After being out of the hobby for almost two years, I'm at a point where I can spend time playing and painting again. This is further fueled by my son living with me full time now, and him being old enough to enjoy the hobby to its fullest. We don't live near a game store, so the bulk of our playing will take place at home.

This means we need terrain, and as they say "the more terrain, the better the game." I started small, but things quickly got out of hand. He is still painting up enough models to field a combat patrol force and I have a painted Apocalypse sized army, so I'm gonna make a ton of terrain while he catches up!

The board is going to be fully Ork occupied. our deal is that for every completed unit, I'll make him a piece of Space Marine "drop" terrain. He really likes the Dawn of War series, so I imagine they will be similar in both build and size. (I currently owe him two pieces, I should start them within the next week or so.)

To start things off I'll show what I've got finished.

First up, some dangerous/difficult barricades that offer a measly 5+ cover save.



Next, dangerous/difficult terrain that offers a more standard 4+ cover.



After that some cover for tanks, its 4+ and impassable, with the added bonus of easily giving most vehicles hull down.



I gave up on the graffitti, I'll be making full stencils later to speed up the process.

Here's the same terrain showing the wall height. They are designed for artillery to fire over.



It would not be Ork terrain without junk piles. I had some of the terrain left over from the older box set, so I used it.

First up is an Ork whiskey still/squig fuel depot. It is a piece of impassable terrain.







Next is area cover, difficult and a 4+cover save.





After that a small bump in the road, 4+ cover.





Another piece of 4+ cover area terrain.





That rounds out the smaller pieces. Up next is Fido's pit. I'll be adding Fido shortly, he's not done so I'll post him in the WiP section after the finished pieces. This counts as impassable terrain when we are not using it for story based games. (There's a ton of stuff the boy and I have planned for Fido.)







Next is a basic Ork bunker. It holds thirty, has two access points, and is armour 12.





Rounding up the current batch of building is my first attempt at ruins. It counts as Area terrain with a 4+ save.










Well, that was a bit more pictures than I thought! This shows where I'm at though, tomorrow I'll post all my current unfinished works. Thanks for looking, any and all comments/questions/criticisms are apreciated.

At first I saw the toothpick barricade things and I was thinking "Meh, this is alright" before continuing. By the time I got to that awesome bunker, I was straight up impressed! I really like what you've done here. The converted Macragge lander parts are very cool, and the ruins and bunker are fantastic. I dig your work. I'm going to assume Fido is a Squiggoth? I remember a few Dawn of War missions where I was freeing Squiggoths from pens like that!

Very cool terrain. I like all the pipes sticking out everywhere.

Das it, I'm making some ork terrain once I finish everything I'm doing at the moment.

It's a pity no one here uses building rules in anything save planet strike...

Brother SRM wrote:At first I saw the toothpick barricade things and I was thinking "Meh, this is alright" before continuing. By the time I got to that awesome bunker, I was straight up impressed! I really like what you've done here. The converted Macragge lander parts are very cool, and the ruins and bunker are fantastic. I dig your work. I'm going to assume Fido is a Squiggoth? I remember a few Dawn of War missions where I was freeing Squiggoths from pens like that!

My barricades are a bit weedy. Now that I have enough terrain to play on, I may go back and fix a few earlier pieces. (I knocked all that stuff out in about three weeks.) I'm teaching my son to only play with painted figures, so I'm leading by example.

Thank you for the compliments, I'm glad I had some view-worthy stuff to go along with my "rank and file" terrain!

Fido is a really big facebiter, slightly larger than a carnifex. I asked my son about the squiggoth missions and he told me a little about them. I think we can make some fun little games out of him, once he's finished. (which should be by the end of the week.)

As an added bonus, I have a new Apoc toy!

The Good Green wrote:Very cool terrain. I like all the pipes sticking out everywhere.

Thanks, I appreciate you taking the time to post. All this was hammered out quickly, but the overall theme is decayed imperial structures taken over by the Orks. Pipes jutting out at all angles and dripping green slime seems to add quite a bit to the terrain, and adds a touch of color to the otherwise drab palette.

Matt.Kingsley wrote:

Das it, I'm making some ork terrain once I finish everything I'm doing at the moment.

It's a pity no one here uses building rules in anything save planet strike...

That is a pity, as a well done building can be a ton of fun to play on. especially now that they count as immobile vehicles, changing floors is easy as pie, and doesn't take forever. eventually I'll have ladders, stairs and walkways connecting everything making it even more accessable.

I'm also glad you approve of my Great Gargant for the Ork build off, as soon as I'm done with the current batch of terrain I'll start on that behemoth.

Anywho, onto current projects! Once I had about a four foot by four foot tables worth of terrain, I started slowing down a little on the building stage, and started looking to a few center pieces. the Squig-pit has a squig, so without further ado here he is!

nothing says scary like neon-yellow pipe cleaners!



add a little clay..



A few legs and a tail...



Throw on some skull parts and eye-bones...



add eyeballs and some teeth....



and then add lips and a tounge.







All Fido needs is more scales and horns, reshaping of his jowls, cheekbones and nose, some belly detail, and a paintjob!


Next I have a powerplant/fortress.







It needs a ton of surface details, smoothing of the joints, battle damage, and vines.

If that isn't big enough for your gaming table, I have a massive water treatment plant.









It needs pretty much everything, haha. I learned a while ago it's a lot easier to make something whole and them damage it out, rather than try and build it messed up. this is the "clean" version of the Water treatment plant, I need to add fifty years of neglect, then Ork over-build, and lastly evidence of its repurposed build. (that of making fungus brew/jet fuel.)

I'll keep you posted on my progress, this week is shaping up to be a good week to work on stuff!

Holy Fido looks awesome!

Great terrain!!! Fido is awesome, too.

Fantastic!

Sweet nectar! I gotta get on this plasticard !

Yeah, I live and breathe plasticard. even on these terrain pieces where I'm mostly using foamcore boards, I've still gone through several sheets of the good styrene!

onto the update!

I got a lot done on Fido. I added the top crown of horns and armor. I fleshed out his jowls, touched up his legs, thickened the lips, fixed his nose, and added a nosering. He's very close to done, I need to revisit his base and do the final layer of sanding, filing, and the rest of the small fiddly details.







Here he is getting ready for dinner. I figured a scale shot might be good, he's a wee bit larger then I planned. Oh well. (bonus shot of the boy's newest tac squad!)



I'll be honest, it was a lot of fun up-scaling the classic squig teeth-and-legs. I had a thought a while ago to do a squigoth the same way, and this little guy makes me think I could do it without it looking silly. we shall see!

I also got the final layer of detail ready on the factory fortress, and hit it with a black undercoat.



No updates on the water treatment plant, as I have shifted my focus a bit this week. I told the boy I would build a piece of terrain for him for every squad he paints, and I currently owe him two pieces. He excitedly informed me he had decided what he wanted his first piece to be.

I told him I would make anything he likes, and after talking a bit we decided that drop-ship style terrain similar to Dawn of War would fit our terrain theme the best. To start with I'm gonna make an imperial guard bunker. (he likes the design more, and figures the Space Marines would use whatever was available should their own armor be unavailable.)

I made some blueprints for it, and decided that I would take another crack at casting. there are too many little bits that would be tedious to replicate over and over (stupid butresses,) so casting not only will make it faster in the long run but allow me to make several bunkers at once. (I'm hoping we can start playing with the Planetary Assult rules by next year anyways!)

Here is my quick bunker mockup for the boys aproval. also pictured are the baseplates for all the things I need to sculpt.



And lastly, a picture of the first sculpts for it!



Ok, so its only boring dragons teeth and the large concrete block that goes in front of the power module. still, it's a start!

OK, got some fun updates!

First off, the boy and I had ourselves a painting day! normally his attention span is a wee short, but on Saturday he painted an entire scout from start to finish, and he really put some effort into it. this is his 21 miniature, once he gets these bad boys done he will have a fully painted combat patrol force.

Sorry about the Dad stuff, I'm just so lucky to have a son who is into wargamming. (and will stay that way, if he wants to keep eating!)

As an added bonus, he did the Camo cloaks based off of my terrain colors, so they look great on our table.





While he was getting that guy all painted up, I was painting Fido, who is now done!







Here's an action shot of Fido playing peek-a-boo out the feeding entrance of his pit.



And one out the back



Arial shot of the immpassible terrain




And thats the end!

Excellent work!

That is fantastic really excellent work

Jolly good....

Awesome work - terrain, Fido, everything. Will definitely keep an eye on (and probably loot once I get to the terrain stage...)

If you want to see Father-Son gaming at the extreme you need to check out Gitsplitta's threads.

Your terrain is awesome. You make it look so effortlessly classy.

That's some good looking terrain you got going there, and Fido is pure quality. Keep it coming.

