I'm very glad you're finding my tutorials helpful Knightley. Thanks for the feedback!

Try as I might, I simply could not get these images to load right side up. Anyway, here's a brief update for the modular sidewalks I'm making. I bought a package of these little wooden rectangles:


And added them to the preexisting model. Turns out they fit perfectly in the gaps I had left to fill:


Just pretend we're in space and you're looking at my terrain from above because of Zero G and everything will seem normal. Thanks for looking! Have an awesome day (in space).

So I base coated the tall spire I textured with my thumb:


It's probably going to need a second coat when I get up to this place again.

Then I started painting this leaning stone mesa:


First with a Phthalo Blue:


And then, because I decided to reevaluate this advice:

 Red Harvest wrote:
Some color to a few of those layers? Sedimentary rock tends to have different colored layers. See the Painted Desert for inspiration... I did

I added some of this color to the base coat in random splotches:


Here I mixed it right on my palette while both colors were still wet:


And the results:


I then started more or less randomly adding brown and red drybrushes to the rock face and base (also lost track of how many pictures I took).


And then some off-white color in random splotches on the rock face and the stones around the bottom of it. At some point in time I also added an ink wash of phthalo blue to the whitened stones and a red ink wash to the stone itself and the base.


It's not exactly the Painted Hills, Red Harvest, but I really like the way it came out. Thanks for the advice, sorry I had trouble taking it the first time around.

Then I moved on to flock and static grass:


Thanks for looking! Have an awesome day everyone! C&C always welcome.

I also did a little work on the stairs:



I used a pot of paint to make sure the planks glued securely to the side of the stairs:


That's it. Just a quick update today, Thanks for looking!

So apparently, and totally without realizing it, I've been holding out on you guys. I had uploaded these photos awhile ago and then life got real busy and I forgot to show them off. D'oh! Anyway, here is the piece in question before:


Here to show some scale and beautiful texture work (as I toot my own horn):


And then after sealing it and using some old plastic trees to create some scrubby "plants":


Thanks for looking and have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

Looking good dude

I like the scrubby plants. Very desert-ish. I'll need to borrow the idea.

Nice work on the stairs and the rocky / muddy ground.

Nice use of the trees. I wonder which way the wind blows around there...

Could probably use some smaller bits of vegetation around those trees though, but that's me.

Gorgeous work on the rocks - very realistic...

 JoeRugby wrote:
Looking good dude

Thanks very much, JoeRugby.

 Red Harvest wrote:
I like the scrubby plants. Very desert-ish. I'll need to borrow the idea.

More than welcome to, Red.

 Dr H wrote:
Nice work on the stairs and the rocky / muddy ground.

Nice use of the trees. I wonder which way the wind blows around there...

Could probably use some smaller bits of vegetation around those trees though, but that's me.

Thanks, Dr H! There's yet more work to do and I agree more vegetation will look better. Some scrubby plants of some sort I think.

 Ruglud wrote:
Gorgeous work on the rocks - very realistic...

Thanks, Ruglud!

Thanks for all the feedback folks. More photos of more stuff soon!

I had another craft night with the ladies. While they knit, I build:


Garlic trees:


And clothes pin trees:


And some sort of new fangled tree:


More pics up when I start painting 'em. C&C always welcome. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

Those are looking fantastic , are they going to be bright colours or more earthy? I like the fact that some of them seem to have love heart shaped bases.

Some funky looking trees. Very alien. Looks good!

 Grag wrote:
Those are looking fantastic , are they going to be bright colours or more earthy? I like the fact that some of them seem to have love heart shaped bases.

Thanks, Grag! Yep, they totally do have heart shaped bases! I haven't really decided on a color scheme yet. It will probably be a mix of vibrant and earthy, though.


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 ckig wrote:
Some funky looking trees. Very alien. Looks good!

Thanks very much ckig! More photos up soon.

Awhile back I made this:


Which is a rubber mold of one of these (the base, not the ork):


Recently I poured a 2-part resin mixture into it and took photos of the results:


And then, of course, promptly lost the copy. Sigh, oh well. Guess I'll have to start again. Progress photos up soon.

Various assorted WIP shots for terrains. Tutorials up tomorrow or Sunday.



C&C always welcome! Thanks for looking!

very good work! will be the same on some ideas ! Could you help with an idea for - mushrooms. forest mushrooms.(очень хорошие работы! буду равнятся на некоторые идеи! не могли бы вы, помочь с идеей для - грибов. лес грибов.)
sorry for my english . automatic translator .

How are the spires n crags going?

How many plants bases are you up to? Look forward to seeing some pics of the collections set up as a table

Good to see more terrain happening over here. Welcome back.

Thanks for the feedback everyone! It's great to be back. I'm going up to the place where I'm building the rocks and spires on Wednesday so there will be updates in a few days. I'll definitely put a tutorial up for forest mushrooms. Can you elaborate on your idea, kenderthistle?


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 kenderthistle wrote:
very good work! will be the same on some ideas ! Could you help with an idea for - mushrooms. forest mushrooms.(очень хорошие работы! буду равнятся на некоторые идеи! не могли бы вы, помочь с идеей для - грибов. лес грибов.)
sorry for my english . automatic translator .

Спасибо вам большое, kenderthistle. Ваша идея лесных грибов - Вы имеете в виду, как маленькие грибы поганки, что можно найти в лесу или вы имеете в виду, как гигантские грибы, как высокий, как дерево. Лес грибами или лесными грибами? Кроме того, извините за мой русский. Я использовал Google Translate.

хочется все варианты. грибы высотой как дерево. маленькие грибы, которые растут на грунте. грибы паразиты, которые растут на деревьях. комнатные растения в горшочках
я нарисовал несколько скетчей. но орки любят награбленные идеи .
хочу сделать грядку грибов. и прикрепить плакат " ясли ". в русском языке есть фразеологизм - Дети - цветы жизни.
вариант для моих орков и гротов - Дети - грибы жизни!

want all the options. mushrooms tall as a tree. small mushrooms that grow on the ground. fungi parasites that grow on trees. houseplants in pots
  I drew a few sketches. but like orcs looted ideas.
I want to make a bed of mushrooms. and attach the poster "nursery". In Russian there phraseologism(idiome) - Children - flowers of life
option for my orcs and grottoes - Children - mushrooms life!

любимец моего БигМека - гриб по имени "Игорь". my darling BigMek - mushroom named "Igor".

Some really alien looking scenery coming out here 'Zag

Nice work. Have any tutorials for these?

 angelofvengeance wrote:
Some really alien looking scenery coming out here 'Zag

Nice work. Have any tutorials for these?

In fact, I do. I'll start with the garlic tree because that's the one I found all the step by step pictures for first.

I bought a bag of styrofoam play vegetables. You might find them in a toy store or an arts and crafts store. Probably any store that sells "teaching toys" like those made by Melissa & Doug.



