

So don't worry, this is just to involve you guys in the design and building process and to give you a quick inside view on the progress.

Awesome, can't wait for the pictures when it's finished then

Here are the pictures on the building progress for the two other diorama's; Starting off with the forge lava fountain where I tested using hot glue to make light flowing substances that could be like lava flows emitting the heath light.













Then I test fitted the piece to see if the space between the top of the element and the ceiling wasn't to tight (which obviously fitted like a glove because I've measured every thing 3 times and then once more before I even started cutting the foam.)



Then I used the knowledge I gained from my tests to create the lava flow with the hot glue gun which was no easy task as the hot glue always intents to create hair like strings when you're done with a load of glue.



Also added a base shape made from foam and greenstuff to form a base for my greenstuff wolf head sculpting.


Ok; Time to do some testing to see if my hot glue idea work out. And here I present you my lavaflow:



Back side ( Crappy phone camera doesn't like the darker reddish glow the hot glue is emitting



Here you can see the lightning works better. Everything is isolated nicely by isolation tape and a shrinking tube. Some tape and iron rods holding the threads nicely in place.



With the lightning working just fine I started sculpting the wolf head from greenstuff.







Here is the almost finished sculpting; Almost because I really disliked the ears on this piece and redid them the day afterwards before I headed on painting it.





Then it was time to do the painting;



I found out that I should have done the painting before I would apply the hot glue because that made the painting job allot easier. Down side on this is that if you where to fail the hot glue part you could either ruin your paint job or when you have failed big time to also have to redo the painting.







I removed the source lightning on the fountain because it looked to much like blood and also added more weathering details.

Thats it for this post... Next post will be the forge fountain.

Enjoy.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I wanted to create a forge piece that would use the lava flow to create specialized metallic armor parts (or gun parts for that matter) So it would need a lava reservoir, some tubing to pump and compress the lava, also a heating and cooling plate and of course the mold part with the vent on top. And as Morgoth stated I used the black straws but I will replace those as soon as possible by some plastic rods with some rivets as connection pieces. Also added a small controle pannel from where the techmarines could monitor the process.

Enjoy.







The monitoring console



I've also added bolts and buttons on the console, heater/cooler and compressing mold before I moved on to painting.





Added the Hot glue and set it aside to be finished painting all together with the wall sections.



Still did some lightning testing before I painted the hot glue with the lava effects:





Next up; Subterranean wall sections.

About your issues with the order of painting and the hot glue, I believe you did it in the right order, you may want to check liquid masking film and stuff like that to make your painting easier, if it works for airbrush it should work for this

Or you can consider building the piece of multiple parts and have your lava flow built separately, attaching the second flight of stairs afterwards and masking the joints.

If you ever build another lava fountain that is

When I look at the piece, it must have been really tricky to get the hot glue in there without overflowing in all the wrong spots.

Jup! That was a real tricky part especially because i've already spend allot of time cutting the basic shapes out of the foam.

As soon as i'm home from work I'll post the next post on the walls, the lightning works and the clay works.

When you finish the board you should do a video battle report
of its first game that would be epic.
Also for another diorama you could do a wolf den with a wolf facing off kraken or other beast made from a trynid.
You could make a chamber for breaking in thunder wolfs zone mortalis door scratches on the walls frescos of russ defeating wolfs rows of saddles.

@e.earnshaw: Wowzers dude! Again that is just soooo epical... the door and the claw marks are just sooo spot on! And the fresco's with the russ fighting the kraken. My imagination is running wild right now!

I picture the mountain with a high entrance point, on the other side (back side) you will enter into a hall with a ceiling that represents the wolven starsystem made out of fiber glass lights. Maybe with some help from a electrician it could blink like real star lights. On eighter side of that hall you can take stairs down to the bottom hall where a big two part door with reliefs of the cracken fight is blocking entrance to a hidden room... Two blazing fire discs on either side of the door. With scratch marks all over the place (might be the lost 13th chapter that was locked away here long ago or battle scars from actual fights with krakens). Maybe one of the side hills can have a cave that contains a kraken invasion made out of tyranits...

This will definitly be a nice upgrade on my original idea... I'm so glad I've started posting my work here on dakka. You guys really add flavour to my work!

Edit: that kraken idea is finally my excuse to buy tyranit models without the need to make a balanced army at first

Ok here is the next post: Wall sections of the subterranean forge and side entrance, lighting works on the floor, wall and ceiling, and clay works.