Well, thanks everyone! I'm having quite the time doing this. It honestly started as a project to make terrain as quickly and cheaply as possible, but a confluence of events has caused it to quickly spirlal out of control. I'm hoping that my next project in this thread will put my Blasta-Bomma to shame, I should be able to start my Great Gargant building factory in about a month! I just need to finish the castable bunker and the water treatment plant. (and possibly some objective markers and paint the actual game table, haha.)

On to the update! I have been sculpting up the base for the boys' marines. It turns out that sculpting techno details is really hard when you havent done it in a few years. I didn't think I was going to be able to complete the project, but I upgraded sculpting tools, and dropped down some cash for some level 4 Roma Plastilina. (I usually just use firmness 2, but the 4 is needed for ultra-small details.)

My money was well spent, between two new chisels and the 4 Roma, I'm making huge strides in my sculpting skills. I'm hoping to have the bunker castable here by the end of the week.



While I was being reduced to tears trying to sculpt, I was working on painting the factory. I'm trying to speed up the painting process, so I figured a little time investment now would pay off later. I made a bunch or glyph stencils, and started using them both with regular paint and with an airbrush. It took a while to both make the stencils correctly and to figure out how to paint with them, but I think I got it dialed. I'll be making just about every possible bit of Ork grafitti over the next few weeks, which should make painting something this size easily a day project.










Thanks for looking! oh, and does anyone have any fun ideas for objective markers? I need ten total, five Ork and five marine. the boy likes his stuff serious, so any good ideas on proppa marine markers will be fielded. My Orks are old school and they run the gamut of silly to serious, so anything for them is fine to recommend!

That fortress is amazing! I love the little details, the paint job and the architecture! And your son is a surprisingly good painter, those Marines/scout look very clean and well done.

As for objectives, you have the "Battle for Macragge" Battle Set thingy, which comes with an upright technological thingy that could be used as a Space Marine Objective. I believe it's called a "Thunderhawk Locator Beacon." Here's a link to a pic of it. It's on the right. As for Ork objective markers, you could have a missile with "Explodey! Dont touch!" written on it or something. The sky's limit for Ork markers. You could also do something like this.

LoneLictor wrote:That fortress is amazing! I love the little details, the paint job and the architecture! And your son is a surprisingly good painter, those Marines/scout look very clean and well done.

As for objectives, you have the "Battle for Macragge" Battle Set thingy, which comes with an upright technological thingy that could be used as a Space Marine Objective. I believe it's called a "Thunderhawk Locator Beacon." Here's a link to a pic of it. It's on the right. As for Ork objective markers, you could have a missile with "Explodey! Dont touch!" written on it or something. The sky's limit for Ork markers. You could also do something like this.

Good catch on the battle of macgragge bits, I forgot about them even though I used all the other terrain pieces. (damn paint fumes ruining my brain!)

I'll pass the compliment onto the boy, I'm sure he will appreciate it. he's only a good painter because he knows the alternative is no food. (round this house it's eat, sleep, Warhammer, but not in that order.)

So I've been trapped in the house for the last few days because of this stupid tropical storm, and thats a good thing if youre lookin' for some crazy terrain updates! I took over the living room and have been working on the water treatment plant in between real work. I love when I can just nerd out!

I start with some paint. because I want the detail to stand out, and a lot of the detail is my usual rust color, I switched from drab brown to drab gray as a base color. I need to paint as I go, because the layers of detail are gonna pile onto each other. most of the facility will see two layers, but the back can have as many as four if all my plans work out.



After I get the base paint rockin', I switch to hot glue for the "water." My Orks are not keen on using the plant as the imperium intended, and have turned it into a nurgle pit. To what end I cannot fathom. I just do what the muses tell me to do.





Once the glue is dry, I add inks, washs, and glazes. it sounds simple, but to really have it have some depth, you have to ink in layers, add more glue, ink in layers, and add more glue. I lighten up the inks as I reach the final layers.





Those pics were taken after the ink dired, and its still not shiny enough for my tastes! I'll wait for them to set up over night, and add one last layer of water effects mixed with a really light yellow ink. I really want this to glow when I'm done.

As a quick detour, here is a picture of the inks I used. for fun game, locate the paint bottle in production when you started playing Warhammer!



If you picked the Firestorm Yellow or the Warrgh! green, welcome to your mid-life crisis! Its odd, I was going through all my inks to get the ones I needed for this project, and found an unopened bottle of Green Glaze. I think my older stuff multiplies when I'm not looking.



After my trip down memory lane, I switched to the back of the model and started adding the huge pipes. these will eventually have catwalks covering most of them.



(sorry for the blurry pic, this was the only one that remotely came out from this stage in the building.)

After I glued them in place I painted them with textured gesso, then painted them to spec once that was dry. I also greeked out the company logos I forgot to grind off on the PVC connectors.







At this point the front was ready to get it's second layer of detail. I had the rough form, now it was time to go through and make sure its fully playable. The dumb thing is so big that it simply cannot just be for looks, it's got to be interactive. I started by figuring out "paths" that will cover it for easy acess, and where the first door is gonna be.



I got a little Ork in there for scale and to show the grating that allows acess from one tier to the other. I only hit it with some black for the underside, its not painted yet and near invisible.

I still have most of the night to work on this, I just figured a quick break and an update would make it easier! back to work for me!

Another great building so far. Again, the architecture is excellent and the materials and overall building is very creative. I hope you don't mind if I steal your method on making toxic waste (with the hot glue and all the washes). If I post it online I'll make sure to give you credit.

Inspiring, truly inspiring. Awesome terrain you got there.

LoneLictor wrote:Another great building so far. Again, the architecture is excellent and the materials and overall building is very creative. I hope you don't mind if I steal your method on making toxic waste (with the hot glue and all the washes). If I post it online I'll make sure to give you credit.

Thanks, I really appreciate the comments! I have pictures of the classic box buildings that I started with, and that's what got me on an architecture kick. I actually did a lot of research before starting this building, I got some actual building books and pooled together a ton of insirational pictures. I had some problems with the warping so its not exactly what I planned, but I feel it has the dynamic look I was going for. It's really, really hard to make terrain thats both form and function. luckily a lot of other players have posted tons of information and good ideas, which I constantly use. (like whats-his-name, the crazy goon that always has monsters popping up from under the terrain.)

On that note, loot away on the toxic waste! I dont usually talk in detail about how I do stuff, so if anyone needs more explanation on how I did anything in this thread, feel free to ask.

Alfhedil wrote:Inspiring, truly inspiring. Awesome terrain you got there.

Thanks! I try, and I'm getting better, so thats a good thing.

on to the update! I have been busy, but the building is going slower. I have to prime each item before it goes on, and I have to fully paint the terrain before I can glue new stuff down! I'm getting a better system in place, but its still taking a while.

Here is some new detail









once all that was painted and mounted, I added a little more detail, and got most of it painted.





The painting is a bit rough around the edges, my focus at this point in the build is just to get anything painted that I have to add more detail to. once its all fully built, I'll go through and fix everything after adding the last details. (dirt, rocks, vines and flocking.)

Lastly, I leave you with a cool aerial shot. I still have a ton of stuff to add, I'd say the front half has about half of the detail on it that it's going to end up with.



Thanks for looking!

OMG this is just Awesomeness Incarnate!! Fido is fantastic and i love the dribbly glue/water.

That is some great terrain, very orky.

Great stuff. Especially Like the Squig.

Really great stuff. My boys 4 and 2 love it when I build orky stuff with them. This is great inpsiration.

Wow, that building is amazing. It manages to look Orky but Industrialized and Impressive at the same time. As I said earlier, the architecture is great and the overall building is very creative. Keep up the good work!

Well, that was a bit bizarre. I was just commenting on how I could have sworn I'd already commented on the water-works when my browser just shut on me.

Great looking structure so far, looks like a lot of fun to play on too, especially like the walkways on the side. Just how orkified is the main structure going to get?

(like whats-his-name, the crazy goon that always has monsters popping up from under the terrain.)

Oh man I love his stuff. Go on, give us a clue, that sounds like 80% of the terrainers on dakka

monkeytroll wrote:Well, that was a bit bizarre. I was just commenting on how I could have sworn I'd already commented on the water-works when my browser just shut on me.

Great looking structure so far, looks like a lot of fun to play on too, especially like the walkways on the side. Just how orkified is the main structure going to get?

(like whats-his-name, the crazy goon that always has monsters popping up from under the terrain.)

Oh man I love his stuff. Go on, give us a clue, that sounds like 80% of the terrainers on dakka

Terraformer and Mismuse.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/391108.page

Never have I seen a more apropriate name for a poster. I've been playing this game for seventeen years, and everytime he posts I have the same feeling I used to have going into the game store the first few years, just in awe of the skills older players have. In other words, I feel like a stupid newbie who barely knows what a wash is, haha.