Pull the straw out of the top like so:



Then chop the round bottom off with a sharp knife (so as to make a smooth/flat surface):


Dry fit it to a wooden disk (I get mine from craft stores; they cost like 30 cents USD):


Before hotgluing the piece to the base:


I also add some of the chopped off nubs on some of the pieces. I also reinforce the join with extra hotglue so it stays put later during the build:


Then poke a hole in the top where the straw was (I used my closed clippers to make the hole large enough). Once you have your hole take a length of 18 gauge floral wire (again craft shops) or cut-offs from other fake plastic plants and hotglue them into that top hole:


Then proceed to coat your piece with hotglue, creatively:


Then, using elmer's glue (white glue), add craft sand:


Next steps tomorrow. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

Perfect alien world plant life. I'll have to make a few sometime. Maybe give a few a cactus like quality...

But leaving the stickers on the bases like that... It would drive me nuts not to remove them. I salute you for having the strength to do it

The stickers don't come off easily and I work on hundreds of pieces simultaneously. It's an extra and utterly unnecessary step. They will be covered by hotglue, paint, sand, and everything else in the final product anyway. To take the time to remove them is meaningless.

So here's the tail end of the "garlic tree" tutorial, at least as far as I've gotten with its construction:

Apply a liberal coating of this stuff:


For this effect:


Then paint in colors that you like (apparently I'm fond of rust red and poop brown):


When I apply more color I will post more pictures of the next steps. Thanks for looking! C&C always welcome. More tomorrow.

Those are wild alien trees

Great tutorial.

Like everyone else I love your alien forest landscape.

Did we ever get a table top shot of a forest? I think it would be spectacular.

Another vote for a table shot here.

 Camkierhi wrote:
Great tutorial.

Like everyone else I love your alien forest landscape.

Did we ever get a table top shot of a forest? I think it would be spectacular.

I wish I could guys, but I've sold most of my creations. However, next Thursday I'm going to that store I'm doing the crag table commission at and I'll bring what I have. They have tables there and I'll get something akin to a table shot that way. Thanks for the high praise!

I got some more work done at that store over this past weekend. First up is a "shanty" building that someone else at the store had built and I am attempting to "pretty up" as best I can (space marine scout for scale purposes):



Then this ugly thing that I smashed apart for parts:


It broke apart far too easily. Weak glue (I'm guessing whoever assembled it used krazy glue, which is terrible for long term rigidity). They also hadn't bothered to clean the edges of the pieces so everything was stuck together by the merest of joins. I filed each piece down and repurposed them for this work in progress:


First, I made the decision that I was not going to make or detail an interior for this piece (working on the other piece with the wood paneling interior taught me not to mess with buildings models can get into unless I'm charging a lot more). I traced the exterior outline of the windows and drew covers:


I used an exacto blade to cut them out and trim them to fit. Then applied some wood glue to the window frames like so:


And glued the covers into place. I decided I wanted to use the interiors for exteriors because it just looks different. Plus the doors look more industrial like that:


Of course then I realized I had assembled the first 2 walls a little crookedly and had to carve out a groove in the foam to make sure the walls would align properly:


Test fitting the walls in the groove:


And finishing it in place:


Then I test fit a potential roof or floor. This is as far as I got on this piece this time around:


I also did some work on another building. I could not for the life of me remember what I was trying to do with these foamcore pieces so I just made it up as I went along before finally settling on completing another section of wall. Here is a bunch of pictures showing my thinky process:


Here's the glued on wall. First, I cut a groove in one piece of the foamcore so the sheets would glue flush:


Then I cut a couple of right angle wedges to make sure the corners stayed square (or at least square-ish):


I used like a million (give or take several thousand) pins to hold the wall in place:


All the writing on the exterior shows that I have plans to detail the exterior. This new wall has no guidelines written, but that doesn't mean there won't be any details!


Anyway, thanks for looking. I'll post up more shortly. C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

A great bit of recycling there.

What's the big building going to be in the end? The doors halfway up are throwing me, otherwise I would have said an admin building.

if you want to save having to put in so many pins in, I found putting the pins in at 45 degree angles kept my joints really well with just a few pins.

 JoeRugby wrote:
A great bit of recycling there.

What's the big building going to be in the end? The doors halfway up are throwing me, otherwise I would have said an admin building.

I'm hoping to build a staircase up the back of the giant rock that leads to a balcony that reaches the upper story door. I thought the building would be administrative as well and because I'm not detailing the interior I wanted to make the exterior more than just a giant line of sight blocker. In other words balconies, walkways, and dynamic roofs.

Next up are what I'm calling "pom trees". I started with some wooden silhouette shapes, some packing styrofoam, some wooden beads, and some wooden drawer pegs. Except for the styrfoam, one can find all of these materials in a local craft store or online relatively easily.



After white gluing the styrofoam to the silhouette, i dug a few divots into the it and hot glued the drawer pegs into them:





Sometimes you have to hold them in place at the angle you want until the hot glue cools enough that it will stand on its own. Once in place, I reinforced the join with more hot glue and then created a loose stripey pattern on the "stems" of the drawer pegs and some roots across the foam and base:





Then I put a dollop of hot glue on the tops of the pegs and glued on the wooden beads:




Once everything was cool I coated the entire piece with a liberal coating of sand texture gel and white glued craft sand & some small stones to the base:



After the sand and gel texture dried, I went back and gave it a coat of watered down white glue to seal the sand and rocks in place. Then I painted them (as you can see, on some of the bases I also added some straw-holes for variety). These aren't at their final color highlight, but I'll save that for the end:




Next, I took 2 varieties of fake flower head and butchered them for parts:









Then combined them for effect:


Dry-fitted them:


And finally finished painting the Pom Trees and hotglued the fake plant bits into the beads' top holes:




Tada! Pom Trees:






Thanks for looking. Have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

from the humble origins of where these pieces start off... the end result is truly believable! Really cool looking but truly alien...

You are single-handedly convincing me I need to get a hot-glue gun.

Good work. All looking great.

Do you make much profit on selling these (if you don't mind me asking)? I'm seeing something similar in scale in my future.

Liking the enclosed industrial building too. Good idea to use the inside.

 Dr H wrote:
You are single-handedly convincing me I need to get a hot-glue gun.

Good work. All looking great.

Thanks! [Also, I own 4 hot glue guns]

Do you make much profit on selling these (if you don't mind me asking)? I'm seeing something similar in scale in my future.

They don't sell often, but when someone does buy them they turn out quite a handsome profit. The materials per base cost me about $2 or $3, although when I buy materials I buy in bulk and when I build terrain, I build in bulk. I sell them in lots of three bases for around $30, so I make about $20 profit for every 3 I sell. I'm starting to make rubber molds and plastic casts, which will reduce the time it takes to make pieces, if not the cost. It can be a slim margin of gain if you aren't mass producing product.