Preparing for paint

















Pre fitting and lightning







Pre fitting all elements for the first time

















Console of the forge



All ready for the clay works.





I've hidden some runic symbols above the side entrance portal that probably nobody will notice... But I will know their there! MUAHAHAHA ahhum.. right.. Back on toppic:























Also did a part of the clayworks part 2 the ramparts of the courtyard walls







This where all the images on the work before the final pictures. And as requested I'll make some pictures with my good camera this weekend so you can enjoy all fine details that the crappy phone camera can't capture.

Your stuff looks awesome and no one cares about bendy straws.

You sure this isn't the Aett? It's pretty awesome...

Pretty sure no one is fretting over slight mistakes as you are going ham with this project and the results quite clearly speak for themselves.

Hollismason wrote:
Your stuff looks awesome and no one cares about bendy straws.

I second that. The bendy straws look fine. I didn't pick it up until it was mentioned.

So I've got to ask... What are you charging for such a masterpiece?

Remco, I've seen and used a nice trick to give texture to foam pieces: just make a ball of aluminum foil and roll it across the surface, it gives excellent rock texture and I'm sure you can get a lot of other effects with other materials.

Are you using something else, like rough sandpaper or just the foam's texture ? because your stone seems to have a finer grain texture or no texture in some spots.

The thing is, you're so good at painting and weathering it's hard to figure out whether you created the texture or revealed it. I'd still go for "mostly painted on".

The areas with rock damage on the other hand are just amazing. How did you get that "missing layer of stone" effect ?

 Kavish wrote:

Hollismason wrote:
Your stuff looks awesome and no one cares about bendy straws.

I second that. The bendy straws look fine. I didn't pick it up until it was mentioned.

In general, people who do not notice defects tend to be happier.

Good for you !

And people who do notice tend to be a lot better at anything they do.

Good for me !



Automatically Appended Next Post:

CountCyrus wrote:
So I've got to ask... What are you charging for such a masterpiece?

Look back one page, search for "euro".

Hi guys.

Thanks for all the support and kind words. It is really what motivates me to go on and work harder to improve my skills. But please stay nice and constructive to one and another...

One final thing about the straws: I also thought they came out pretty ok myself, but I also get Morgoth's point how small it might look compared to all the other things I've done. And I appreciate your support from all of you guys, Compliments And Comments!

And since I'm quite an perfectionist I really want to push myself to the limits and at least try if I could make it better by making pipes without the straws. If I can't the straws will stay and I'm glad I tried and know that this was the best I could do at this moment. If I can improve then I'm glad Morgoth mentioned it and I got a chance to improve it... even though it might seem just such a small thing.

So I would like to encourage and invite everyone to post there feelings, thoughts, comment's or suggestions about my work, no matter how small or insignificant people might think it to be or how much others might disagree with you. I can always decide to what to do with it right?

In the end I (and I hope through me, you guys too) will learn so much more in the proces for I have a real chance to improve my work to a level I can't achieve without you guys. So in a way this is actually a group-effort-ish project where I do all the work and you guys can enjoy the ride! (I say enjoy allot right?! Gotta stop saying that. Although it sounds so true to me... must have fun doing the things you do right... aaah here we go again... back on toppic--> )

@Stormwall: what's an "Aett"? Please enlighten me with your knowledge.

@CountCyrus: like Morgoth stated I wrote it a page ago. You can read back to the previous post for the numbers and motivation.... but it mostly comes down to the wishes of the client. Currently it seems like I'll be spending around the 1000 hours (where 350 already spend on this board already with still at least 100 to go) and since some crazy creative people have contributed epic ideas / improvements like the downed plain and tyranit diorama in the 3th board the cost went up from around 700 euro's to 1000 euro's for the 3 boards... so... (Don't say it was e.earnshaw.. Don't say it was e.earnshaw.. DOOOOH I just thought it out loud.. )

Calculated on the 1000 hours I make 4 euro's per hour on this project.. So let me ask you guys this...

What would you think is a faire price for a board of this detail, complexity and number of hours work? Is around 2000 euro's allot?

Here it is!

 Remco_Tuerlings wrote:
Wow thanks for all the nice words you guys! (It's really motivating to here you all like my work.)

