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A while back I fell in love with the overgrown Imperial Cathedral that was in a slew of White Dwarf battle reports around the launch of the Imperial Guard codex. I promised myself that when I got around to building a proper set of terrain, I'd make myself one. So now that I am de facto providing terrain for my gaming group, I thought I'd go for it!

The parts I'll be using are:

Loads of Cities of Death kits (I got an Imperial City some time back for cheap, so it will form the bulk of the Cathedral)

Textured Plastic Card (for stone floors in the Cathedral. I experimented with little squares of cardboard, but it drove me mad)

Aquarium plants for creepers

IKEA plastic plants for variation (cheap, and the branches sit on little nubs, making them easy to pluck off)

10mm foamboard for basing (lighter than wood, and resilient enough for my needs. Plus it doesn't warp)

Sand & gravel for basing

I decided on a modular approach, with a sizeable front piece, with a couple of balconies, a pair of side walls with firing points, and a smaller rear wall section.



Cutting the textured plastic card cost me more of my precious sanity, especially since I discovered that the edges don't have to be neat, as they'll be covered by sand. Still, the off-cuts gave me useful bits for scatter terrain.



Here are the two pieces of flooring for the cathedral nave. Once the walls are in around the squares, I plan to roughen the edges up with sand and gravel as necessary, and also add some pieces of broken debris to break up the even flooring.



Jumping ahead a bit, the nave walls are assembled, and in place. The pillar is there to give the sense of a vaulted space - but it eats a lot of the foot-print. I'm not sure if I will include it.



And here are both nave pieces, checking how the space feels with the pillars in place.



And here, with all four pieces pushed together. I am really split on the pillars. And also I think that the nave walls are too low. The building needs a little more grandeur, so I think I shall have to go back and raise the sides a little. More pictures to follow!

That looks pretty damn cool to me.

Indeed - it looks pretty fun indeed

Wow that looks neat, i cant wait to see the finished version of it.

A quick update: I raised the walls, making them two storeys. I think this will make the pieces more flexible - I'll be able to use them as stand-along walls, or pieces of smaller buildings. And with two levels, I can cram in more weapons teams, devestators and their heavy-weapon wielding ilk!

I also decided to drop the internal pillars. I think I will use them for some scatter terrain instead.

Pictures!





I'll cut some pieces of sprue, and offcuts of the walls and scatter them on the base in some decorative fashion to break up the flat surfaces. I added a single piece here, but I think I'll put some more on!

I think the pillars would work, just use smaller or thinner ones.

You might also be interested in adding these for detail:

http://armorcast.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=121_23&products_id=165

http://armorcast.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=121_23&products_id=166

The pews would be useful for the nave, and the altar would highlight the... altar part.

Would also be nice to have stained glass on the windows! Most Cathedral pieces for wargaming nowadays don't bother with the windows.

This is looking nice. And it's large enough to make a nice center piece of terrain on most boards.
I would suggest going easy on the random debris on the floor. While it makes the piece more thematic and gives it a flavor, the piece still needs to be playable.
Nothing is a bigger PITA than trying to place your models all over debris filled terrain where they end up falling over and getting scattered...especially in 6th ed where placement makes a huge difference refarding assaults and who dies from shooting first.

@heartserenade Thanks for the link to armourcast! Now I have another place to bleed money! Yaaay! I like the pews, and the altar, and a lot of the other pieces they have there, too.

About Stained Glass, I wonder how it might be pulled off - One option might be to cut & paint clear plastic to fit the City of Death windows. I wonder if this Armourcast product would fit into the CoD windows. Another option (that I've used on a different terrain piece) is to use cardboard cut to fit, and then insert steel mesh between it and the window. That makes it look like the windows are closed with a sort of armour mesh, rather than just gaping open.

@dkellyj I agree on the PITA avoidance. I do want to add in some debris, because otherwise the very regular pattern on the plastic-card floor becomes monotonous, and a little unrealistic.

You could also print onto overhead transparancy sheets and cut them to shape.

Just measure the windows, print out a design that would go well in the space (but is larger than the window), then cut it down to size. You can also use the offcuts to make shards of broken glass in some of the frames and on the floor.

This looks awesome. Can't wait to see more.

This looks very promising! Do you maybe want to join our terrain competition? it's about plants and shrubbery:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/487271.page

 SilverMK2 wrote:
You could also print onto overhead transparancy sheets and cut them to shape.