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 MagosBiff90 wrote:
from the humble origins of where these pieces start off... the end result is truly believable! Really cool looking but truly alien...

Thanks very much, MagosBiff90!

Amazing trees!!!

 nflagey wrote:
Amazing trees!!!

Thanks kindly, nflagey!

Here is the finished craggy spire, with some chaos models for scale in some shots and on another piece of terrain to show the versatility of the board.










Think you guys could vote on these in the galleries? Show both me and the community some support? Thanks a bunch. Thanks for looking. C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

Are those all done with foam?
Look really great ... and since I have a square foot of such foam lying around, I may steal your idea

 nflagey wrote:
Are those all done with foam?
Look really great ... and since I have a square foot of such foam lying around, I may steal your idea

Pink insulation foam, yes.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
...Also, I own 4 hot glue guns]

I'll start with one and work up from there.

Do you make much profit on selling these (if you don't mind me asking)? I'm seeing something similar in scale in my future.

They don't sell often, but when someone does buy them they turn out quite a handsome profit. The materials per base cost me about $2 or $3, although when I buy materials I buy in bulk and when I build terrain, I build in bulk. I sell them in lots of three bases for around $30, so I make about $20 profit for every 3 I sell. I'm starting to make rubber molds and plastic casts, which will reduce the time it takes to make pieces, if not the cost. It can be a slim margin of gain if you aren't mass producing product.

That's not a bad turn around on material. Time is the silent killer of profit, but on the side of the hobby that's not so much of a problem.

Yeah, casting can be good. A large outlay of money to start with, but it does pay for itself and then some. So long as the moulds last, and there's minimal losses to mis-casts or other problems.

Large rock looks good. Like the blue-ness of the rock.

I've always wondered who buys those heart shaped flat pieces of wood and what they use them for. Your use is much cooler than what I always imagined. Great stuff, although I'm really interested to see more of that giant building you've started a few comments up. Casting isn't bad at all once you get quick with the mix...it's the resin. The fumes man they will melt your face off. Either way keep it coming we are all learning a thing or two from you out here.

Still incredible terrain work!

 Dr.Muchachos wrote:
I've always wondered who buys those heart shaped flat pieces of wood and what they use them for. Your use is much cooler than what I always imagined. Great stuff, although I'm really interested to see more of that giant building you've started a few comments up. Casting isn't bad at all once you get quick with the mix...it's the resin. The fumes man they will melt your face off. Either way keep it coming we are all learning a thing or two from you out here.

I'm very glad to be positively affecting the community! Thanks for the feedback, Dr.Muchachos! I'm going back to the site where the giant building is tomorrow, so I should have an update in a few days.


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 shasolenzabi wrote:
Still incredible terrain work!

Cheers, shasolenzabi!


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 Dr H wrote:
I'll start with one and work up from there.

I buy the miniglueguns. They usually cost about $3-$4 USA, use smaller glue sticks, and are easier to handle. However, they take longer to heat up so I use 4 at a time so I never notice the slack.

Large rock looks good. Like the blue-ness of the rock.

Thanks!

And here's a pile of photos I haven't posted yet, but will bring me up to date on my so far progress:

























Thanks for looking! C&C always welcome.Have an awesome day!

Never used the walls inside out before they do work surprisingly well that way round, much more specialised way of filling in the windows too (I usually just glue a big rectangle of plasticard behind them).

Pom trees work really well as a concept, looks properly sci-fi.

 Ignatius-Grulgor wrote:
Never used the walls inside out before they do work surprisingly well that way round, much more specialised way of filling in the windows too (I usually just glue a big rectangle of plasticard behind them).

Pom trees work really well as a concept, looks properly sci-fi.

Thanks for the feedback, Ignatius-Grulgor! I should have another update for y'all Sunday or Monday evening.

Just a quick update (because I took so many photos of the stuff I was working on that I need to spread it across a few posts...and I also need to cook dinner tonight). There are quite a few half finished terrain pieces at the store I am working at. They are mostly of an "okay" quality. I have been instructed to make them better. So I started with this piece:

This was the quality and condition I found it in. Foam glued down with a loose smattering of texture. I could go on for hours and pages of text about my arguments against this kind of texturing, but alas the butternut squash is not going to cook itself. A summary would be - don't texture surfaces like this. It looks like you glued some rocks in a clump to a masonite base. After you paint it it will STILL look like you glued a bunch of rocks to a base because the flat masonite where you didn't glue any rocks to is still flat; it's just a different color. Probably the same color as the clump of rocks you glued to the part of the base where they are sitting right now.



Also, don't use white packing styrofoam. It is too soft to hold up to the rigors of game play, much less the rigors of turning it into terrain. It will get smashed and ruin all your hard work before you are even halfway through, no matter how much glue you slather it with in an attempt to "strengthen" it. It was the first thing I broke off when I got started.

I used this...


...to hide the foam and the rocks, and to smooth all the hard edges of the pink block:





Incidentally, now the piece weighs about 5 pounds (2 and a half kilograms).

Next, I hand-mashed some of these aquarium gravel stones into the still-drying clay exterior:







And then these, which are pulverized walnut shells that you can pick up at a pet store or craft store:






And then craft sand for which I have no picture, but you'll have to believe me that I got it at a craft store and that it is exceptionally fine:





I applied the sand deliberately sparsely and hope that the clay will crack between now and when I return in a few days. Then I'll seal it and paint it and you will see the miles (or kilometers, if you prefer) of difference between the original and my improvement.

Thanks for looking! C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

I saw a croissant and now I can't unsee it!

 Ignatius-Grulgor wrote:
I saw a croissant and now I can't unsee it!

That would be the crunchiest and worst-tasting croissant in the history of bread.

Good work on the colourful plants, 'boss.

Nice improvements on the croissant-rock piece.

Those plants were so bright! Makes me recount the odd camo schemes from the old RT book

Thanks for the feedback Dr H and shasolenzabi! Yeah, I know what you mean shas. Like those yellow and black tiger stripe patterns on the space marines? I remember thinking that that pattern would only work on a very specific world.

I really liked the way the Peg trees turned out, I was worry for a few moments as they were slightly... well phallic, but well recovered!!

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:

 Ignatius-Grulgor wrote:
I saw a croissant and now I can't unsee it!

That would be the crunchiest and worst-tasting croissant in the history of bread.

You've clearly not had a Croissant from Asda before

Terrain is looking great dude,

 SJM wrote:
I really liked the way the Peg trees turned out, I was worry for a few moments as they were slightly... well phallic, but well recovered!!

Heh. Any potential "tree" is likely to look phallic to begin with.


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 JoeRugby wrote:

That would be the crunchiest and worst-tasting croissant in the history of bread.

You've clearly not had a Croissant from Asda before

Terrain is looking great dude,

Thanks, Joe! And no, I don't even know what Asda is. A cafe chain, I guess?