One of the things I love about this hobby is no matter what the skill level, if you interact with the right people, you are either learning new stuff or teaching what you know. Its always a nice feeling that no matter what badd-ass stuff you have made, you gotta step up your game from time to time.

The main structure is gonna be pretty Orkified. One of my main goals is to make as much of it as playable as possible, with an eye on up and down playing levels.

The main purpose of the water treatment plant is to see what happens when you build big. I really want to do my Great Gargant factory, but I needed to both build this huge thing to see what works and what doesnt on a large scale, and to see what breaks off after a few weeks of playing on it.

Once its done I'll map out all the ways to get around on it, as well as detail out the slightly modified building rules that make it fully interactive. It should work really well with our armies, as the boy is leaning towards troops, and I have lots of twelve Ork units. Within the month his army would be twenty mairines, five scouts, five jump marines, and five terminators. if he splits his squads, he will have seven five man units, which I'll counter with ten and twelve man units. Everything I've built for the table should fully support small skirmishes covering the board. hell, dreadnaughts, kans, and deff dreads should have no problem on most of our terrain.

That's some fantastic work pox! Love me some good orky terrain! Well done man, well done.

Completely agree with Gits, everything I've seen in this thread was like

Now THAT is some terrain!

It would be a pleasure to game on that stuff!

Looks really good. Keep making Terrain.

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

I went a little crazy yesterday. The boy pointed out that I had taken over the living room for the last few days, so I decided one last mega-push to finish building this beast was needed. It's not just the complex that takes up room, its all the tools and several bits boxes laying about. rather than down-scale to work on just one section at a time back on my easel, I decided an all-day building fest was what was needed, so I that's what I did.

In order to speed things up, I started the day by making a primed bits box, and painting everything that was needed on the treatment plant, so I could just add primed bits and not have to stop to paint either the added bits or the base.



as you can see, I primed up the last of my drywall edging, (there's eight feet total on the complex, I ran out halfway through the day and had to improvise!) small wooden squares and rods, PVC tubes elbows and fiddly bits, smaller pipes, two gauges of yard cloth, and a crazy straw for good measure. I also dug out some of my black sheet styrene, and cut up a 12"x12" piece.

for what its worth, the box was completely cleared out by two in the afternnoon.

I started building after everything was ready.

First up, the main water tank. I've decided that the Water treatment plant is the home of my anchient Wierdboy Warphead, "The Gribbler." Only a Weirdboy and his Madboys would build this thing. The water tank is currently holding a nurgle daemon that The Gribbler has trapped and bound. I'll add the nurgle details later.



I then just started making my way around the complex, adding detail and scaffolding as needed. I added a huge ladder to the back of the whole thing.













By the time I reached the back right of the complex, I had ran out of everything I was back to priming stuff up by hand. you can see I also had to improvise making the catwalks out of yard cloth, I had ran out of my cool drywall pieces.



I like the metal bits, dont get me wrong, they're just really hard to make, very time consuming. I wish I had mixed in more metal throughout, ah well.

At this point, I was done with the main building, so I was able to transfer the treatment plant back to the easel for final details and painting. I haven't photographed the last layer of details, as I was working on it right up till bedtime. I figure I'll just wait on it, it will make the final set of pictures cooler.

One thing I have decided to do is take a little more time on last looks for the model. It came out better than I thought it would, so I dont see any good reason to scrimp on detail that will just push the wow factor up. I'm gonna add a lot more rivets, take a little more time then usual on the paint, and adda bit more damage to the entire thing.

On top of all that, I want to add the details that will lock it in as The Gribblers and Madboyz hideout. I know this isn't the forum for background, so I'll just mention whats needed to explain some of the details I'm gonna add to the complex.

To start, I want one side of the main building to have The Gribblers personal icons. I sketched it out, traced it, and taped it down to a sheet of styrene. After I cut the pieces out I'll sculpt up the detail, then glue it to the building.



The glyphs basically explain that he is a Snakebite, but all of his clan was wiped out. He is ferral, old, and will kill you with his mind. He also currently has pleged his allegience to the Crooked Arrow clan.

Thats where I'm at, thanks for looking!

Fantastic! Wow! That's seriously cool.

Oh no, I have missed two pages of a completely awesome thread. At least I found it now. I love all of your work.
Subscribed!

Fantastic terrain, and its awesome that you get to enjoy the hobby with your lad. Keep up the good work

Very inspiring work And Fido is great, a very nice sculpt!

That design the drew out is really impressive in its self, are you going to use it as a stencil?

Gitsplitta wrote:Fantastic! Wow! That's seriously cool.

high praise coming from you, thanks a bunch!

Flying Pooo wrote:Oh no, I have missed two pages of a completely awesome thread. At least I found it now. I love all of your work.
Subscribed!

Thanks! you wont miss any more of the action packed wackiness! on the plus side, all this is really practice for some crazy stuff I have planned for the winter holiday, so you haven't missed much!

Eeps wrote:Fantastic terrain, and its awesome that you get to enjoy the hobby with your lad. Keep up the good work

I do love puching around some figures and rolling dice with him. we played two 320 point combat patrol games down at the friendly non-local hobby store the other day, it was a blast. we both won a game, go Orks boo marines! (I say non-local because theres no gamestore within fifty miles of my home. )

ergotoxin wrote:Very inspiring work And Fido is great, a very nice sculpt!

yeah, damn fido is stealing too much thunder, I gotta step up my terrain game to beat him. either that, or just sculpt terrain, haha.

bigfish wrote:That design the drew out is really impressive in its self, are you going to use it as a stencil?

I was going to make a stencil at first, but it's so large that I decided to go with a sculpture.

Here is the sculpted up glyphplates, skull, and crooked arrow.




I call it my "ode to early nineties Warhammer art." seriously, everydrawing from then had these huge teeth in odd grins. I love it!

I was really close to being done, so I made out a list of everything that was needed. I realized I would need six more doors, and a bit more scaffolding with rigging. I also made up a ton of glyphplate "blanks" to add stencil glyphs to later. lastly I primed everything, and got it ready to glue on.



I also added the vines, more damage, terrain rocks, way too many rivets, and a few more ladders.

I'm not taking anymore WiP pictures, i worked on it through the weekend, and it's about halfway done with the final layer of paint. I should have a full set of pictures up by Wednsday.

Again, thanks to everyone for looking and commenting. I always look to the community at large when doing big projects like this, either for corrections when I'm headed the wrong way, or kind words that spur me on to complete the goal.

Next update; the big reveal!

This has been a great blog. Very inspiring. I keep wanting to build some orkish terrain, and these posts have only spurred me on! Curses and kudos to you for that, good sir!

I am truly impressed with your sculpting skills. Have you considered making molds and casting some of your work? Your doors and panels have great detail that would make for an easy mold and with a little practice you could field an army of enlarged squiggly beasts! Anyways I love your work...

Wow, that's all looking crazy awesome!

I am so glad that there's another Ork player who actually uses Proppa Orky writtin! Everyone's always paintin' "WAAAGH!!" on their stuff, when it should be the Skull gliph that means Waaagh!! Or, you know, just usin' the writin stuff.

epic sculpting skills

Way kool!

Your terrain is outstanding, you should make more of the smaller pieces for commission!

nice squigly beast!

GrimTeef wrote:This has been a great blog. Very inspiring. I keep wanting to build some orkish terrain, and these posts have only spurred me on! Curses and kudos to you for that, good sir!

well, get to it, and post pictures!!!

Depraved wrote:I am truly impressed with your sculpting skills. Have you considered making molds and casting some of your work? Your doors and panels have great detail that would make for an easy mold and with a little practice you could field an army of enlarged squiggly beasts! Anyways I love your work...

I'm still getting the hang of casting, so if I'm going to cast something it has to take more time to mass produce then it does to cast. I hammered out those six doors in about an hour, if I made them all castable it would take forty hours, so easy call for me!

As for casting in general, we will see. Earlier in the thread I posted pics of a bunker I'm sculpting up to cast, so we will see how that goes. I will say though, an army of giant squigs is appealing!

The Good Green wrote:Wow, that's all looking crazy awesome!

Thanks!

Anvildude wrote:I am so glad that there's another Ork player who actually uses Proppa Orky writtin! Everyone's always paintin' "WAAAGH!!" on their stuff, when it should be the Skull gliph that means Waaagh!! Or, you know, just usin' the writin stuff.

I'm still getting the hang of how I want my glyphs to look, I have a combo of stencils and sculpts on this one. I like the sculpts more, but the stencil ones do have a nice "slapped together" lazy look for Orks.

bigfish wrote: epic sculpting skills

Thanks! It helps that I sculpt for both a hobby and a job, haha.

Matt.Kingsley wrote:

Way kool!

Again, thanks a bunch!

Joker58 wrote:Your terrain is outstanding, you should make more of the smaller pieces for commission!

commision work gives me hives, Warhammer players are the pickiest clients I've EVER worked for. As I improve my skills and run out of storage I might sell off earlier pieces. (or donate to the FLGS.)