@Gohkm: Oh thats a though question to answer:

Normally I would ask for around the 300 euro per board which would have no real complex work on it or electric components, just a modest landscape with some natural features. And a board is 125cm by 60cm (Roughly 4 by 2 foot). But it really depends on how complex, detailed and finished the client wants the build to be... It's mostly hand craft work so it's quite time consuming and I'm doing this in my spare time more or less as a overgrown hobby. The board i'm working on currently has € 434,75 worth of materials when its done. And I already spend over the 250 hours work on it with still some what of a 100 to 150 hours to go (and that would be part 1 of 3). But the more work I have to spend on a single project the cheaper my hourly rate will be of course. I estimate this entire project will probably cost around the 4K in euros (where 750 euros will be material cost and the rest will be payment for around the 1000 hours of labor). So yeah.. there you have it.

For the weekend update you guys have to wait a couple more days because I want to finish the diorama's first and post the entire proces pictures from begin to the end as a single post. It will be an nice update I can ensure you that. Because I've experimented with different lava / fiery forge elements and found a really good way to do the lava thingy.

So please excuse me for letting you guys wait a bit longer! And I hope to finish them soon so I can share my findings with you guys.

A bargain for the quality work shown so far!

 Remco_Tuerlings wrote:
What would you think is a faire price for a board of this detail, complexity and number of hours work? Is around 2000 euro's allot?

If you work 1000 hours, it should be at least 20000 euros.

It would still not be fair, but at least you'd get paid as much as a cashier or a guy from the cleaning crew.


Unfortunately, unless you talk to the right customers, it's more about what the market will bear, which in the case of art depends on your fame.


I know quite a few artisans who have as much skill in their domain as 500+ a day consultants and still work for 50 bucks / 8 hours, so ... good luck.


I would say, ask another artisan who is better than you and has a lot more experience in the market, like Mike from Terranscapes.

Please move to the states, I'll marry you if it's a green card issue.

In the river you could have a kraken made from a trynid maw lock fighting a lone wolf bits of space wolf amour lodged in its teeth and weapons representing the dead pack he is from.

You could have wolfs hunting on top of the mountain their pray a beast made from an ogres kingdoms beast and/or have ogre yetis as doppel gangers

This is so dang beautiful. You're doing Russ and the Allfather's work

@Alpharius and Morgoth: Thanks for you opinions. I will also try to ask Richard from battleboards.co.uk and Mike from Terranscapes who are both inspiring people and I hope that one day I may become as good as they are.

@Morgoth: About the foam walls structure; I firstly cut the foam in to the right size blocks or shapes. Then I use the knife to cut the bigger cracks, dents and missing plasterwork by gently cutting just skin deep with my knife alongside the surface of the wall. This is the base for the texture. Then I use a variety of different hard cut short brushes to (gently) stamp a real structure in it. Then I move on to painting the walls using the created texture to my advantage and enhancing it with my painting and weathering skills. I also use allot of real reference photo's to try to get the real effect on how walls, rocks and plaster works age. And try to imitate that with paint. I recommend every one to experiment with the High density foam... its more expensive then normal foam but it lends itself so good to do concrete or rocky surfaces. And it can hold much details too. The trims on the walls I did where just really thin strips from the lit of a deep-freeze-pizza box. came out quite well after painting. Could also imagine using the cardboard technique when you have printed out a relief detail, glue it on to the pizza box cardboard and then cut it out.

@Gunzhard: hahahaha.

@e.earnshaw: Ill think I'll pass on these idea's my friend, but keep spilling them! But I already ordered for another 250euro's worth of extra props * for these boards because of your awesome idea's (* Forge world Skin wolves, Dread Maw for the russ memorial cave scene in the 3th board back side diorama and the Storm Eagle gunship for the bridge part in the second board). I think this will be enough for now... Unless you have an epical idea I can't refuse?!

@Alfndrate; haha thanks man.. it certainly feels that way!

Well almost weekend you guys! So I hope to make some better pictures tomorrow and to bring you guys a new update as soon as possible!

Have a great weekend! Cheers

oh it would be cool but not doable in the time phrase to use forge world leman russ when he comes out.

Thats a model I definitly will be buying! You have any idea when it is going to come out?

Wow, this is just stunning.
With the hours and love you've put into this I'd say you've earned every penny of that commission!

Love it!

This is getting better and better! Great progress. Keep up the great work

Truely excellent work and fantastic to see the wip and thought process being what you are doing.

Hi guys.

Here are some better pictures of the forge chamber and side entrance.






Cave entrance




Closeup on tomb seal.




Forge smoke close ups






Runic doorway to forge chamber




Bronze steel door to side entrance




Side entrance door (rock work is unfinished)



Hope you enjoy!

