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Thanks a lot for the comments guys! The photoframe was an Xmas gift from some years ago, sitting unloved in a box, and I thought why not use it?

I'm not sure what the latest photo frames are like, and if they can play video and perhaps even sound? My dream would be a blimp suspended above the board by an ultra-thin (practically invisible) thread - with a video frame on the side of the blimp, playing the video of a landscape with the soundtrack of "a new life awaits, on the off-world colonies.. "

Just ordered a couple of the Antenociti 28mm hab blocks, they are on sale for 12.99GBP at the moment but I think once they are gone, they are gone! Those with some other bits and pieces I think would make a cool looking Mass Effect style board.

There was a model of that very same Bladerunner idea in a blimp model in Sci Fi and Fantasy Modeller a month or two ago.

Excellent, this thread is just full of awesome!

Stunning work, Pacific. Truly beautiful.

Seeing as there is already a terrain thread I'd figure I'd post my first few terrain pieces up rather than start my own terrain thread, hope you guys don't mind. There's some awesome terrain on here, kudos to everybody for inspiration!

Our gaming club doesn't have much in the way of forest or jungle boards, so the infinity terrain I have in mind is for a jungle research base style theme, here's the first few pieces:




I figure a jungle research base, with a couple of open central buildings and towers etc would be perfect for the kind of spec ops infinity is designed for

The weathered markings and rust spots really give these pieces character! Good job here Dave!

Looks really good, HereticDave! Like the modern look to it, the work you have done with the blue striping looks great as well.

Quick update on something posted over on the new DataSphere forums, that a lot of people will find extremely useful

A honeycomb airbrush template:



Available from this seller on ebay, its from Poland but very reasonable international p&p.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/airbrush-stencil-template-HONEYCOMB-2-HEXPAT-HEXAGON-FX-HX2-/221196071324?pt=UK_Crafts_DrawingSupplies_EH&hash=item338050319c

Should be very useful for 'Infinitying' otherwise empty areas of terrain, sidewalks, buildings and the like?

Wow, I never thought of that..I have these PCM card blanks from Lenovo laptops..should work similarly..

Excellent stuff!

Feel free to post your stuff here, hdave, especially when it's so awesome! I love the 'weathered Mirrors Edge' style of Infinity terrain, that and the 'Deus Ex' style.

Those templates are a great idea. I bet Warmill could custom up a load of templates like that if someone was about to tackle a big project.

I see a lot of posts here on doing buildings, but nothing at all on the more generic table surface itself. Has anyone figured out a good solution for having a varied, textured city surface with sidewalks, curbs, streets, etc?

I find it hard to make a sidewalk (for example) look good, as it is inherently bland and has little detail to work with.

Pacific has a really nice table with streets and roads and I'm sure he would be happy to share his secrets.

I believe there was also a discussion here about painting realistic looking concrete/tarmac. I think we came to a majority decision that texture is personal choice. Texturing tarmac or pavement is unrealistic at this scale but scale modeling is all about tricking the eye so adding a subtle texture might 'convince' you of the intention. Doing tests of both might help you decide.

Also foamcore or polystyrene is always a good base for terrain. You can buy cheap polystyrene tiles at a DIY store which could be perfect for basing a large area quickly. Also they come textured and untextured. Often one side is textured and the other not.

I'm currently following a non-Infinity project by Tonio who suggests gently pressing and rolling a stone over foamcore to give it a rock texture. I imagine even lighter pressure would turn out some lovely, subtle road or pavement textures.

Hope that helps.

 Pacific wrote:
A honeycomb airbrush template...

Awesome, thanks for posting it!

Patyrn wrote:
I see a lot of posts here on doing buildings, but nothing at all on the more generic table surface itself. Has anyone figured out a good solution for having a varied, textured city surface with sidewalks, curbs, streets, etc?

I find it hard to make a sidewalk (for example) look good, as it is inherently bland and has little detail to work with.

Thanks Casey, yes here you go mate a link to my blog re. the city board I've built: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/396797.page



In summary:
Got a big sheet of MDF, which was cut into a 4x4 base section, and then used the cutoffs to build up layers.
It was just a case of spending some time measuring out street sections and trying to saw accurately, using some textured plastic for walkways, and some model railway turf for the park area.

I was kind of torn about making a more 'modular' set-up, of having smaller sections that you can then revolve to create a different set-up each time.
The negative of the board is that it can get a bit samey with the road positions, although this is mitigated by having some pieces of MDF cut to length that I can fit into the roads, just turning the board into larger and more featureless grey area.

Let me know if you have any questions about it though and post them on my blog if you like !

I have a question!

Can you make me one of those?

Please?

ONe thing to remember about sidewalks is how thin they need to be if you want to keep everything in scale. Sure they are between 3 to 5 inches tall irl, but at 28mm... that's pretty thin.