Remulus wrote:nice squigly beast!

Damn squig stealing all the terrain thunder!!

Well no more, for I have complete the water treatment plant!!





































All-in-all I'm pretty happy with it. There's a few points I wish I had done different, but I learned an absolute TON working on it so no complaints here. For me it's the trade of detail versus time, if I had sunk the detail into it that I did on my Blasta-Bomma, I would only be about a quarter of the wat done with it.

Anyhow all questions, comments, and hate posts are appreciated, and thanks for looking!

Wow that is awesome!
I really like the rust effect and the creeper vines.

Really love the Skull and the glyphs! And ditto on the vines! Really nice! Great use of spare parts and stuff. I have never done scenery, but this may just inpire me to start! Way to go!

Only water coming out of that will be black, very well done

Brilliant

That looks great, some nice details, but nothing that detracts from use as a gaming piece. The first pic was just 'wow, look at that.'

You'll have to put up some reports when you play on it.

Holy ! That's amazing! It's orky, yet industrialized. It's huge, yet it could easily be used in gameplay. That building is amazing! Congrats on finishing it; I could never possibly hope to complete a project that large.

Dang, everyone else has already said what sould be said. Awesome, epic, super....

My favorite orky terrain so far and you have made me want to have a dabble in sculpting

Exalting this thread, now I have seen what you can do, I don't want to miss another update!

Cain

Excellent work!

Oh, forgot this...

I'd love to see all your terrain on one board...

Iranna.

Have to say you have created some pretty damn awesome stuff here - very impressed

Great job on all I've seen so far.

Suggestion on the painting for the treatment plant, though- take your paint-cleaning water, after it's been used for about a week or so, put the plant in the tub or on a rag, and drizzle the dirty water over the top, as though it were raining on it. That way you'll have drips and puddles and such all over the walls and walkways, breaking up the semi-solid color you have going on there.

Wow... I think my jaw just dislocated itself...you've done a great job on that plant!
When I saw Fido's first post, my mind went from meh at the pipe cleaners to HOLY at the finished product.
My hat is off to you, sir. Kudos.

That is incredible! Your board will look stunning with all that lovely terrain

I try and respond to everyone barring the occasional post lost through the cracks, I just wasn't expecting so many responses!!

Flying Pooo wrote:Wow that is awesome!
I really like the rust effect and the creeper vines.

Thanks! those two elements have become the "theme" to my terrain, I think they are the two things that have improved the most over time.

RSJake wrote:Really love the Skull and the glyphs! And ditto on the vines! Really nice! Great use of spare parts and stuff. I have never done scenery, but this may just inpire me to start! Way to go!

Its easier and cheaper than you think! start with a small piece, post it, get feed back, and get better on the next piece!

bigfish wrote:Only water coming out of that will be black, very well done

Yup, and not very tasty. I almost put a trapped Daemon of Nurgle in the large holding tank, but decided I just wanted to finish the piece.

monkeytroll wrote:Brilliant

That looks great, some nice details, but nothing that detracts from use as a gaming piece. The first pic was just 'wow, look at that.'

You'll have to put up some reports when you play on it.

I will for sure, as soon as my son gets to five hundred points painted I'll post a battle report. I've done one other on here, and it came out great, and was a lot of fun to do.

LoneLictor wrote:Holy ! That's amazing! It's orky, yet industrialized. It's huge, yet it could easily be used in gameplay. That building is amazing! Congrats on finishing it; I could never possibly hope to complete a project that large.

It's like eating a whale. You just need a fork and knife, and go one bite at a time.

Commander Cain wrote:Dang, everyone else has already said what sould be said. Awesome, epic, super....

My favorite orky terrain so far and you have made me want to have a dabble in sculpting

Exalting this thread, now I have seen what you can do, I don't want to miss another update!

Cain

I'm a huge fan of EVERYONE learning to sculpt. it's a lot easier than you think. if you can paint, you can sculpt. get some clay of your choice and get crackin'!

Arakasi wrote:Excellent work!

Thanks!

Commander Cain wrote:Oh, forgot this...

Thanks! I'm really gratefull for all the..... hey! you already got a response! get back in line!

Iranna wrote:I'd love to see all your terrain on one board...

Iranna.

I gotta make the board first, haha. I'll talk about my terrain schedule later in the post, but rest assured I'll get a group shot very soon.

SilverMK2 wrote:Have to say you have created some pretty damn awesome stuff here - very impressed

again, thanks!

Anvildude wrote:Great job on all I've seen so far.

Suggestion on the painting for the treatment plant, though- take your paint-cleaning water, after it's been used for about a week or so, put the plant in the tub or on a rag, and drizzle the dirty water over the top, as though it were raining on it. That way you'll have drips and puddles and such all over the walls and walkways, breaking up the semi-solid color you have going on there.

Nice tip! I'll give it a go, remind me again to do it if its not done when I get the entire board assembled.

Odd One Out wrote: Wow... I think my jaw just dislocated itself...you've done a great job on that plant!
When I saw Fido's first post, my mind went from meh at the pipe cleaners to HOLY at the finished product.
My hat is off to you, sir. Kudos.

I get that a lot. when I was sculpting my chaos dragon, I didn't even have drawings of what the finished product would look like, I had no drawing skills at the time. The dragon started out as just a ton of pipecleaners going every which way, the thing looked hillarious. It came out good though, it's still a show-stopper. (I even had it on display at an art gallery once!)

Pipe cleaners make the best armature!

MikZor wrote:That is incredible! Your board will look stunning with all that lovely terrain

Thats what I'm hoping for!


I want to stress that these big projects are a lot easier with support, so thanks again for taking a look, and taking the time to post. (that reminds me, I should post more in other threads....)

Now that the water treatment plant is finished, I had to figure out whats next. rest assured, the Great Gargant factory is in the design stage, but due to work reasons I need all my large work areas cleared out of my toys. this means that I have to hold off on the next big terrain piece until about mid November.

Here's a list of what I'll be updating until then.

First, I'll be working on objective markers.

Second, painting and modelling the actual terrain board, so we arent putting terrain on raw MDF board anymore.

Third, finishing and casting up the Space Marine bunker for the boy.

Fourth, making small wrecker yard pieces.

Fifth, making gang-planks for the terrain, in order to connect the buildings from their rooftops.

sixth, continuing the design for the Gargant factory, and drawing out the blueprints.

I have started my plans for the factory, and should be at the blueprint stage in a week or so. I also got a few packages in the mail that pertain to the factory! lets take a look, shall we?

First up, a twenty-one pound package from industrial plastic supply.



Why, I wonder what it could be?



It's high-impact sheet styrene! YAY!



A lot of sheet styrene.



seventy-six sheets to be exact, 32 sheets of .020, 32 sheets of .040, 8 sheets of .080, and 4 sheets of .250, all sheets are 12"x12".

I got another box from Restorer Supplies. what could it be?!?



Why, its magic sculpt! my two-part epoxy clay of choice! (up yours, green stuff.)



I got ten pounds, five black and five white.

Not pictured is my trip to lowes resulting in a 4'x8' sheet of high-density foamboard, and a trip to Hobby Lobby for 20 sheets of 20"x30" foamcore.

Ladies and Gentleman, come November I'm gonna open up a whole new door.

I love packages like that! My wife doesn't, but....meh.

How is the magic sculpt compared to Green Stuff or ProCreate? And how much $ is it?

Dang it! November cannot get here fast enough! Arrrrgggghhhh!

Can't wait to see what you get up to with all that plasticard! Just looked at their website, if I were to buy some, would high impact styrene be the best to purchase for hobby stuff? There are an awfull lot of brands to choose from

Jake took the words out of my mouth, roll on November!!

Cain

RSJake wrote:
I love packages like that! My wife doesn't, but....meh.

How is the magic sculpt compared to Green Stuff or ProCreate? And how much $ is it?

Dang it! November cannot get here fast enough! Arrrrgggghhhh!

I can't use any other clay. I know that art supplies are always good fodder for argument, but I simply have been using magic sculpt for so long that I have too much trouble making anything with anything else. My greater chaos dragon took over two years to sculpt, after that I simply cant stand the properties of any other clay. (even when I use oil clay for moldmaking, I only like Roma Plastilina because it "feels" exactly like magic sculpt.) I'm sure if I had to switch I could, I'm just trying to say that for good or for ill, Magic Sculpt is what I have the most skill with. (at last count, I've used over sixty pounds over the past ten years. The big chaos dragon was five pounds of clay by itself!)

I have not used proCreate, I did use green stuff for many years. Magic sculpt is far, far tackier when first mixed, and it dries super hard. like, sand sharp edges hard.
It also has no memory, which I prefer but others dont like.

next, I use rubber tiped sculpting tools which arent cheap, and the magic sculpt does degade them after a while. during regular use I replace my tools about every year, but while I was sculpting the dragon I had to replace them every three months!

next, it will stick to anything. I used it many times to make sculptures on glassware with it. (yay for skull mugs and plague doctor martini glasses!)