I cant hold my creativity in to many cool ideas im going to build my own board.
My version of the isstvan dropsite massacre.

Awesome! I really love to see that WIP! Do make a thread please.

When I finally (!) hit the lottery, I'm totally going to commission a board from you!

I have to say... every single time I'm amazed by the atmosphere and presence of your dioramas.

I'm still in the design process and gathering materials but my plans are a huge 9 or 12 inch tall fortress at one end/side its going to be 4' by 4' hole in the board from orbital bombardment providing access to the zone motalis below.
Lots of small hill fortifications connected by bridges.

Brilliant board, so inspirational.

Looks amazing as always!

Incredible, inspiring stuff

Hi guys thanks for all the nice comments again!

And I'm looking forward to being commissioned by you Alpharius!

@e.earnshaw: That will be a massive undertaking then! Maybe I can help you with Idea's as when you start the wip. It certainly sounds very epic... oohhh thats where the first E stand for right?

Epic Earnshaw.



oh here are a few more pictures:


Here's a Closeup on the shoulderplate from Puppetswar Anubis Termos range. It's the perfect Fenrisian wolfs head lamp hood:




Another shot on the entrance to the Tomb cave with the collapsed wall section.




And here is another shot on the forge chamber where you can see the smoke rising through the venting shaft past the Fenrisian wolves head lights into the great hall.



Here's my planning schedule:
- This week I will be building the general construction for the big mountain, and I'll be working on finishing detail parts and lights for the great hall and facade (not much time because I'm going away for the weekend celebrating my girlsfriends birthday; am looking forward to that).
- Hope to start on finishing the rock work of the big mountain by the end of next week.
- During the two weeks after I will be painting and placing the vegetation and weathering.
- The End for part 1 of 3. Then I will be moving my board to my uncle for some pro photo shooting. (can hardly wait for that moment)

So still allot to do but the end is near. End THEN it on to the second board which will be the valley river with the defensive points and the crashed FW Storm eagle. Which I'm really looking forward into painting.

Cheers!

Ok I'm going to do a thread on dakka on my newly inspired isstvan dropsite board. Sigh starting next week finish October/November 2015 yey! I will do a small thread scheming on plans ideas welcome look out for it on Wednesday Thursday time ish meh might be Saturday.

Looking awesome as usual,

only thing I might change if its possible, is the smoke, when it hits the underside of the roof it seems to simply disappear with only a whisp coming round the edge and up. It would be awesome to have a tiny amount sort of 'curling' under the roof and fading out.

Other than that looking totally awesome.

oh and i saw a comment earlier about your use of bendy straws.. I can understand how it could 'break' the feel, as its more obvious than the rest of your items used, but if you were to use some plasticard piping to slide the straw into, this will create some steps in your pipes and you can then still keep the bendy bits to create corners. Think of it like a sleeve. (I recommend a bundle from china for about £10 off ebay, will last a long time).

This is looking awesome. Well done and all the man hours are really paying off

Just wow, as someone whom has been hired to make gaming table and terrain through out my life I am just blown away by the scope of the client and the skill applied. Job awesomely done.

@Solar Shock: Yes I know what you mean with the smoke. Luckily this was just a test piece so I will adjust it to be more realistic. Maybe give it a quick go with my airbrush to give it more texture. And the Straw pipes; Mike-w gave me a great but simple idea to get rid of the straw-look. So I will try that.

WARNING LARGE UPDATE PENDING: I couldn't resist to share my work on the great hall and facade with you guys.

It still needs allot of painting, but I've worked last weekend and 'some' hours during this week on the entrance wall for the main hall and also designed a logo for this ancient lost chapter of the Space wolves that lived here so many millennia ago. During the proces I made the seal twice so I could choose the best. They turned out so great I thought it would be a shame not to use them both. So I figured to use one on the inside and one on the outside. But the one for the outside was to big for the original idea I had for the facade. Therefore I either had to go back to the drawing board to design a new facade or not use the seal... and but during my night sleep I dreamt about it and managed to wake up in the middle of the night and draw a quick sketch of the facade that appeared in my dream. Luckily my girlfriend didn't wakeup for I would face the wrath of insomnia the next day!

The new facade design is, in my opinion, so much better than the old it is freakishly scary. It has the myth of the Tree of life in it, and a poem about the tree, Leman Russ and the all father will be painted on it in runes! So for the people who could read the runic writing... I hope you will enjoy it a bit more.