Also, and this is me being a bit utopian, I really think that broad streets like we have today might one day become a thing of the past, and most densely populated area might use pedwalks and mass transit, rather than moar carz.

Cheers Alpharius! Yes no problem mate, but you'll have to give me another year or so the rate I work at

Mathieu yes I completely agree with you. Those tread-mill type sidewalks from the Asimov books would be awesome. At the moment I'm thinking of adding some kind of sky-monorail with one of those really cool looking trains from the guy who has just started that sci-fi hazards kickstarter.

Just a really quick update here, as there are more details on my blog with some other new terrain: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/180/396797.page

Some arcade machines. These are from Ainsty Castings, and I'm trying to build up a pile of stuff like this around the city area. I modified the one on the right so that the joystick layout looks like the Street Fighter 2 machine

I wasn't aware of this kickstarter, had to google it:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1628235004/sci-fi-traffic-hazards-28mm-vehicles-for-the-futur

Cool project, but it doesn't fit my image of the (part of the) Infinity universe (I imagine my miniatures to be set in). Not sure if I can make it fit.

I was kind of torn about making a more 'modular' set-up, of having smaller sections that you can then revolve to create a different set-up each time.
The negative of the board is that it can get a bit samey with the road positions, although this is mitigated by having some pieces of MDF cut to length that I can fit into the roads, just turning the board into larger and more featureless grey area.

This is always a hard choice. Right now I'm thinking about making my entire board surface asphalt, and having each building sit on an island of concrete. This way maybe I can "build" the roads out of buildings.

Patyrn wrote:

I was kind of torn about making a more 'modular' set-up, of having smaller sections that you can then revolve to create a different set-up each time.
The negative of the board is that it can get a bit samey with the road positions, although this is mitigated by having some pieces of MDF cut to length that I can fit into the roads, just turning the board into larger and more featureless grey area.

This is always a hard choice. Right now I'm thinking about making my entire board surface asphalt, and having each building sit on an island of concrete. This way maybe I can "build" the roads out of buildings.

I was looking at this http://www.zuzzy.com/wc-bb-001-terra-flex-gaming-mat.html initially as the bottom level of a bladerunner type set up.
I think I've decided to go more specifically Haqq though. Something like a future Casablanca, or similar city that Bond or Bourne are always chasing some parkouring assassin through. I snagged a bunch of 4mm styrene from work as the basic building structure and I've been snagging nice textured stuff from the dollar store as I come across it.
My thought is to set it up so that I can worry about building interiors down the road and just get the exteriors looking good.

I talk a big terrain/painting game and never seem to fit it in...so just close your eyes and imagine the possibilities...

Wow that thing is super sweet. I might have to pick one up.

So, this weekend we watched some movies.. the new Total Recall..If anyone else has seen it, didn't "The Colony" seem like Infinity-appropriate terrain?

Also saw the new Dredd, and I am convinced "Peach Trees" is as good of an environment for terrain as any.. thoughts?

I would agree with both statements. In fact during both of them my wife told me to shut up about terrain several times.

Love those arcade machines - there is loads of useful bits on their website for sci-fi and steampunk stuff,

All I've got to do now is works out how to incorporate the Arcade into the ice-world colony I'm working on (Like Hadley's Hope from "Aliens" - but with snow and ice surrounding terrain). Warmills new stuff looks like it could come in very handy - especially now I realized how big the corridors and new buildings are

What about the internals of some of the buildings, like a games room or something for the scientists living in the lab?

Two words....Black Mesa

I think you guys might get a kick out of these:

Thanks to Gitsplitta.

Extremely useful mate, thanks for posting!

No worries, I figured someone would get a us out of them.

I had a look for a tutorial but I couldn't find one. From what I remember he uses a simple process of printing to standard white paper, cutting out, weathering and gluing in place. If you're interested I'm sure he'll fill you in on how he does it better than I can. The final effect is brilliant though:

It's fairly straightforward, I've done similar things on different pieces of my own terrain. I normally print on either matte or glossy paper, depending on the final look you want. For example, I used glossy for the arcade-cabinet screens posted above, or the front of a vending machine. Standard paper for things like posters, grafitti etc.

The process I used was a very straightforward, almost 'wall-papering lite'. Make a mix of water and PVA, use a brush and soak into the back of the paper. Really soak as much as possible, without ripping the paper - then apply to the surface, it's as simple as that!

A couple of examples of stuff I have done using that:



Hope that's useful for anyone thinking of doing something similar! Think it's a really easy way to reduce abstraction of the miniatures and terrain, and add some nice small details.

Thanks for the run down Pacific! I am planning on doing something of the sort so that will be an invaluable guide. I actually hadn't realised how extensively you already used this which is testament to how well you do it. Did you do the last one the same? It looks like it blends right in at the edges.