Lastly, I find it expensive as far as standard clays go, but cheaper than other two-part epoxy clays. It's usually around 35-40 bucks for five pounds, plus shipping. I think the clay portion of my order from Restorer was around 85 bucks for the ten pounds of clay and shipping. if you live on the west coast, you can buy it in different sizes at TAP plastics.

on the subject of how much to get, I would go with a small 8oz. ammount to try first. thats about the equivelent of four packages of GS. thats so you can see if you like it, and it does go bad after a year or so. I buy so much at once to A. save on shipping and B. I use so much of it for both my hobby and my job. (The only way to tell if I'm on the clock or not is to see what I'm sculpting!)

Commander Cain wrote:Can't wait to see what you get up to with all that plasticard! Just looked at their website, if I were to buy some, would high impact styrene be the best to purchase for hobby stuff? There are an awfull lot of brands to choose from

Jake took the words out of my mouth, roll on November!!

Cain

I hope this doesn't sound like bragging, but I've used so many different types of sheet plastic, acrylic, rubber, and styrene that I'm like conan, but instead of the riddle of steel I can tell you the riddle of plastic.

The stuff from industrial plastic has little to no difference between it and the sheets of plastic you would by from Evergreen or Plastruct. I find its a tad more like Evergreen, Plastruct does something to their sheets that make them shiny.

because I find no real performance differences, it's in price that Idustrial plastics shines. I only use Evergreen or Plastruct when I need the sheet imprinted, like with squares or diamond plate.

If you have ever bought plastic from a train store, you know how expensive it can be. The standard size I use for general applications (scratch built tanks, for example) is .040

Idustrial plastic sells 32 pack of black 12"x12" for 24 bucks plus shipping. in other words, for the price of a Predator you can instead buy 32 square feet of plastic, which is enough to fix up a Great Gargant, make a ginat house for him, build a wrecker yard, and still have enough plastic left over to make battle armor for all the pets in your house. (after which you will still have plastic left over.)

the same amount of plastic from Evergreen would be over a hunderd bucks.

This is going to be the start of something awesome... (yay awesome)

pox wrote:My greater chaos dragon took over two years to sculpt,

Is this viewable somewhere? I looked on your thread about it, but the pictures don't show.

I think I am going to buy from Industrial Plastic now! Thanks!

This is a fantastic thread. Excellent work!

RSJake wrote:

pox wrote:My greater chaos dragon took over two years to sculpt,

Is this viewable somewhere? I looked on your thread about it, but the pictures don't show.

Yeah, photobucket and I don't really get along anymore. I found out it breaks picture links when stuff moves, and they have a no-gore policy that was not actually written anywhere (They classified it as "obscene") so I couldn't use it to host work pictures. (and I lost a ton of pictures from that fiasco, they deleted half a gallery once.) Anyways, I haven't ported over all my pictures yet, but I do have a link to the finished gallery. The pictures are silly huge, but you can see oodles of detail.

http://s110.photobucket.com/albums/n109/conversionman/finished%20dragon/

bigfish wrote:This is going to be the start of something awesome... (yay awesome)

You know, whenever I see you post, I feel like the Warboss just walked by and gave me the thumbs up as I toil away in my Mek garage. I think it's your avatar.

dsteingass wrote:I think I am going to buy from Industrial Plastic now! Thanks!

I swear I'm not a company shill for the products I use, I'm just fanatical about sharing what has helped me. A big issue when I first started doing sculpting and scratch building was cost. Sheet styrene and Green Stuff were really pricy when bought from the companies that marketed to miniature enthusiasts. I remember buying my first five pounds of Magic Sculpt, and realizing I could just use it for everything from sculpting miniatures to patching terrain to making Burning Man costumes. The worry that I would mess it up and waste the ten bucks on a small tube of GS was gone, and the same thing happened again when I started buying Plastic in bulk. When I built my massive Blasta-Bomma, the Aeronatical Imperialis model cost more then the 40k sized one. (AI forgeworld model was 35 bucks, the bomma was about 25 including the camera stand it sits on.)

Ultimate 40k wrote:This is a fantastic thread. Excellent work!

Thanks for looking, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I have a small update. work has fully kicked into high gear, I only have about two more weeks to post left till I dissapear for a month.

I know I mentioned the wrecker yard before, I just wanted to show off some neat stuff I found. what I envision is trashed tanks and cars built into ramshackle hills and barriers. think Mad Max, or Fallout. I almost gave up on finding the perfect cheap plastic toy, but then like a bolt of lighting I found a ton on sale for 68 cents each!



I then went crazy and scoured every toy and dollar store to find variations in my Army men vehicles. I have enough to make any configuration I want of little smashed cars.

The scale is perfect, heres a few Barry shots.





Whats going to be fun is designing and figuring out how to mass-produce imperium cars. I always wondered what cars look like in 40k, gonna try and answer that.

I also got a ton of cheap little plastic boxes that make perfect grot houses, so once I figure out the vehicle situation, I can start to build the wrecker yard. I also have a few GW vehicles that can get trashed for the cause.

My plan is to make several small pieces, a crushing machine, a Mek garage, Grot living quarters, and a magnet crane.

the wrecker yard sounds like fun! And the Chaos Dragon is SICK!

The savings alone makes it a no-brainer, I just placed my order with iplasticsupply.com and I am now recommending them to everyone. My wallet thanks you. For $40 shipped I got 32 square feet of 0.40, that is insanely cheap! If I didn't already have a sizable supply of 0.10" stuff, I wouldn't bought a bunch of that too for cricut-cutting stuff.

RSJake wrote:the wrecker yard sounds like fun! And the Chaos Dragon is SICK!

The wrecker yard is on hold, I cant get the Gargant factory out of my mind. Thanks on the dragon! I did it a while ago, it prompted me to go to school for art, and really opened a lot of doors for me. I might re-do it proppa some day, but i still do like the total mess of the thing.

dsteingass wrote:The savings alone makes it a no-brainer, I just placed my order with iplasticsupply.com and I am now recommending them to everyone. My wallet thanks you. For $40 shipped I got 32 square feet of 0.40, that is insanely cheap! If I didn't already have a sizable supply of 0.10" stuff, I wouldn't bought a bunch of that too for cricut-cutting stuff.

I really like the plastic quality too, I reall dont feel like it's the "cheap" stuff by any stretch, it just happens to be inexpensive!

As far as this post goes, I got good news and bad news.
The good news is I have a little preview of what I'll be doing in November, I went ahead and started the Great Gargant factory. I'll have this opener, and maybe one or two small updates over the next week.

The bad news is my latest production for work got pushed, so I won't be able to really dig into this until mid-November. I got all my plans worked out though, so you should see something uhhh... unique here in the coming months.

So without ithout further ado, here is the

NOVEMBER PREVIEW!

It starts (as these things often do) with a box. A really big box.



Saddly, this box held all my small loose styrofoam pieces. I found them all new homes. (I should really stop hoarding styrofoam.) I will be using a lot of it on this though, I need to keep this project super light.



Now that I had a size, I built a frame. I learned my lesson last time, namely to secure the piece to the frame before glue comes into play.



I then cut two sheets of 1/4 inch high-density styrofoam to shape.



The order in my terrain sandwich is foam, foam, cardboard box, frame.



My fastener of choice at this point is woodscrews long enough to go through all the layers.



I then add a piece of foam to the bottom to give me a"true line." I really only need one spot of the terrain to be perfectly cut, so I was pretty careful cutting and mounting it.



Next, I glue in the main structures, and keep them in place with clamps and heavy reference books. (yay for heavy art books!)





In the second picture, you can see the saw I used to cut the larger pieces of foam to shape. Cutting foam with a saw produces one of the worst sounds I've ever heard. (nice cuts though!)

I'm a real pro when it comes to building things, here you can see staples, duct tape and screws being used all willy-nilly to hold one difficult part together.



I got no issues with how I build, it's just not Orky if you haven't hit it with a little Alabama silver. Anywho, I pulled the books after the glue dried, and I must say, I'm quite happy with it so far.

Heres a shot of the bottom



And another of the top of the structure.



Lastly, I add the mounting hardware to the back. I need it both stable and secure, so I'm going with two D-rings for the frame and monkey hooks for the wall.



I leave you with a scale picture of the terrain piece. For scale, I have included my Great Gargant, who will be reciveing a massive overhaul and facelift for this project.



The tiny tank in the bottom left corner is a Baneblade, A solitary marine sits in front of the Tank. For a proppa "Barry" shot, I placed my scale Ork in the main barrel of the belly-gun.

Gonna be a fun winter, methinks.

subscribed. I can't wait.

Fun stuff! You mentioned the gargant had something to do with the terrain, Ork workshop?