Knowing a wee bit of other countries and such, Asda is a Food or grocery chain, and based on what he says, they have issues baking decent bread products in their stores

I am now an official builder of my LFGS' terrain, all thanks to you!

lliu wrote:
I am now an official builder of my LFGS' terrain, all thanks to you!

Cool! Glad I could help, lliu! That sounds awesome!


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Also, here are some pictures of the finished leaner rock piece:









More progress reports for you all tomorrow evening. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

I did some work on the frames of the windows on this building that will eventually have an interior and a second floor. I rubbed air dry clay around the cardstock window frames and door frame to fill in any gaps that were caused by the dried glue and warp:




I'm hoping it will look like concrete when it's all painted. Next up I filled in some gaps on this piece that I refuse to make an interior for:








I even bothered to try to draw in some ruts where the door would've opened up to. I'm not sure if they got obliterated or not when I applied sand:




I applied the sand less densely in front of the door to try to simulate frequent wear:


Next I took this poorly painted thing:



And smashed it for parts. I took all the intact basillica windows and filed down the interior window frames as well as cleaned up the edges where I would eventually rejoin them together and plucked off all the rivets from the long joiny posts:



Then I cut very sophisticated interior window covers:


And glued them in place with wood glue. I had to hold them in place for about a minute or they started to come up at the edges:



Then I needed to account for the fact that the foam was slightly higher than the walls of the first floor, so I measured and filed/cut grooves for the second story walls:



Then started gluing on the second story (I decided to use the exterior of the basillica walls because I intend to put a flat roof on this piece):



And that's as far as I got on that project last Thursday. I was supposed to go up again today, but a snow storm hit and I've postponed till Monday. I've cleared a space in the back of my car for my tub of jungle terrain because I totally forgot to bring it up last time. I'm also currently in negotiations with a more local store for another terrain commission so this blog might start getting pretty crowded with projects. Anyway, thanks for looking and have an awesome day everyone! C&C always welcome.

Here's the next piece of that giant building. I went back and looked at my building notes...and cried. I sure did make this build super complicated for myself. Basically, I can't cut a straight line to save my life. So the idea of creating a massive building made up of intricately hand-cut puzzle pieces is completely insane. I took this oversized and just a little too short panel, measured it against the building as a whole and chopped it down to size:



More pictures on that in a moment. Then I took a much smaller piece that was, no surprise, exactly the right size and shape, & cut grooves in both edges so it would fit flush with the jutting out part of the bottom of what I've made so far:




See how that last picture illustrates the impossibility of straight? Yeah...

Dry fit:



Everything glued and pinned into place:






Have I mentioned how much I dislike assembling intact buildings? Anyway, thanks for looking and have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

Good progress. Interested to see how you paint up the blocked in windows.

 Dr H wrote:
Good progress. Interested to see how you paint up the blocked in windows.

Thanks, Dr H. I'm pretty curious about that myself. My intention is to black prime the interiors so it's nothing but darkness within, but I'm not really sure if I should paint the cardstock to emulate a glass window pane or if I should make it look like a metal shutter. Any ideas? Input appreciated.

The problem I see with making them shutters is that they are on the inside of the windows, so you would still have to paint in the glass.

However, a gloss black would probably work fine as a dark interior though glass.

A full multi-story builing! That will stand tall in the battles!

I feel your pain about making life difficult for yourself... Keep it going though, I'm impatient (ha!) to see how this build turns out! Oh, and on the window front, my vote would be for shutters - more in keeping with the industrial feel, and probably easier to achieve than glass..?

Warboss_waaazag loving your work mate, keep it going


Alan

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:

 Dr H wrote:
Good progress. Interested to see how you paint up the blocked in windows.

Thanks, Dr H. I'm pretty curious about that myself. My intention is to black prime the interiors so it's nothing but darkness within, but I'm not really sure if I should paint the cardstock to emulate a glass window pane or if I should make it look like a metal shutter. Any ideas? Input appreciated.

I think I'd be tempted to;
Cut out the windows
Put in clear plastikard in the window spaces for window panes
Put black/dark dark grey painted card at the back

That way you get some depth in your windows and the black card stops light getting in and giving away that the building is empty.

 JoeRugby wrote:

I think I'd be tempted to;
Cut out the windows
Put in clear plastikard in the window spaces for window panes
Put black/dark dark grey painted card at the back

That way you get some depth in your windows and the black card stops light getting in and giving away that the building is empty.

Hmmm, that might win the prize. I'm limited to working with materials at the site, but I'm pretty sure I can find something that could stand in for clear plasticard. Like blister plastic. I think I might buff one side to see if that gives it a more realistic feel. Glossy side out, buffed side in. We'll see, I'm going back up to the store tomorrow.

Thanks for all the feedback everyone!

So this next piece is a shorter version of this hill. It started looking like a block of butter. So I used the air dry clay to cover that up. This thing I broke apart and glued to 4 separate bases:







Once the clay was one I started hand-pressing aquarium rocks into it to create the first layer of detail:








Next came the pulverized walnut shell:






And finally the sand:



This Thursday I go up to see how it has survived the past 2 weeks and hopefully seal them.

Next project are these craters. They were literally glued to old AOL cds:



This is what they looked like before I started working on them:


And then after. This is just building up the base with air dry clay and mashing various sizes of texture into the drying clay. I used the larger aquarium gravel sparingly as bombs have a tendency to annihilate what they land on, turning everything into pulverized dust. I also wet my finger and smoothed the interior craters after I applied the texture to try to sublimate the debris into the clay.





Here you can see the styrofoam the previous builder tried to use to build up the lip of the crater:


I used the sand sparsely on these, because I thought it would look better:





I believe this brings me up to date. Next photos will either be from a new project or from this Thursday's sojourn. Thanks for looking! Have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

Ah well, if you are willing to cut out the card to add "glass", then yes, do that.

Good work on the rocks 'n' craters.

 Dr H wrote:
Ah well, if you are willing to cut out the card to add "glass", then yes, do that.

Good work on the rocks 'n' craters.

Thanks, Dr H. I'm not sure what I'm going to do. It was a lot of effort to make the cut outs and now that the building is mostly assembled, I'm not sure I want to alter it that much. They aren't paying me a fortune, so I'm not hell bent on perfection. We'll have to see come this Thursday.

Such desert like terrain! makes me thirsty!

Just a quick update. I did some more work on that shanty. I ran out of red sand and had to break open the black sand bag. So I added a line of finer dirt along the edge of the building's base and scattered across the top of the roof. My intention is to put some grass growing up there, too.





While the glue is still wet and the sand has crawled up the side of the walls (like it does when you sift it onto a piece) I use my thumb or index finger to scrape the sand off the lower wall. Otherwise when it dries it looks like you've applied sand to a wall and not like dirt has collected at the base of said wall. I swiped it to one side and let it get wedged into the crack between the corner planks and the wall itself.