I've done the most part (e.g. 97%) in green stuff and never before have I used so much of it. And I'm not a pro sculptor in any way, so be gentle on the C&C this times my fellow Dakka members for this was the best I could do at this moment.

I also had allot of fun working on all the nice details inside the facade relief. Hope you can find the mountain of Fenrise where the Russ and his council of 13 had residence and I also made a mythical creature (the serpent devil) inside the tree to complete the story behind the tree of life.



Work on great hall wall and roof section:










Seal design:




Size of the seal and working out the seal step by step:
















Pre fitting




Third layers






Pre fitting all layers to see hight change




All steps in one image




Pre fitting the seal on the great hall wall








In the previous image you can see my dilemma. The next range of images you see my nightly design and the proces that followed in creating the big new facade for the temple entrance. Hope you like it!










Here you can see that the depth of the encasement for the seal is to shallow because the light is shining not an all parts. And I also decided that one light isn't enough.




So I increased the depth of the hole and made 3 lightning slots. (NOTE: lights are test lights... I'm tempted to take 2 red lights and make the center light warm red. What do you guys think?)




Finalizing the design layout on the facade.




The secret ingredient to make a seal:






Decreased the hight of the seal a great deal without making it break = Though job.




Creating a indentation for the relief to go in




I decided that the facade could use a different texture to stand out from the rest of the wall works so I added a 2 layered piece of pizza box cardboard to create the surface. Also important to mention is that it also dubbels as a sealant for the lights that tended to creep besides the stone (read foam) seal ring.






Before glueing the cardboard surface on to the facade I primed and base painted the facade and seal. Also glued the stone seal ring in place where I planned to add the knot work roots from the tree of life later on in the proces.




Also added foam fillers for the tree so I would use greenstuff




Here I ran out of green stuff which was actually a good thing or I would have fanatically kept on working on it to way into the night which isn't a smart thing to do.






Aaaahhh finally some more green stuf... I already used up one whole pack so I bought another 4 packs to be sure.














Continued the next evening




AAANNnnndd DONE!








THE mountain of Fenris.




And the serpent of which I ill redo the head because it got busted up while doing the leaves.



So today will be painting day for the facade. I'm really exited to work on it and hope to bring out all the nice details and I hope the runes will turn out also great.

Enjoy the nice weekend guys and galls! Cheers

Badass.

Really nice sculpting skills

You might want to consider plasticard for the next seal though, cardboard is risky and could've wasted part of your work due to damaged edges when cutting and / or bending and stuff.

WRT lighting, I'm thinking you don't want too many lighting colors, one or two and then it's christmas tree.

Could've been crazy to have multicolor LED with remote (one of them strip kits on ebay from Hong Kong @ really cheap) - but then that may not be very useful. It would help you for testing though.

Hi Morgoth.

I have certainly thought about using the plasticard but in this case the cardboard works better than plasticard because of the structure and it being easier to manipulate. And if the cardboard / end result wasn't good (bend edges or such) I wouldn't have gone for it.

And as I stated above the image with the lightning test these are of course not the lights I am going to use...

This is brilliant!

Man.
First off, you have an IMPRESSIVE artistic vision. Seriously.
Your artistic ability t make your vision into reality is even more impressive.
Congratulations on what I'm certain is going to be a masterpiece and a centerpiece in your friend's gaming collection!

Eric

Remarkable work, great photography too!

I'm really amazing and inspired by what you're doing here. The level of thought you've put into the design, sculpting, and the overall production of this build is really impressive. It reminds me, in the best way, of a well designed video game level, with the beautifully designed lighting and the attention to detail.. just amazing work!

Looking forward to seeing more!!

 Remco_Tuerlings wrote:
Hi Morgoth.

I have certainly thought about using the plasticard but in this case the cardboard works better than plasticard because of the structure and it being easier to manipulate. And if the cardboard / end result wasn't good (bend edges or such) I wouldn't have gone for it.

And as I stated above the image with the lightning test these are of course not the lights I am going to use...

Good, that means you're less crazy than I am

When I see those feathered cardboard edges I just overreact

Hi guys

A small update: I present to you my 13.000 year old Temple facade... Sorry for the poor quality photo's (again). As soon as I'm done with all the building and painting my uncle, who is an professional photographer, will take pro photo's from every part and detail of the board.

I tried to paint it so that it would look like it has withstand millennia's of time. So the gold, bronze, iron and stone are colored, rusted and covered with algae. Hope you like it.