That is going to be awesome!

The Good Green wrote:subscribed. I can't wait.

I appreciate it!

Commander Cain wrote:Fun stuff! You mentioned the gargant had something to do with the terrain, Ork workshop?

Pretty much. My plan is to cut the Great Gargant apart and use it for the terrain centerpiece. I'm gonna try and do it in such a way as to be able to re-assemble it, but I'm not super worried if that turns into to much work. I don't imagine I'll be using a 3,000 point super-heavy all that often!

The Gargant pieces are going to be more for when I do the horizontal terrain of the factory. The wall piece will have large chain hoists and cranes that extend from the top of the terrain and about half way across the board. It will also have a cool techno-alcove that the Gargant fits into, but the terrain that goes over and into the Gargant will all be horizontal.

Farty Wiffmas wrote:That is going to be awesome!

You bet your bippy!

As for actual updates, I was about to figure out how to do the wall mounting for the vertical terrain, but I realized my gaming table base got re-purposed for work, so I need a new table! Thats ok, because I was going to have to get a level table for this to work anyways. I will hopefully get a suitable table by the weekend.

I dont want to add too much more to the Factory wall until all the mounting hardware on both the wall and the terrain have been installed. I dont really want to try and make this thing level when its covered in detail and little catwalks, I just want to be able to take it on and off the wall easily. Plus this thing is huge, once I add the next level of foam it will be a little over 48", allowing it to smoothly line up against my gaming table.

I've been staring at it too and taking a lot of mesurements and sketches, I really want this to be as interactive as possible. I figure at the worst, each player would have to decide what troops to dedicate for the vertical fight. That might be too much in larger games, but will be a hoot for narative and RP-stlye games. I'm not super worried, it will be a fun pice of terrain even if it turns into a cool backdrop for the horizontal gaming board.

Impressive start, I like the idea of wall mounting it for added stability.

C...cut the gargant up... You sir are even crazier than myself! (In an awesome terrain guru kind of way )

A tear is welling up in my right eye. Are you serious?

You made that dragon by yourself? I tip my metaphorical hat off to you sir.

monkeytroll wrote:Impressive start, I like the idea of wall mounting it for added stability.

I figured it would be a neat trick if I could pull it off, and if I couldn't it wouldn't take up space on the actrual gaming table. time will tell.
Plus, I'll have a cool new strange piece of artwork for my walls!

Commander Cain wrote:C...cut the gargant up... You sir are even crazier than myself! (In an awesome terrain guru kind of way )

It will be fine, I'm pretty sure I can fix it. I'm hoping it looks like the Death Star in Return of the Jedi when it's done, and not like little timmy got into the tacky glue.

dsteingass wrote:A tear is welling up in my right eye. Are you serious?

Serious about what, cutting it up? if so, see below. I'll put it back together, rest assured!

DaWaagh! wrote:

Thanks! I do try to shock and amaze!

chaoslooksgood wrote:You made that dragon by yourself? I tip my metaphorical hat off to you sir.

Yeah, I made the whole thing myself. only non-clay parts are the rocks for the base, and the piles of skulls on the base. Stupid thing took me two years.

Hey, I cut up my Great Gargant! have some pictures.


















It was a lot of fun to hack it up. I had forgotten how I built it, and the boy was asking where all the parts came from. We spent the evening cutting it up and talking about how everything was built. Good times had by all!

OMG! I'll have to trust that you know what you are doing here. No one can ever say that you lack balls!

So sad now! Any way hopefully you'll do something amazing with it

Very exciting! Sounds like a fantastic time taking it apart.

Looks fun! Like the way you've cut it up, got some interesting sections there.

Will we be seeing grots at work on the innards?

This is going to be awesome.....

OMG!
that is very nice terrain. the water treatment plant is so awesome.
can't wait to see more of your work.

Great thread!
Love your previous projects.
Really looking forward to this one.

dsteingass wrote:OMG! I'll have to trust that you know what you are doing here. No one can ever say that you lack balls!

This old scratch-built Skullhamma I built for the VDR rules eight years ago :


Got converted into this Skullhamma for the Apocalypse release :


This old scratch-built Ork trukk from the same era:


Got converted into this Ork trukk last year :


I promise you, I will do justice to the Great Gargant for the rebuild!!!

Farty Wiffmas wrote: So sad now! Any way hopefully you'll do something amazing with it

Same as above, I leanred a long time ago that stuff needs a new coat of paint every few years, nothing wrong with punching up older models for a new lease on life.

The Good Green wrote:Very exciting! Sounds like a fantastic time taking it apart.

It was a ton of fun. It all started when the Boy asked me how it was made. (I had it out in the living room for scale purpses.) The damn thing was falling apart, a foot had come off and the main engine smokestack got caught on the terrain and ripped off. After that, I just started pulling off bits, and then out came the Dremel and cutting wheels.

monkeytroll wrote:Looks fun! Like the way you've cut it up, got some interesting sections there.

Will we be seeing grots at work on the innards?

Thanks! I was trying to mimic the way the newer kit is assembled, I figure I'll remake each section without bothering to fit it to the whole, then when I go to re-assemble the thing it will naturally have shifted plates.

I'm kind lazy about adding grots and boyz to terrain or even vehicles, painting terrain miniatures is time consuming. I might have to in order to make the piece as a whole look good (like the door gunners in the Blasta-Bomma,) but I'll avoid it when I can. a few humorous placements should do the trick.

bigfish wrote:This is going to be awesome.....

Hell yeah!

rubirub wrote:OMG!
that is very nice terrain. the water treatment plant is so awesome.
can't wait to see more of your work.

Thanks! I got one more update in me after this one, I think. after that I'll be gone a month.

IPS wrote:Great thread!
Love your previous projects.
Really looking forward to this one.

Cool, I'm glad you liked them!

I have a smallish update, I got more of the super-structure done.

Here are four more foam pieces added to the sides. I added them so the total width exceeded 48", so it matches the horizontal terrain a little more evenly.




After that, I added some rough flooring, and some structure support.



Next, I added a huge center piece that sticks out quite a bit. This is going to be the mount for the crane assemblies/ giant Ork head made from sheet metal plates.





Next up is going to be adding the bottom layer of flooring. After that, I will cover the entire thing a heavy-texture paint mixture consisting of lightweight spackle, cheap gesso, and good black gesso.

I'm sad to hear the Wrecking Yard is on hold, but the Gargant Garage is looking great!

RSJake wrote:I'm sad to hear the Wrecking Yard is on hold, but the Gargant Garage is looking great!

Fear not, I have big plans for the wrecker yard. I just wanna do my wall hang terrain first!

Well, I guess I was gone long enough for the entire site to change! I really like the visual upgrades, DakkaDakka has never looked better!

Work was good, it just took longer then I thought it would. now that the excitement of paying the bills is out of the way, I have at least the next month free! As soon as i got home and unpacked all my art gear, I cleaned the house in between bouts of working on the factory. Dreaming of working on it was all that kept me sane while on set, so I had to start the day I got back.

I figured that I had enough of the structure roughed out, and now it was time to start laying the actual playing surfaces. I started on the right side.







Then I moved to the left side.





Here's a wide shot of everything I did today.



I still need a lot of details before I can add the first layer of texturing, but I got more done today then I thought I would. I have to finish wrapping out of work tomorrow, but I'll be working on this a little in the morning, and then all weekend long.

great builds

It's looking good so far.

Great! Keep it up! Is there enough room on the left side to climb the ladder though?

neil101 wrote:great builds

Thanks!

Flying Pooo wrote:It's looking good so far.

again, thanks!

RSJake wrote:Great! Keep it up! Is there enough room on the left side to climb the ladder though?

In general, I'm making this one up as I go along. I know I need to revisit that ladder, I'll take a look at it next update!

I finished the right side, as far as making it usable in games.

To start, I built in service elevators on both sides that will go from top to bottom. I'm planning on ladders only being used one floor at a time, but the elevators can get troops from top to bottom (or any floor) in one turn. I also made the elevators (and most of the floors) big enough to accomodate most heavy walkers/deff dreads/dreadnoughts.




I built the elevators for both sides, then focused on the right side for rough shaping. The thing is so big I can only really work on a section at a time.



I got most of the major playing surfaces done on the right side of the terrain.





I also cleaned up the sides of the wall piece. dont mind the drunken angle, its leaning back on an easel.





Next I'll knock out the left side, then drop the support bar of the easel and start working on the top. I want to make it as interactive as possible, so I'm mostly working on functional build stuff right now. once I have it usable, then I'll go back through the entire piece again to add gubbins and details.

That's going to look epic when it's painted

That is looking pretty damn epic

That is...Big, very big indeed. I love it!

StringBassKnight wrote:That's going to look epic when it's painted

You bet yer' bippy. this thing is gonna get goofy.

SilverMK2 wrote:That is looking pretty damn epic

wait till I add the cranes.