Here's the roof:



And then I base coated the entire thing in this horrible brown poop color:



Thanks for looking! Have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

Always enjoy your buildings, and that is a truly disgusting colour

Nasty color. That really has to be from the Oops we mixed it wrong shelf at the DIY.

The screen used for the windows, I can't figure out where it is from, and I don't recall you mentioning it. Help an old man with a fading memory?

Shanty is how big? if large enough, maybe a small shanty bar?

 Red Harvest wrote:
Nasty color. That really has to be from the Oops we mixed it wrong shelf at the DIY.

The screen used for the windows, I can't figure out where it is from, and I don't recall you mentioning it. Help an old man with a fading memory?

I actually didn't build this one, but the window screens would be from a needlepoint mesh. They sell them in craft stores, fabric stores, and yarn shops, typically. They come in a variety of colors and shapes, & density of holes. They need to be soaked in warm soapy water before use, though because they can be quite waxy. I use it as cheap window screens, deck plating, and the like.

Also, this poop color came from the "mistake" collection at the local DIY store (in the states that's Lowes or Home Depot). There's usually a paint section where they will make custom colors for customers. Occasionally those mixes turn out terrible, but they save the samples for people like me to ask for and buy on the super cheap.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 shasolenzabi wrote:
Shanty is how big? if large enough, maybe a small shanty bar?

It's barely 4" (10cm) square. It almost annoys me that whoever built it just made one. Forces me to contemplate making more. They're simple buildings to construct, but they are ugly as hell.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Always enjoy your buildings, and that is a truly disgusting colour

Thanks very much!

Ah limited occupancy hovels! A whole town would make a good battle zone

Ah needlepoint. Thanks for the answer. I thought it might be something like that. And I get a lot of paint that way. The employees at the local DIY seem to have trouble with mixing browns and greens, which suits me fine.

This may sound wrong but...

I am a fan of your Poo Hut.

Yea that definitely sounded wrong. :*(

Pooh insulation against the acid rains

 JoeRugby wrote:
This may sound wrong but...

I am a fan of your Poo Hut.

Yea that definitely sounded wrong. :*(

Ooooh....ah...thanks?

 shasolenzabi wrote:
Ah limited occupancy hovels! A whole town would make a good battle zone

Yeah, I was thinking the same. It's more work to do before this project finally gets finished. Sigh. A builder's work is never done.

Anyway, moving on to other poop topics. The cd craters survived 2 weeks without my attention I would say, "okay". Only one had real, significant damage and that was the one that had insulation foam on it and not just pulverized walnut shell. Most of the damage was due to cracking of the dried clay and I expected as much to happen:








I touched them all up with more debris and black craft sand:




And repaired the damaged one:



Before base coating them and the ridge piece with poop:



I should have these craters painted up next Thursday when I go back. Thanks for looking. Have an awesome day. I have to go cook now because starving (lamb burgers and cauliflower). C&C always welcome!

The cracked clay could have been used for say, deserty scenery? Still repairs seem to have fixed the cracking issues.

Oh and the Hanomag is about 7.5 inches long, a Beefy ride!

 shasolenzabi wrote:
The cracked clay could have been used for say, deserty scenery? Still repairs seem to have fixed the cracking issues.

The air dry clay is going to crack. That's not something that can honestly be solved easily. The cracking is because I'm applying it very thinly and not immediately sealing it. The clay becomes brittle very quickly. If I were to make dry earth or deserty terrain I would use a crackle medium instead of the clay, personally.

Anyway, thanks for commenting. Now I can add another update and have it post!

Since I already put up a picture of the ridge base-coated, I'll show my progress on that. This is what it looked like when I came back and sealed it with a 70:30 mix of wood glue and water:




Again, you can see some minor cracking in the clay, but nothing that threatens the integrity of the whole piece. Then it got this poop coat:


Followed by a heavy drybrush of this blue:







Followed by a heavy drybrush of this red:


I did some basic mixing of the colors right on my palette:


For this effect (sorry about how some of the photos look like the color has been blown out, the local lighting really muted the blues and reds, so I was forced to use the auto adjust feature on the uploads to make the colors more noticeable and true):







If you'll notice, in some cases I didn't even wait for the underlying brown to completely dry. This helps blend the colors on the piece a little better. Next up I used this color:


And again palette blended:



To get this:






And then I went completely flying rodent gak crazy and started painting individual stones in a medium grey I forgot to take a picture of, the oxide red, and the original poop brown.








And finally used this:


As my final highlight top coat:




And then I glued on some flock:










Thursday I seal the flock on and add static grass and then I can finally call this piece done. Phew! Thanks for looking and have an awesome day. C&C always welcome.

Oh, that thing looked so disturbing when it was just painted with your poo paint.

Good job on the final result.

"Quick! get behind that ridge! set the mortar for firing ASAP!"

I don't know why I think this hill looks like a wolf's head, but I do. Here's the same process I did on the ridge, except this time in larger Line of sight blocking form.

Heavy cracking, but nothing that actually damaged the piece:




Horrible poop color base coat:


Followed by indigo drybrush:






Then red oxide overbrush:









Then palette mix of off-white and red to create a pinkish color to drybrush-highlight:










Hand painted individual stones:






And white highlight to top it all off:






And finally flock:






Here's a picture of both recent hills together, with a metal scout for scale purposes:


And then a bunch of shots of what these might have looked like before I began, because I took that tall stack of styrofoam and broke it apart to mount on 3 separate bases:










And I leave you with what appears to be a bug that was not only crushed to death by the masonite, but also seems to have become embedded into it as well:


Thanks for looking and have an awesome day.

Tomorrow I go back to the site and continue work on the numerous projects I've begun, including that really tall building. And, with luck, I'll remember to bring my jungle terrain collection to take photos of while I'm there. Cheers!

The good news is that I finally remembered to put my jungle terrain in the car. The bad news is that I still haven't arrived at the site yet. But fear not! I WILL get pictures of my jungles in all their glory today! And post about a million (give or take) pictures of the results soon. Cheers!

Yay been waiting ages for a table pic of your Xeno jungle.

So I took this hill:


Used a manticore to measure out a template of reasonable size on the top:



And chopped it down to size:


Then I butchered it into shape, cutting grooves into it here and there:





Used my rasp to smooth the shape:




And a sanding block to soften it all:







Put wood glue and rocks in the grooves:







Then, using this beautiful mix of various sized shake:


I textured up the hillside and hilltop:









And black craft sand to smooth out the top and add filler to the sides:



Followed by my now ubiquitous poop base color:


That's as far as I've gotten with that so far. Next up is a mountain of pictures showcasing my gluing-styrofoam-to-a-sheet-of-masonite skills. These will be the foundations of a ruined city:









This is just packaging styrofoam:


More will be revealed with time. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

That's looking interesting indeed. What do you seal your sand etc with?

 inmygravenimage wrote:
That's looking interesting indeed. What do you seal your sand etc with?