I know you can't do it with this piece as it is for the client but, BLACKHAND has an amazing guide on Resin Casting.

Have you ever thought of making more scenery and casting it in Resin and selling it on the side in a webstore? Your sculpts are amazing, they would totally merit a store just for themselves.

That fresco/facade is amazing. Stellar work.

@Stormwall: Thanks for the great suggestion and compliment.

To be honest I have never thought of making molds and resin parts to sell because I've never considered myself to be a great sculptor. But after having read BLACKHAND's tutorial I'm really exited to at least try it out. And if the result is sellable then I really am going to consider selling them on the side! But I will definitely give it a try first to see if I can really make good quality resin parts for I have a few good idea's what to make. And also applying the tips and suggestions talked about in his tutorial by others (e.g. chalk powder, stirring with a tooth pick, pressing out excess resin with a poly-board, vacuum the mold in a fishbowl with a plastic bag and a vacuum cleaner, etc).

 Remco_Tuerlings wrote:
@Stormwall: Thanks for the great suggestion and compliment.

To be honest I have never thought of making molds and resin parts to sell because I've never considered myself to be a great sculptor. But after having read BLACKHAND's tutorial I'm really exited to at least try it out. And if the result is sellable then I really am going to consider selling them on the side! But I will definitely give it a try first to see if I can really make good quality resin parts for I have a few good idea's what to make. And also applying the tips and suggestions talked about in his tutorial by others (e.g. chalk powder, stirring with a tooth pick, pressing out excess resin with a poly-board, vacuum the mold in a fishbowl with a plastic bag and a vacuum cleaner, etc).

My reaction:


I can see the frescos, the forges, the doors and all your other sculpts selling. and that is just to begin with. If I can do it you can, your sculpting makes me look like I am a five year old with crayons all over again. I am currently working on making a giant round topped gun turret mounted to a tower with ramparts. The irony is I started it with a small pringles can and foamcore, now wrapping chunks of plasticard and cardstock around it. I got the idea from this thread to use the foamcore. I can't wait to see how it moulds. Also I've been making small crates that can have aquilas added on to them and also giant ammo shells for scenery next to a turret/for a Vindicator. I doubt I will end up selling these things unless people demand it but, I might give them out to some people on Dakka who I follow. Anyway, your work inspires my terrain and to be honest, terrain is my bread and butter really.

The temple facade is stunning

Love the weathering effects on the façade, but are really wondering what the inner temple diorama is going to be?

I love you man. *sniff*

Man,you have got some skills.Fantastic ideas and execution.

This is getting better and better! Your gs wprk looks awesome and i can't wait to see the complete board! Very well done sir!
And your secret ingredient just.....
Made my day!

The underground dioramas inspired me so much im going to 3 layers of diorama 1 under bunker ammo stores 2 sneaky holes for troops to pop out of 3 zone moralis demonic summoning areas and containment pens. By the way if I hadn't mentioned your work is swagmaster.

He is secretly Leman Russ. This is y he 2 op 4 me.

Oops! I mean I said nothing inqui-

*blam*

Aw man. So good, I really don't know what to say. I'M in awe.

D

Hi guys (and galls?)

Wow thank you guys for all the nice compliments. Here's a new update on the Great hall inside the temple fortress.

@Stormwall: Haha.
@E.earnshaw: the hall is getting shape. Hope you can see where I'm going with it.

It is comming along quite nicely if I must say for myself all though I spend a little to much time on the runic poems that go on the inner wall. I did allot of research on the tree of life and the referrences to it in Nordic, Viking, Celtic, Roman and Christian beliefs. And it is all some what the same and I find it very facinating! And also I've spend some time learning the Runic symbols equivilent to the Romanic symbols.

Funny side note on something you might not know; the Runic name for there alfabeth also starts with the first characters like the roman one: F U Th A R K

Well and after I choose the poems it was also allot of work to figure out how big I had to go to get it on the wall just right so It would fill up nicely. Also the runic alphabeth didn't had any "." to end sentences but they did had the ":" to symbolise the end of words. So I've invented the tilted square to indicate the end of a sentence. That way you could all decipher the poems if you wanted to... Like you have entered a real millenia old temple to hunt for treasure









So here I've pre fitted elements that make up the great hall. Note that the pillars are not yet carved out...






Here I've carved out allmost all the elements for the great hall and placed them together for another pre fitting. I must almost constantly do this because there is no real guidance on how to build this. I have designs but I usually figure things out as I go.. That way I also keep some artistic freedome to alter and improve to get better results. (Like the runic poems).