Commander Cain wrote:That is...Big, very big indeed. I love it!

I just erased about four comments I typed out, none of which were a family friendly response to your comment! I'll just go ahead and leave this thread rated "G" and let y'all make your own jokes.

In all seriousness it is silly big, like four feet wide and almost three feet high. I'll need a shorter gaming table to play on top of the structure. Whats cool about it though is it weighs less then ten pounds!

On to the updates!

I completed the left side elevators and walkways.



I had to add a little sideways elevator to the top layer.



I then added the background detail.



Next, I primed it with a hard cady shell of cheap gesso and lightwight spackling compound.



Left side primed.



right side primed.



I need to let my witches brew set overnight, so I fixed the Boys' Land Speeder, found a base for his Dreadnaught, and assembled/primed his jump marines. He's doing a painting push tommorrow, he should be just under 1,000 points painted by next week.

As soon as I post this, I'm gonna start the rebuild on the Great Gargant. I need him done to finish the actual board terrain for the factory once the wall piece is done.

Thanks again for looking! As usual any and all questions, comments, criticisms, and praise are encouraged!

Looking great so far!

pox wrote:

Commander Cain wrote:That is...Big, very big indeed. I love it!

I just erased about four comments I typed out, none of which were a family friendly response to your comment! I'll just go ahead and leave this thread rated "G" and let y'all make your own jokes.

I suppose I should think before I type!

The added details look very cool, I can see this becoming a very cool project indeed!

AWESOME!!!

I can see it all now, and far more than I was expecting. It will truly be a marvel! Great work so far, I can't wait for the cranes.

It's beginning to look quite Orky now. I can't wait to see all of the litter characterised Orky bits you throw on here and there!

:O wowowow keep posting this is awsome

Reecius wrote:Looking great so far!

Thanks! It's all coming together!

Commander Cain wrote:

pox wrote:

Commander Cain wrote:That is...Big, very big indeed. I love it!

I just erased about four comments I typed out, none of which were a family friendly response to your comment! I'll just go ahead and leave this thread rated "G" and let y'all make your own jokes.

I suppose I should think before I type!

The added details look very cool, I can see this becoming a very cool project indeed!

As they say, the devil is in the details. I'm still figuring out what direction to go in, I'm not sure if I want it to be another over-ran Imperial facility, or a full Ork one.

The Good Green wrote:AWESOME!!!

I can see it all now, and far more than I was expecting. It will truly be a marvel! Great work so far, I can't wait for the cranes.

The cranes figure into todays update, as in I need the Gargant to really make them proppa!

Flying Pooo wrote:It's beginning to look quite Orky now. I can't wait to see all of the litter characterised Orky bits you throw on here and there!

I can say this for sure, it's a factory dedicated to making the living embodiment or Gork (or possibly Mork,) it will be Orky as hell by the time I'm done!

dakkagrot187 wrote::O wowowow keep posting this is awsome

Again, thanks! Just remember to breathe, its a marathon, not a dash.

So, onto todays update! I have good news, and bad news.

The good news is, I got the elevator tops on, and started laying out the last of the basic surfacing. The bad news is, I need to take a break from the terrain to finish the Gargant.

Here is the elevator top on the left side



And the one for the right side



lastly, some surfacing and a wide shot to round out the picture update.







This concludes the updated portion of this post, the rest is about where the project is headed, feel free to skip if you only want pretty pictures!

(Now that the looky-loos are gone, were gonna have marshmellows and tea!)

The basic issues I'm having with the terrain piece is the realization of two major things.
The first is that in order to have the piece be interactive, I'll need scaffolding that goes around the Gargant that is stable enough to put miniatures on. just by the layout I have, theres no easy way for the two sides to interact, save shooting each other or taking the elevators to the top.
The second issue is that for the large boom cranes to have the detail that I want, I need to be exact about how they are placed and sized out. I want them jutting out of the structure at least eighteen inches, so this means they need to be built like real cranes to be self supportive, and they may possibly need to be removable for storage issues.

The first issue is more important, as the second issue is merely a cosmetic issue. (but one that will increase the "wow" factor of the terrain.) Both issues have the same solution, I need the Great Gargant finished to continue on this piece. I was planning on doing that in this thread, but as I started working on the Gargant I realized that it would be worth the effort to do it right, not just to do it quickly as terrain.

This was basically a long way for me to say I'm putting this thread on hold, and starting a new thread for the Great Gargant. I'll be writing up the first post right after this, and once it's posted I'll link both threads to each other. Once the Gargant is built, I'll come back to this thread and finish the terrain!

Either way, I'm shooting to be back working on the terrain by late December, and you can follow the Great Gargant thread till then! (or not, down vote this thread, down vote the Gargant thread, send me hatemail, and burn down my house. you know, whatevs.)

Here's a link to the Great Gargant thread.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/411625.page

..and I was just getting used to the sounds of hundreds of orks hammering and riveting, and crumpin.

Ooh, I am imagining a giant ork face plate in the middle of the building, could look cool.

For the cranes, are they going to be attached to the base of the factory, or the back wall? If it's the wall, maybe you could drill holes in the back wall, and use some sort of metal anchor, with a plate on each side of the wall to add strength, and attache the crane boom to that support. If this doesn't come accross clearly, I can try to find a refference to what I am thinking.

Commander Cain wrote:Ooh, I am imagining a giant ork face plate in the middle of the building, could look cool.

I agree, and this is what I was thinking:

dsteingass wrote:..and I was just getting used to the sounds of hundreds of orks hammering and riveting, and crumpin.

There's still plenty of infighting and rivets, I assure you.

Commander Cain wrote:Ooh, I am imagining a giant ork face plate in the middle of the building, could look cool.

I had not thought of the back wall, I was thinking more along the lines of what RSJake was thinking, but a combo could be cool. I really havent thought too much about final details yet, this is a good time though due to the break in construction.

RSJake wrote:For the cranes, are they going to be attached to the base of the factory, or the back wall? If it's the wall, maybe you could drill holes in the back wall, and use some sort of metal anchor, with a plate on each side of the wall to add strength, and attache the crane boom to that support. If this doesn't come accross clearly, I can try to find a refference to what I am thinking.

Commander Cain wrote:Ooh, I am imagining a giant ork face plate in the middle of the building, could look cool.

I agree, and this is what I was thinking:

The issue with metal anchors is weight, I have a few other industrial plastic options I want to exhaust first. Its hard to see, but there are two huge styro holes on either side, those will be for the side booms, and the main piece behind the "face" will have a crane lift with the head being lowered down to the body.

I would like to see the anchors and plate concept your talking about though, I'm sure I can make lightweight alternatives.

It would be easy if I could just attatch the cranes only to the wall piece, but I think I need to be able to move the terrain! I like your anchor idea, I'm also looking into additional support beams coming up from the flat terrain, similar to dock cranes. we will see what works!

Plastic anchors would work, you could make them out of thick styrene or whatever you have. then use a plastic/pvc pipe to connect them, and then add your cranes however you want to the face plate, and it would be using the wall as support, intead of just the mount. I'm not an engineer, but this seems like it should work. See diagram below.

How about a paperclip straightened and bent into a large U shape as a hinge? That would be lightweight, yet strong enough that the plastic would hold?

RSJake wrote:Plastic anchors would work, you could make them out of thick styrene or whatever you have. then use a plastic/pvc pipe to connect them, and then add your cranes however you want to the face plate, and it would be using the wall as support, intead of just the mount. I'm not an engineer, but this seems like it should work. See diagram below.

Thats great, I see what you mean now! for sure, I'm gonna rip this idea right from your diagram. The only thing is the size, but I'm going to use three anchor points instead of one. My plans called for triangle booms, so I'll just have that going into the base. hell, I think I could even use small electrical "T" joints for the contacts, eliminating one more thing that could fail.

dsteingass wrote:How about a paperclip straightened and bent into a large U shape as a hinge? That would be lightweight, yet strong enough that the plastic would hold?

That would work for the smaller cranes, but I want the two main booms to be about six inches wide at the base, and four or five inches tall. I like this idea for the smaller booms and man-lifts (Ork-lifts?) though, it should work out.

What I'll do is sketch up the plans and take pictures of where its all going to get mounted before I actually build anything, then post them here for review.

You guys are awesome!

For the cranes... do you have large magnets? You could build the cranes like some of these: http://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/12-linind/dock-ch.htm
Then attach them with two magnets in the rotating base. The magnets would have to be fairly powerful, I suppose, but I haven't worked with magnets much so... i dunno. Even without the magnets, a good solid pin would keep them in place and maintain mobility.

As for the scaffold, I think you should make two scaffolds that are physically separate but fit into the scaffolds like they are connected. Build a solid base for the two new scaffolds with the scaffolds on wheels that are glued to the solid base. That's my idea for those, then you could move them where ever you wanted them. I think the gargant should be what connects the two sides, though.