Thanks, inmygravenimage. I use a 70:30 mix of wood glue to water. Sometimes I add an equal amount of paint (7 parts glue, 3 parts water mixed till the glue dissolves completely, and then 7 parts paint or thereabouts). It depends on what my resources are like at the time (mostly meaning how much base color paint I have). In the case of the poop brown I have a huge tub of it, but I only have a small amount of the indigo color I used to base coat the much taller rocky crags.

Sorry to keep you waiting so long, JoeRugby, but here finally are pictures of my alien jungle terrain all sprawled out on a regulation 6x4 table. Enjoy:


















C&C always welcome. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

I realized I will be making some buildings in the near future, so I decided to build a prototype and a tutorial walk through at the same time. I didn't get very far, but I'll post what I have so far.

I started with a scrap piece of foam core from which I had cut a 2" by 3" rectangle out of already. I figured I'd cut at an angle and have a perfectly aligned two story building:


Not so perfect:


So I used the short piece as a straight edge and measuring device:




Much better:


I decided I wanted floors so I used one wall again as a straight edge and tool:


Exactly the width of the foam core:


In case there was any confusion in the future:


And then the first floor and roof, too:


Then I thought to use a T-square for measurements. I used to have a 12" one made of plastic, but I couldn't find that one. So I was forced to use the T-square I used in college. Sigh, it's a bit long:


Anyway, I aligned both pieces and marked where the lines of the first would be on the second:



And then used the longest T-square to extend those lines all the way across the foam core:


Then I aligned both pieces to mark the join:



Then I used a 40k scale space marine and a Dreamforge Eisenkern as reference for the width of my windows. I decided on half inch width (that's roughly 5cm):



I also decided to have the windows start 3/4 of an inch from the corner and each be a 1/2 inch away from another (it was just easier):


The trick with straight lines is to make measured marks at 2 or 3 locations on your piece:


And then align the T-square at a factory-straight edge to link them:



Then again, I used the Marine and Eisenkern to determine where the bottom sills of these windows should begin, being sure that their bases sit on the line I determined would be the floor and not the bottom of the foam core sheet:



Measure twice and all that:


I compared using Imperial measurements and Metric to see if one was easier than the other:



Turns out they both sucked. So, I just settled on the closest arbitrary number and duplicated the measurement for the second floor, keeping in mind the thickness of the floor:


Then extended the sill marks on both floors:


And used Marine and Eisenkern to determine the height of the windows. The Eisenkern is slightly shorter than the Marine, so I decided to use the Marine's head as the ultimate deciding factor for height:


(that first mark)

(and then the second)



Duplicating the marks across and on both floors:





Window tops drawn in:


And then, so I don't drive myself bonkers later when I have cut those windows out, I erased the lines between the windows and colored in the windows themselves:




It's almost starting to look like a real building! Also, this was to fix in my brain whether or not I needed to extend the windows on the other wall more than the 3/4" that I had on the other wall. The outer view convinced me of no, that extra 1/4" wouldn't be necessary because the join is meaningless on the exterior (it'll make more sense much later):



Next I marked the window widths on the other wall and the starting and ending heights for same:



Then T-squared the heck out of those marks:




And then made extra marks for more windows because the first wall was shorter than the second. Whoops:


Viola! The second wall windowed up:



That's it for part one. I just want to advocate for the proper use of the T-square. You want it to hang off the edge of your table or work surface, but still remain flush with the edge of the piece you are working on. For me, I used a cutting mat to prop up the foam core. And here I illustrate how when the measuring tool sits on the same level as your piece it isn't flush to its surface (there's a miniscule gap that can affect your measurements):

And flush (in my case there's still a tiny gap, but it isn't substantial enough for my pencil to escape under. Plus when I apply pressure to the T-square with my hand this gap virtually vanishes):


Anyway, thanks for looking. Have an awesome day, and, as always, C&C is always welcome!

The table layout looks great. Nice variety of shapes and colours.

Good tutorial too.

 Dr H wrote:
The table layout looks great. Nice variety of shapes and colours.

Good tutorial too.

Thanks, Dr H. I thought the table looked a little flat, so I'm thinking of building some more dynamic pieces. As I sell most of this terrain and rarely get to use it, I rarely see it all on the same table. Makes me want to get more uniform with my colors and introduce some more ambitious designs. Any suggestions from the audience?

some rocky outcrops with the plants growing out of them would be cool

 kencotter wrote:
some rocky outcrops with the plants growing out of them would be cool

Thanks for the feedback, kencotter. Do you mean like the craggy pieces I've done before except with plants aplenty? Or, hmmm, now that I think about it I could probably do something new that fits that criteria, too.

Awesome, keep the ideas coming folks!

That board looks beautiful! Lovely colours. I think a water feature would fit in nicely with all the plants maybe.

Nice stuff. One of these days I’ll make terrain. But it always get shuffled down the To-Do list.

 ckig wrote:
That board looks beautiful! Lovely colours. I think a water feature would fit in nicely with all the plants maybe.

Hmm, like a swamp? Or a stream? Or a lake? I suppose all of those options would work. Thanks for the feedback, ckig.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nevelon wrote:
Nice stuff. One of these days I’ll make terrain. But it always get shuffled down the To-Do list.

Yeah, I know what you mean, Nevelon. For me it's conversions that often take a back burner. I do both, but I feel like I need to focus on one or the other, for months at a time. Thanks for the feedback.

yeah like the rocks you done already with plants would be awesome

Ambitious designs...hmm...

...Look to nature?
Scour the internet for pictures of what you want to see on the table and then do it.

Nature has produced more interesting/weird/wonderful things than imagination can do many a time.

Plants on rocks sounds good for the time being.

 Dr H wrote:
Ambitious designs...hmm...

...Look to nature?
Scour the internet for pictures of what you want to see on the table and then do it.

Nature has produced more interesting/weird/wonderful things than imagination can do many a time.

Plants on rocks sounds good for the time being.

Good advice. If any body else has ideas please feel free to contribute them any time. I still have in the back of my mind the Mushroom request from kenderthistle from way back on page 11. I haven't forgotten about you! I've just been very, very busy.