Just measure the windows, print out a design that would go well in the space (but is larger than the window), then cut it down to size. You can also use the offcuts to make shards of broken glass in some of the frames and on the floor.

This, actually. Alternatively, you can draw on acetate sheets using markers if you have drawing skills.

I'll have a poke at the over-head sheet idea. That seems like a fairly painless way to get a really neat effect! A little dirty brown wash sloshed into the corners would also help. More updates when I have them!

Great start! I can't wait to see how this develops

So, a frenzy of activity later, and the pieces are base-coated, drybrushed, and skulls and eagle doors have been highlighted!



I also took a first stab at jungle-planting the smallest piece of the cathedral up with a combination of moss and aquarium plants. The trick seems to be combining things in large groups, so the pretty uniform look of the aquarium plants is broken up, which makes it look more realistic. This shows a little better on a couple of scatter pieces that I did with offcuts. See below for some pics of them.



I might go back and neaten up the drubrushing job - its a light grey over a dark grey over black undercoat, and it's quite rough in places. I am quite happy with how the eagle doors and skulls turned out, though.



Seen from above, you can get a sense of the scale, and the colours. I kept the debris to small pieces in the corners - rather than go all out, and cover the floor with it. No wobbly model syndrome here!



I couldn't resist putting my IG platoon command squad in, to get a sense of scale and form. I think it works, and we also get some closeups on the skull-covered walls.

Now, for a couple of the scatter pieces! I spent some more time on these, and included my Nurgle Terminator Lord for a sense of scale. Also, his horrid rictus grin adds a certain something to any picture.



This is actually the corner of the smallest part of the cathedral, set up as a stand-alone piece. I really want each piece of the cathedral to be able to work on its own, so that it can be used as a big center-piece, or split up and used in chunks around the table.



Imperial Statuery, with a little flooring. I imagine that a once-proud imperial city has been reclaimed by the jungle. Combining lots of different plants on this base worked quite well, as the varying textures and colours makes it seem less uniform.



And the third piece. The rock is a chunk of cork, and you can also see some of the debris on the Cathedral floor in the background. The large plants in the center of these pieces are all from IKEA - they have a really nice range of colours, shapes and are very easy to "pluck" off the plant. And cheap too!

Left to do now is jungling up the remaining cathedral pieces. I will likely focus on adding a chunk of greenery to a corner, possibly around the debris, and then add the rest around the outside. I am struggling a little with the creepers though, as the fish-tank plants I got for the purpose are a little too big, and the scale throws the eye off.

So, suggestions on how to do some creepers: welcome!

Oh I am so jealous. That looks phenomenal, quite like some of the ridiculously large terrain GW uses in photos.

Bravo!

You don't hang about do you? When i last checked this, you'd just started, check back ,and it's painted and good to go!

Crazy speeds.

Wow! That is some great looking terrain.
Regarding stained glass...the transparency thing is the way to go. I used that for this land raider side doors:

DUDE! that looks really good! I am yealous.... much! Those plants look great.

About the creepers... I can only resuggest hot-gluing a length of wire, as already said in the terrain-comp-thread.

And here is a quick update! I got my jungle on, and worked out some new ways to use the jungle plants that I had. I have a couple of pictures for now, and will upload some more tomorrow. Basically, I found that being a little smart about how I cut the reedy grass pieces off their pegs and bases, I could make them fit up against the walls, so they looked as if they'd grown up that way.

But here we go with pictures! First of all the four cathedral pieces pushed together, and seen from the front. I've not jungled the front up as much as I plan to - I'll see if I can crack the wire/creeper thing first! But the basic idea is to use clumps of greenery to link the corners. I've tried to keep as much of the shrubbery as possible on the edges, so that it doesn't eat the space to place miniatures, while still giving a sense of an overgrown building.



Now, from the other side. I went slightly overboard with the plants on the rear section of the cathedral. I may take some of it out again, because I think it will hard to transport without damage.



And from above, showing how the greenery is outside the floorspace, except for little bits that stick up around the debris. This is where cutting the little circular bases of reedy grass really paid off, as I could shove them into gaps in the debris, almost as if I'd planned it that way. I rather like the greenery/debris contst, so if I do a central piece of the cathedral (which will also double as an overgrown city plaza) then I think I might put a ruddy great tree in the middle, and break up the floor around it.



