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Not too long ago I was asked if I could build some gaming terrain for the 2011 Adepticon convention and very excitingly agreed to help. As we talked about possibilities I decided this was a good time to bring back the Skull Tower and the defenses for a Chaos themed board. Originally the Skull Tower was an off branch of my Doomblaster/Tower of Skulls project that could be used as the Chaos version of the Imperial Bastion for Planetstrike. As that project was from a few years ago and is now rather long in the tooth (I've gotten better since then) I thought this would be a good time to go back and make some fixes to the design.

First up is the the upper parts of the tower that contains the weapons, the star of chaos, and other spiky bits. Originally a gatling type gun fixed to the tower with a magnetized ball and socket that sat in the middle of a rather subtle star of chaos. This time around I wanted to make the star stand out on the model and use an entirely different setup for the weapon. Although still WIP, the star of chaos is much more predominant and will feature a large eye in the center. Also I've made a new piece that will house the weapon. It is still a ball and socket design but it will be held in place by the skull's teeth. The lower jaw is a seperate piece and a new gatling gun will be allowed to swivel in that place.

Next up I updated the mid section skull panels with a more simple design. I removed the smaller skulls along the sides (that were always a weak point in the mold) and replaced them with spikes. This will also make painting it easier while still keeping its evil look.

As all the molds need to be redone this gives me a chance to tweek all the masters a bit to improve the model. Below are pics of the old with the new. As always, more to come....

Machinator, this is totally awesome. Can't wait to see the new additions

I never knew it was possible to surpass gw terrain in amount of skulls! Looks great!

I am looking forward to seeing the newest work. Nice!

Great stuff and looking sharp!!

Going to look great on some of the AdeptiCon tables and get a ton of play.

A public thanks for stepping up, giving back to the hobby community and helping make AdeptiCon the best event it can be.

Very much appreciated.

Hank Edley
Adepticon Board of Directors

Now that's a nice chaos strong point I would like to crack

I'm going to jump onto this thread early. Those skulls are so old skool CSM style, which means awesome. Fantastic green stuff skillz to boot. I can't wait to see where this goes - thanks for sharing!

Fantastic! It looks so much better than an imperial bastion 'with spikes'. The door looks a little out of place with it being made out of wood, but that is hardly anything compared with the coolness of the model in its entirety.

Looks great, really breathes chaos!

Commander Cain wrote:Fantastic! It looks so much better than an imperial bastion 'with spikes'. The door looks a little out of place with it being made out of wood, but that is hardly anything compared with the coolness of the model in its entirety.

Don't worry, it demonically possessed wood

Ah ha, it all makes sense now!

Very nice indeed

Seriously amazing chap!

Never really seen chaos scenery before other than, as has been said, 'imperial scenery with spikes'. Would love to see a whole board like that!

More updates today. Finally finished the two skull panels for the upper floor. The mid section panels have been cast and I just need to finish up the parapets and the lower section and these will be ready for mass production.



The lower jaw on the skull is removable, which allows you to swap weapons. I have a gatling gun for the future settings and a hammered out cannon for the fantasy guys:

NICE!

I wish I collected Chaos just for the excuse to get my hands on this stuff! Fantastic work

Commander Cain wrote:I wish I collected Chaos just for the excuse to get my hands on this stuff! Fantastic work

You could always start with your very own Skull Tower

So, why is it called Skull Tower

If there were chaos dwarf pirates they would just have to have headwear like your tower!

Some stonking good work there and love the swapable weapons system!

look forward to the updates!

Skull Tower Rules. That is just some awesome greenstuffing. If you don't mind me asking... What is your weapon of choice when dealing with the greenstuff ? Do you use the GW sculpting tool ?

I checked out your galleries. Some very fitting, "classic" vehicles too. I love the mark 1 LR, and hope to something a bit similar at some point!

Lord of Death Mountain wrote:Skull Tower Rules. That is just some awesome greenstuffing. If you don't mind me asking... What is your weapon of choice when dealing with the greenstuff ? Do you use the GW sculpting tool ?

Thanks LDM! I've collected a bunch of tools over the years but mostly they're polymer clay carver tools. A good starter set is below:

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=Polymer+Clay+Carver+Tools&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=3468402372696896255&ei=qPgyTZazB4bMgQfTr_TECw&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CD4Q8wIwAw#

Thanks for the link Machinator. I am gonna have to invest in some better equip, I am running out of toothpicks and my GW tool has seen better days.

No problem LDM. Good equipment goes a long way.

When looking for them search for dental sculpting tools, that way you avoid the mark up when they repackage them as "hobby' tools

great terrain

Well the molds are all done and I'm in pure production mode now. It looks pretty good but there is a massive amount of resin there:







and here's a close up of the bottom, which may become a bunker kit one day:



OK, back to casting....

It looks pretty good but there is a massive amount of resin there:

Hope there are no bad sink marks...
that would be resin dent evil.




sorry

Your work doesn't deserve such a terrible pun.
Looking ace Machinator!

this is truly awesome work dude..

Very nice indeed

Do you mind if I ask just how much resin is used in a tower?

Just a thought, shouldn't their be an alternate doorfor 40k players? (as the current one looks like that it would take 2, maybe 3 shots to make a whole in it)
Just my 10 cents

M.K

SilverMK2 wrote:Very nice indeed

Do you mind if I ask just how much resin is used in a tower?

A lot There's over three pounds of resin there.