Anyway, continuing with the building tutorial, I moved on to the actual cutting of things. After all that careful measuring and lining, I just cut out the windows freehand. I don't know why I prefer it that way, I just do. Anyway, be sure your exacto blade is fresh and sharp before cutting. I lightly cut the surface first, letting the blade do all the work. It's always okay to go over your cuts again and again until they've completely penetrated the foamcore. For me that's usually 3 or 4 strokes per line on the rectangle I've drawn. Also, I'm a righty, so these are "fake action" shots. I did the work with my right hand, then posed my left and took the picture. However, I really do cut stuff pinky out because my little finger helps keep my hand steady as I cut (as I drink a lot of caffeinated beverages which makes minute stability all but impossible for me):


I also press and pull slightly on the part that's going to be cut out with my free hand while I cut. It just seems to make it easier for the pieces to separate or my blade to slice:


I test my technique and steadiness on one window to begin with, finishing all the cuts on the front of the piece until I can feel the blade moving easily all the way through (this typically means the exacto has cleared the paper on the other side):


Then I flip the piece over to check where my lines are and clean up the cuts from there:



It's important to make sure your blade closes the shape and cuts all the way to the corner. Don't worry about perfection at this stage of the production, there's plenty more to come that will cover your mistakes later. And believe me you will make plenty of mistakes. Don't sweat it:


Once I'm satisfied with my cuts I grasp the foam core with one hand, positioning my index and middle finger on the window's frame so that when I push the "blank" out of the hole I've cut the pressure of my fingers doesn't damage the sometimes delicate frame:


Then I use my thumb to "walk" the blank out. Basically this means applying pressure to first one end and then the other, and alternating this pressure until the blank pops out. The action vaguely resembles waddling or walking, so hence the term:




Sometimes this method causes the blank to snag in a corner like it did here:


No worries. Just turn the piece over and reverse the process to free it, walking it out the other side:



Tada!


Once I know how the first window reacts, I do all the remaining floor by floor:







It's almost starting to look like a real building!


Also, always remember to save your cutoffs for later. You never know when having a small chunk of foamcore will come in handy for debris, a wedge, or what have you:


Thanks for looking! C&C always welcome. There's a lot more of this to come, fyi, so stay tuned folks. Have an awesome day.

I'll admit, I dislike working with foamcore, such a PITA, but your tutorial is great and I hope it inspires others to give it a go

 Ruglud wrote:
I'll admit, I dislike working with foamcore, such a PITA, but your tutorial is great and I hope it inspires others to give it a go

Thanks, Ruglud! I like it because it's cheap, comes in easy to work with sizes, and responds well to basic tools, but I understand that not everybody would like it.

Also, thanks for the feedback. Here's an update on the hills I've been working on. First up is the large hill, which dried in the interim between my visits. I touched with indigo first:



Then red oxide:


Overbrushed in pink:


Then picked out a few stones in grey and red:


And finally white overall:


And then flocked in stages:






Tomorrow the above hill will get sealed and grassed just like the ridge and wolfshead hill did last time. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of the hill, but here's the ridge. It doesn't look a whole lot different, but what evs:



I also did some work on another "cd crater":



And here's a picture of what my glue mix looks like before I actually mix it:


More replies equals more updates. Thanks for looking. C&C always welcome.

Forgot to comment on the hill - that's an excellent build / tutorial... really impressive mate and looking forward to the updates

Thanks, Ruglud! I found a picture of the wolfshead Hill with static grass on it. All I took was one picture for some reason:



Thanks for looking, there will be more later or tomorrow to show/see.

Smart looking hill, I like all the textures that go into it,

That static grass mixes well with the other texturing. The hills look like something from the Northernmost latitudes, with the dark soil. Nicely done.

 SJM wrote:
Smart looking hill, I like all the textures that go into it,

 Red Harvest wrote:
That static grass mixes well with the other texturing. The hills look like something from the Northernmost latitudes, with the dark soil. Nicely done.

Thanks for the feedback, guys!

Here's where I last left the shanty:


I had left over paint on my palette and decided to put it to good use. Here are the results:










After several coats I went a little crazy with a blue wash:







And then a brown wash, along with some overbrushing of the base in blue and red:











Then added some grey to the frames and roof:














Then drybrushed the whole thing with a whitish pink:







Added some flock:






ANd some static grass:




Tada! Thanks for looking and have an awesome day. C&C always welcome.

Terrain is all looking good! grassy knolls, rocks and hills, and the shanty too!

Ruined building will be nice as well.

Thanks, shas!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The cd craters got some love, too.

I overbrushed them with blue (while my brush still had some off white paint on it, but eh):




And then red:


And then pink:


And then I wanted the centers of the blasts to be a slightly different color than the rest of the pieces, so I did them first in a medium grey and then in a 2:1 mix of grey and off white (as shown below):




Of course you can see above that I also picked out some rocks in grey and red, and finally treated them with white:


Followed by a teensy tiny amount of flock:


Here they are resting together with the shanty:

To all who were wondering, this is what my glue to water ratio looks like before I mix it:

So I did some work on these hills:




I also trimmed the end bit on that last one a tad (it was leaning off the edge of the base):


Starting with the piece above, I broke out the air dry clay and set to work. I rolled "noodles" of clay and pressed them into the gaps at the base where the styrofoam met the masonite:





And then covered the whole thing:





Then applied large aquarium stones:






I did similarly with this slanty one, by first adding this cast off piece of foam:


And then coating it in clay:





Then added rocks in a variety of places:





And then again with the last (for which I have far fewer pictures):





And then rubbed pulverized walnut shell all over them (again with not enough pictures for some reason):





Here you can see I also sealed them some:


Anyway, that's it for now. Thanks for looking, have an awesome day, and C&C always welcome.

Well you are really knocking it out at the moment. Brilliant work. All looks amazing. Love the table of jungle shots. And the tutorials are spot on. Great stuff.

 Camkierhi wrote:
Well you are really knocking it out at the moment. Brilliant work. All looks amazing. Love the table of jungle shots. And the tutorials are spot on. Great stuff.

Thanks, Cam! Good to have you back.

Looking good! And very useful.. if I ever decide to try my hand at terrain

Very cool stuff man, helpful too since I am starting to build my own table

 Ustrello wrote:
Very cool stuff man, helpful too since I am starting to build my own table

Thanks, Ustrello! Exactly what I'm hoping to do - be helpful to the community by sharing what I love. Have an awesome day!

Thanks man, really informative.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Thanks man, really informative.

Thanks for the feedback, inmygravenimage. I'll post more progress pics this evening.

Brilliant work - your terrain absolutely oozes class...

What you finaly do the table pics I wanted and I missed them :(.

Looking really good I'd love to play on that board with a science outpost in the middle

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Sorry to keep you waiting so long, JoeRugby, but here finally are pictures of my alien jungle terrain all sprawled out on a regulation 6x4 table. Enjoy:

Spoiler:

C&C always welcome. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

This is beautiful!
And the fact it's colorful changes from the usual grimdark.

I would love to have my Orks burn all those trees!!!

 Ruglud wrote:
Brilliant work - your terrain absolutely oozes class...

Wow. Thank you. I'm flattered

 JoeRugby wrote:
What you finaly do the table pics I wanted and I missed them :(.