More pics tomorrow, hopefully showing the pieces in some more detail, and also the raw materials!

Also, thanks for all of the comments. It really inspires me to get things done.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think I have a solution to how to make creepers. Pipe cleaners, washed and painted in varying shades of green, with flock of various colours added in to make them more organic looking. The internal wire in the pipecleaners should help me position them exactly where I want them too!

I'll take a look at this next!

So, here are some detail pictures of the individual parts of the Cathedral. Still work in progress, of course. I need to blend the aquarium plants into their bases, which our good friend flock will help us with.

















Also, I took some pictures of the individual pieces of plants that I've been using. These first come partly from IKEA, and partly from a pet-store, so it was quite lucky that they match so nicely in their style, while still having enough colour difference to add variety.



As you can see, I generally "grew" the longer pieces out of smaller reedy/grassy pieces that I placed along walls, around debris, or in clumps.



These pieces come in round bases that make them fairly easy to glue down, and with some clipping into smaller pieces, they can also be worked into corners and debris. I will need to blend them by gluing some flock to the base, and around it, to merge it into the terrain piece, though.



So far, so good! All that remains now, is to look a bit more at the front of the piece, to add in some more greenery, and creepers! (Assuming the pipe-cleaner + flock idea words)

Really sweet stuff, very impressed

needs to be bigger , but really nice job

I think the tiling has been done really well and fits nicely with the walls,

Looking very nice

this is a really awesome project! random observation: the aquarium plants look a bit shiny in many of the photos. maybe spray them with some matte varnish so they blend in better with the rest of the greenery? also, will you be washing the stonework to dirty it up/age it or has that already been done? looking forward to seeing more progress on this

Again, many thanks for the kind words

@Varl The flash on my phone's camera is really unforgiving with the glossiness. It does look better in less artificial light. But a light drybrush over the larger sections of it might be a good idea, to make the colours less uniform, and dull them down a little. While real jungle plants often have glossy leaves, if it looks wrong on the tabletop, then it IS wrong.

The colours are more true here - so the lighting really does affect it:



The walls are pretty roughly drybrushed (with some help from my 3 year old daughter), and I might light to go back and give them a little more love - but I'll have to see about that. Short attention span is short!

@Sgt.Roadkill Bigger terrain is ALWAYS better That is the reason why I made it as a modular piece, rather than a single large one - I can always make new bridging pieces in order to extend. I will most likely be doing a central plaza / pillared procession to go in the middle.

And when it's done or "done" I'll stage some pictures of the various combinations it can be set up in!

And here is the final set of updates, I think! The Cathedral is done, and barring sudden inspiration about creepers, or a wish to mess with drybrushing on the plants, I think it will go into a box, to await it's debut battle!

To finish off, I I spent some time working some static grass in and around the aquarium plants, and also breaking up the green-painted sand with spots of grass. All in all, I think the effect works.



I also added a lot more of the long reedy/grassy pieces to the front of the Cathedral, going for a really over-grown look. When I do roads, or more pieces of scatter terrain, I will definitely abuse this technique!

The static grass also really helped to blend the debris and long shoots together, I think.





All of the pieces put togther gives us a rather unified looking cathedral. I'm quite pleased with how the greenery connects the pieces together, regardless of the actual gaps between the walls. I think it will also help to blend it into the tabletop when the pieces are used seperate from each other. I'll see if I can stage some pieces on a larger table to check that out, though. If not before, then for my next set of battles, sometime in January!











I've also uploaded all of the work-in-progress pictures from bits of plastic-card flooring to the final cathedral in a gallery, for your view convenience. (with shameless gallery plug link here)

Once again, many thanks for the really positive comments, and advice! It's been an eye opener posting to an open and mature community, and it really helps with the motivation, too!

Looks damn awesome.

after your recent pics you´ve posted in the competitions thread (hint to all the others...link is in my sig...) i thought... mebbe he has a thread of his own already...

will be following your progress now !

by the way... i just realized what is selling your ruin for me... it is that weird mix of lighting... first that harsh flash photography that really gave the walls of the ruins an eerie feel... now that more warmer look due to the lamplight... looks almost like a sunset to me...

This looks great! If only I had such terrain at home