And here I placed 3 squads inside for size comparison and to see how much figures I could stack inside... And it is certainly "Big" enough.






Here I'm glueing all parts together to form one solide piece that will be the great hall. This way I can close gaps between parts with greenstuf and other materials before painting starts.











Well that's all for tonight. Tomorrow I hope to get started on the lighting and with a bit of luck I will be able to finish it. So I can start the painting and gluing inplace all the elements for the great hall. And hopefully start finishing up the great hall and facade by the end of next week. In the two weeks that will follow I hope to finish the rock working on the main mountain. And I can hardly wait to go start finishing the vegitation and snowy effects on the entire board. Really looking forward to that moment.

Cheers!

Amazing.

mind...... blown

This is truly epic Rem! This deserves a professional photo shoot with well done miniatures when its all said and done. You are talented and this is the most amazing game table I have ever seen!

I love it when people use runic properly.

More kudos to you

A bit hard to decipher on these pictures though, I'll wait for the final photo shoot.

One thing I don't get though, why "Holj tree", did you use the j for y ? or is it not elder futhark ?

Anyone got any superglue or gaffatape my jaw fell off .

That is just stunning work

Thanks you guys and gall for all the nice words again. Can't say it enough that it motivates me to the bone.

@Kelly502: that's exactly what I planning to do. But this is just 1 out the 3 boards that will form a space wolves inspired battle table. But Ill ask my uncle, Marc Jacobs, to make pro pictures of the first board when its done. And I hope that it will be some where around christmas or new year it will be finished.

@e.earnshaw: you can have my pva, superglue or ducktape if you want

@morgoth: no it should be a Y. For as far as I know the Y is translated to the two tilted hooks. Which would state Holy tree. If I did it wrong please correct me.

Here's some more progress pictures on the lightning. Although I didn't make as much progress as I hoped I do like the lightning so far. Really like the redish glow bownsing of the pillars bottoms and the top sides. It's a shame I don't have time to work on it tomorrow. So tuesday I hope to finish the lightning on the great hall and for the most part on the facade. Where Im planning to do a top roof like piece for the tree facade where lights will be put in to enlighten the tree sculpture.

After that it will be painting time once more before I can start wrapping up the rock work on the big mountain. Looking forward to that part because it means the end is near! Enjoy!

 Remco_Tuerlings wrote:

@morgoth: no it should be a Y. For as far as I know the Y is translated to the two tilted hooks. Which would state Holy tree. If I did it wrong please correct me.

Well I'm like the only donkey-cave in the thread so I might as well do that yes.

Elder Futhark is phonetic, so if you want to write "the", you use <th> and <e>, but if you want to write "thee", you use <th> and <i>.

So the y that is associated to jera is only used for "you" or any word where you pronounce the y not as an i, and of course anything like "jerusalem" but then there's no doubt a j is pronounced j.

"thine" would be <th> <ï> <n> for example.


Still, most people are used to mistakes in Futhark transcription, and most people who read and write it for fun will get your text



The temple looks real good, it would be better if there was light up to the top of the poem, as I guess it's not something the SW would hide (lighting without an "n" , otherwise it becomes dangerous).

And I was wondering how rookie Space Wolves would forge camaraderie by pushing their schoolmates in the hole of the forge. Or did you plan something else for that ?

Man this thread is like crack

But your seals and doors are looking absolutely epic, the greenstuff work was fantastic and once again your painting skills really bring your work to life, the colours used to get that rusted and green look was really unbelievable. Loving the work and really looking forward to the final product! I feel almost as invested in this as you, just from watching

Do you know what great company the clients army is if so do another seal on the mountain of it just an idea.

Hi Guys and Galls!

@Morgoth: Wow that really helps.. ashamed now the writing has more flaws than I thought It would have... should have done my research a bit more careful before I started translating and writing the poems... But then again.. If I had to be really original and traditional with the writing in runic I should have learned ancient nordic language first because that is the language it would have been written in, but I guess English will be more commonly understand . Hahaha thanks for the spelling correction on the lighting Its less of a shame to see I did write it wrong consistently though still I feel a bit dumb right now with all the language flaws (*Committing Sepeku to save my honor).

@Solar shock: hahaha thanks! That is what I hope people experience when they look at my thread. All out tripping!