Looking really good I'd love to play on that board with a science outpost in the middle

Thanks, Joe!

 nflagey wrote:

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Sorry to keep you waiting so long, JoeRugby, but here finally are pictures of my alien jungle terrain all sprawled out on a regulation 6x4 table. Enjoy:

Spoiler:

C&C always welcome. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

This is beautiful!
And the fact it's colorful changes from the usual grimdark.

I would love to have my Orks burn all those trees!!!

Thanks very much, nflagey. I'd love to see your Orks on this table, too. My own Boyz could use a good scrap.

Hopefully I'll have the opportunity to visit NYC sometime soon

Sorry it's been so long since I updated this blog. I promise there will be updates soon. I have been very busy with "real life". You will all be rewarded for your patience soon. Thanks!

Wow, where to begin? Let's start with the extreme basics. Here is my palette. It is a porcelain tile:



Here is the paint palette I used for everything for the foreseeable future:





My old crappy brush:


And the new one:


Side by side:


I came back to the store to find a whole ton of extra, half finished terrain waiting for me. I'm starting to feel a little taken advantage of, but I'm trying to make the best of things:
















Plus my own stuff:



My clayed stuff survived pretty well:








I clayed up my stuff hill and coated it with gravel and sand:



And "painted" the other surviving hills with glue and water to begin texturing:




I coated all those hills with clay and gravel and pressed my texture mix into the still damp clay:











Next update tomorrow. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

So let's start with this big hill:



I modified it a bit when I started working on it:


And then again when I started putting the clay to it:




Here it is after I've coated the whole thing with clay and stuck the aquarium gravel into it:





And then after pressing the sand texture into it:





Then I coated it in watered down PVA glue and sprinkled it with black craft sand:



Using my fingertip I rubbed the sand off some of the gravel while the glue was still wet:






Then left it to dry. I also found this barely-worked-on ruin and set to work on it with the clay:




It's slick with watered down glue:





That too was left to dry. I sketched out and then glued down a few new hills, too:








Found some old, half-finished cd craters:





And got to work on them:






Here's piles of everything drying:





And then I hit everything with the black sand:











I did this one poorly at first:




But through the power of "doing it again", got a better result the second time around:




Anyway, that's it for now. I'll post a new update tomorrow. Thanks for looking. C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

Here's the big hill after it dried and cracked:




And then base-coated:



After laying down more clay, I textured up the big ruin:






Added some sand to bring it all together:







And then base coated it:








Thanks for looking. Next update tomorrow. Have an awesome day. C&C always welcome.

So many images! and the production is like seeing a terrain bakery of permanent works of cake and pastry!

That's... a lot of stuff! rather awestruck.

Bloody hell... that is a lot of terrain! Very cool...... for me.... those craters are my fav! Very nicely done and cool to get an insight into the process!

Thanks for sharing!

 shasolenzabi wrote:
So many images! and the production is like seeing a terrain bakery of permanent works of cake and pastry!

 inmygravenimage wrote:
That's... a lot of stuff! rather awestruck.

 MagosBiff90 wrote:
Bloody hell... that is a lot of terrain! Very cool...... for me.... those craters are my fav! Very nicely done and cool to get an insight into the process!

Thanks for sharing!

Wow, thanks guys! I always feel like I'm not doing enough and that somehow I'm falling behind, but I guess my reality is that I work at a murderous pace and I'm my own worst critic. My next update will have to wait for tomorrow, as I am exhausted tonight. Thanks again and I hope everyone has a extra special day! Cheers.

No need to kill yourself

Yeah, I know, Shas. I just love it.

Hills:



















And even more hills, base coated:





Then with blue:






Red:





Grey:







Cream:








White:






Flock:























That's it for tonight. Thanks for looking. Next update will likely happen on Sunday. C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

You must have made at least an entire state worth of terrain!

 shasolenzabi wrote:
You must have made at least an entire state worth of terrain!

I've certainly made a lot. I actually only work on this commission one day a week. It's never ending, but I'm loving it.

So here's a bunch of CD craters I worked on, start to finish:







Then with more detail stuff:









And black sand:




And then sealed and base-coated:


Blue and red coats:




And grey:







To be fair, I washed these silver bits with an indigo-brown before I took these pictures:












Cream middle tone:



Grey-cream crater interior:





Rust wash 1:









Rust wash 2:













Green base coat:









Green highlight and green wash:








Rust wash 3:










White:










And the skull detail:









Tada! Thanks for looking and have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

Shanties! (aka poop houses)

They started like this (I still haven't done anything useful with the largest one, fyi):









And then details using an empty box, balsa wood, and sand:

























































Then a basecoat in poop color:














Also, I bought a $1 birdhouse to try to do something with and some "collectable" Portal turrets that I have no idea what to do with yet:









Any ideas you all might have for the birdhouse and/or turrets is welcome. I'm really not sure what to do with them, yet. As always constructive criticism and critiques/feedback is welcome. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

Wow, no feedback at all? No ideas? Come on guys, anything!

whats the scale like on the bird house could be a small fantasy/mordheim building

 kencotter wrote:
whats the scale like on the bird house could be a small fantasy/mordheim building

Hooray! Feedback! That might actually work, kencotter. The birdhouse is about the right size for that. I'll get some photos with minis for scale.

Anybody else have any suggestions?

Would be cool as a stables perhaps? or an old byre..... nice and muddy.... or even have it half underground and the round "door" could be for a squat or dwarf hall or something?

Those drones look really cool aswell nice form to them....

Good work 'boss.

Yeah the birdhouse should make a good basis for a house of some kind. Although you'll get bonus kudos points for referencing birds somewhere in the build or paint job.

I love those turrets and have thought about making some "in scale".
What to do with them? Other that using them as turrets, maybe add some arms/legs and make robots of them, or stick them on a tank and use them as sponsons etc...

 Dr H wrote:
Good work 'boss.

Yeah the birdhouse should make a good basis for a house of some kind. Although you'll get bonus kudos points for referencing birds somewhere in the build or paint job.

I love those turrets and have thought about making some "in scale".
What to do with them? Other that using them as turrets, maybe add some arms/legs and make robots of them, or stick them on a tank and use them as sponsons etc...

Thanks, Dr H. I was considering using the turrets as parts for a robot's forearms. They aren't very articulate; they don't open/collapse. They're static. They come apart easy though.

Those Turrets look really sleek. You could make them into, like, Tau or Tauist buildings and weapons batteries, or some Alien Dropship.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Those pads on the sides could be used for some Titan-Sized models.

lliu wrote:
Those Turrets look really sleek. You could make them into, like, Tau or Tauist buildings and weapons batteries, or some Alien Dropship.
Those pads on the sides could be used for some Titan-Sized models.

These are interesting ideas, lliu. The only issue is that the turrets are really small. Only about as big a space marine. But they may work as Tau stuff. Might have to try my hand at that.

I am way too impressed with the quantity and quality of the terrain you make. Well done.