@e.earnshaw: I don't think he has any real general sign for his army. So... he can now use the one I designed hehe

Man I cant wait to start finishing the rock works so I can start painting and then layout all the vegetation and frost / ice / snow effects to give the landscape the wintery feel I picture in my mind when I dream about it. Really think you guys will like the end results.

Tomorrow I hope to finish the lighting (Yes I though of it Morgoth thanks!) on the great hall and facade tomorrow so I can start the painting and after that work my way up with all the rock work. Have a good night every one! Back with an update tomorrow!

Rem, you keep this up and some of us are gonna feel insignificant...

Those ramparts are amazing. Kinda biased though, look at my name haha. Gave me some ideas to steal with my guntower.

As I said don't worry, I play LARP, have met quite a few people who use elder futhark in a recreative way, and all of them including me continually make mistakes, some even promote it so that our "secret" texts are even more secret.

As you said, nobody knows proto-germanic so writing english in elder futhark is already pretty warped, it doesn't matter anymore.


By the way, the moon runes in the hobbit ? they're readable in English.

If they can do it, you're more than fine.


I can't wait for more pictures.


The one sure thing is, if I ever need to make dioramas, I'll hire you as mood consultant (can't wait for the pro pictures of the tomb cave and then everything else).


What are you planning for the snow ? I've done a bit of research in that so I might be able to help you.

Hi guys.

@Stormwall: Haha yeah I'm glad you want to use my work as inspiration and every one is free to do so! But I certainly don't hope that is true that some start to feel insignificant... I don't want anyone to feel that way. Maybe I should post the ugliest thing I've ever painted in this thread as an equalizer... Can I hear a "Hell Yeah"?

@Morgoth: OOOOoooohhh *few if the makers of the lord of the rings can do it... I certainly can! thanks man, I feel allot better now.

As promised a small update on the lighting situation (please forgive me the crappy pictures):

I'm almost done.. Still have to finish 2 series of lights (wall lights and lights above the other door.) Then I can start preparing the great hall for painting this weekend what would be an awesome sight. After that is done I need to cover the floor, rampart and floor with the clay covering to finalize the modeling of the great wall. Then it is some more painting.

I guess the end of next week I will be able to start working on finalizing the rock work on the big mountain. So I can start painting the mountain during the week. AND THEN FINALLY!!! In the second week of december I can start finalizing my first board by applying the vegetation and snow effects.

It would be awesome If I could treat you guys good quality pictures for christmas presents.

















As some one asked before: I'm planning to do a small railing around the edge of the hole in the floor that links the forge chamber to the great hall like so:





And here is one of my Grey wolves Sergeants checking out the blast door.

What is that door made out of? Also... this is turning out to be even cooler, my favorite part is the forge below the viewing area. It reminds me of a viking greathall with a fire in the center.

@stormwall: thats a resin cast from the zone mortallis line from forgeworld. I plan to scrape off the eagle iconography and replace it with some small scibor celtic shields. Like I did with the door on the side mountain entrance (it is the same door). Using these doors saves me a stupendes amount of time and it looks instandly cool and finished. But finding good cool doors was a though task because there arn't manny other webshops that sell blastdoor-ish cool looking doors that also are in the right size or style I was looking for. Almost was giving up the search and was planning to make them my self when I found the forge world zone mortallis doors. So I bought them.

And about the forge / fire pit. That is exactly where I got my inspiration from! I was watching the series Vikings with Ragnar Lothbrok where they also have a big fire place in the centre or thegreat hall. (A real awesome inspirational series for people that are interrested in Space wolves or viking / nordic times) so yeah thats where I got the Idea.

When is part two of the board being made because I will be ready to do mine by then and as its in two, 2ft by 4ft sections we will finish at the same time. Can on dakka you do joint threads?

I don't know what to do with all of this awesome. My brain is having trouble processing it all.

Hell Yeah!

This is so amazing, i can't wait to see more.

You have an amazing skill. I'm in awe.

Btw, if you ever decide to make resin casts of that tree/ crest door I want one. I saw that and started drooling.

Dang, I thought there was an update.

But yes, echoing the above. I would pay for a copy of that tree. I'd remove the wolf and add a circle for a chapter brass icon. (working on some Scandinavian marines.)

The updates will continue in a few weeks my friends.

I have been so damn bussy building two new rooms and finishing them after work I had little to no spare time left to do any building or painting. But where almost done finishing the new hobby / workshop / wargaming room. So I to can't wait to continue working on the board!

Greetings Remco