PS: It looks awesome. I would like to 3rd that face on the top.

It's funny, model railroaders have no idea how much we wargamers get ideas from them.

Wow....just wow. Cannot wait to see more!

Mutley wrote:Wow....just wow. Cannot wait to see more!

Totally agree. Glad I stumbled across this thread. Subbed.

I usually don't follow ork conversions, but yours are AMAZING. Keep up the good work.

This may help, or it may not...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l2736&_nkw=jcb+crane

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JCB-Crane-and-Construction-Set-/190599313885?pt=UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item2c609ab9dd

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jcb-Giant-Tower-Crane-Remote-Control-Ideal-Xmas-Gift-Boys-Girls-Kids-/380390634190?pt=UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item58910c72ce

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/bundle-toys-construction-jcb-remote-crane-city-set-tools-puzzle-/180774193514?pt=UK_Toys_Creative_Educational_RL&hash=item2a16fb496a

I have two of the 1m tall versions. I'll probably get some of the short ones too. I wasplanning an Imperial construction yard, but now I want to use them for an Orky construction yard. I ought to finish some Imperial and Eldar scenery first though...

The Good Green wrote:For the cranes... do you have large magnets? You could build the cranes like some of these: http://www.igg.org.uk/gansg/12-linind/dock-ch.htm
Then attach them with two magnets in the rotating base. The magnets would have to be fairly powerful, I suppose, but I haven't worked with magnets much so... i dunno. Even without the magnets, a good solid pin would keep them in place and maintain mobility.

As for the scaffold, I think you should make two scaffolds that are physically separate but fit into the scaffolds like they are connected. Build a solid base for the two new scaffolds with the scaffolds on wheels that are glued to the solid base. That's my idea for those, then you could move them where ever you wanted them. I think the gargant should be what connects the two sides, though.

PS: It looks awesome. I would like to 3rd that face on the top.

The smaller cranes will be no problem, its the big ones at the top that are gonna be a hoot to build. The Gargant will connect the two sides for sure. The heavy plates will not be on when it's terrain, so the scaffolding will use the hanging hooks that are on the gargant so I can really get it secure and make the gargant interactive. I will make the face on top, have no worries.

dsteingass wrote:It's funny, model railroaders have no idea how much we wargamers get ideas from them.

They're awesome in real life, but I've learned you gotta be coy about what you're making tilll they get to know you. They look at me funny when I tell them I'm making a giant robot factory, haha.

Mutley wrote:Wow....just wow. Cannot wait to see more!

soon, gotta finish the Gargant first! I'm hoping to be back working on the terrain mid-January.

Moltar wrote:

Mutley wrote:Wow....just wow. Cannot wait to see more!

Totally agree. Glad I stumbled across this thread. Subbed.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it!

2500kgm3 wrote:I usually don't follow ork conversions, but yours are AMAZING. Keep up the good work.

I appreciate it, this entire project has been a lot of fun so far.

Fifty wrote:This may help, or it may not...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l2736&_nkw=jcb+crane

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JCB-Crane-and-Construction-Set-/190599313885?pt=UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item2c609ab9dd

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jcb-Giant-Tower-Crane-Remote-Control-Ideal-Xmas-Gift-Boys-Girls-Kids-/380390634190?pt=UK_Construction_Toys_Kits&hash=item58910c72ce

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/bundle-toys-construction-jcb-remote-crane-city-set-tools-puzzle-/180774193514?pt=UK_Toys_Creative_Educational_RL&hash=item2a16fb496a

I have two of the 1m tall versions. I'll probably get some of the short ones too. I wasplanning an Imperial construction yard, but now I want to use them for an Orky construction yard. I ought to finish some Imperial and Eldar scenery first though...

These are good finds, thats for sure. They sell a lot of these kits around christmas, I've been keeping an eye out for them.

Alrighty, I'm gonna go and update the Great Gargant thread, so we can keep the circus moving along. I'm holding off on this thread until the Gargant is finished, which as I said should be just after the new year. The good news is, when I take just the removable Gargant pieces and lay them out, I easily can cover a 4x6 foot table, so I should be able to squeeze out an entire factory from just the one model! also, all the cranes will run smoothly into my wrecker yard, which is my next terrain project, unless the voices tell me different.

Thanks for looking, see y'all in January!

May i just say, this is some of the most amazing terrain I have ever seen. I might have to steal your toxic sludge for bases.

Hey there,

Love all off the work in this thread, keep it up

may i ask, what did you paint onto the polerstyrine base for it? i know you covered most of it with stuff , im attempting to make some terrain , similar to yours using the same idea ( mines the polystyrine used in packaging, youknow the bits that Tv's etc have in the box to hold them still) , but on some little text scraps the polystyrine melts ways using GW chaos black spray. i think it has something to do with the things mixed into it im covering most of it anyway, but id like to know what can be used as a substitute

thanks for your time

I use the same type of styrofoam to build with.

You can't spray expanded styrene with any spray paint that has CFC's in it, so you either need to apply paint by hand, or use a floral spray paint. (you can get floral spray paint at most hobby stores, and well, large florist shops!)

I personally like to give the foam a bit more protection. The mixture I use is cheap gesso, black acrylic paint, and a little lightweight spackling compound. I mix a huge amount of the stuff and goop it on.

The H2O and other water-based spray paints work on styrofoam too, especially when covering over the floral paint as texture like pox is talking about. But sometimes a big brush and a bottle of craft paint does the job too

Dang.

I know I haven't updated this in a while, I took a little time off after the Great Gargant was finished and then had to go to work for a month.

Now that all that's out of the way, I can get back to working on terrain!

I keep trying to put the horse in front of the cart with this project, but the horse is nearly at the right spot to keep moving forward! I built the factory wall, then realized I needed the actual Gargant shell to make the scaffolding so I built the Gargant. Now that I have it, I realize I need to know how the factory floor and the factory wall will go together. For this update, I've started the actual game board. After that I'll make a stand for the factory wall and then get back to cranes and scaffolding!

My terrain board can't take up a lot of room, so I had to make it collapsable. I started with three sections of 1/8 inch thick MDF, each section 2 feet by four feet. I then framed it up with strips of 1x2 and finishing brads. I wanted to have some texture on it, so I figured I'd use some styrofoam to give it some character. Alas, the Home Depot was out, so I used acoustic ceiling tile. It's very different to work with, time will tell if it was a good idea or not!

I drew out a basic six-point modular pattern for each section, and used some liquid nails to tack down the tile. here it is drying.



While that was drying, I turned to assembling the third coffee table for the board. I had two of the rough frames with tables for a while, but now that my son has 1,500 hundred points, I added one more table and section to make a standard game board. I needed the table to be a low rider, due to the height of the factory wall. (plus you get a cool birds eye view while playing!)



once that was assembled, I took the dried sections and made sure my measurements weren't wrong. (I had issue with the pre-cut pieces, they turned out to be 49" long, making the middle sections wonky when I turned them sideways. My measurements were good, yay!





Next was gluing down the bigger rocks and rubble. The ceiling tile was really crumbly, so I figured I could save it by sealing it really, really well. All of the edges would need to be covered. I also wanted to make the cracks as slight as possible, the idea of the broken factory floor was to add texture and character, not cover saves! I added large rocks and bits of sand and gravel glued down with light liquid nails.





Once I had that done on all three sections, I switched to trash on the ground. I glued most of the wrecked scaffold and catwalk sections down with hot glue.







Once that was done, it was time to get messy. For big projects like this, invest in some sheet plastic. It's pretty cheap, and you don't have to worry about your floors!



To make the mud I was going to coat the table with, I used kraft glue, clay kitty litter, lightweight spackling compound, and some slightly larger pebbles.



Mix all that crap together till you get a workable consistency. I actually went through about three tubs, I made them in different thicknesses depending on where I was putting it. (Thinnest on top of the tile, thickest on the sides of the tile, medium to fill the gaps.)

Here's the board after I covered it all. It took way more time then I thought!









It's had all night to dry, so today I'll be hitting it with the final layer of primer/protective layer. Hopefully I can paint it by the afternoon, and be finished by tonight!

Pics aren't showing up for me, pox.

Looking pretty cool

Wow! What is that stuff you are using with the pre-drilled holes?

SilverMK2 wrote:Looking pretty cool

Thanks!

dsteingass wrote:Wow! What is that stuff you are using with the pre-drilled holes?

The cool stuff with the holes is two different types of drywall vinyl beading. Look in any DIY store by their drywall stuff, instant bridges and catwalks!

UPDATE TIME!

I was hoping to have it all painted by now, but I got distracted by actually playing Warhammer, haha. Here's what I got painted so far.

I started with another candy-coated shell, a mixture of cheap Gesso and lightweight spackling compound.



Next I gave the rocks a pretty heavy wash of dark gray.





After that, I painted all the pieces that are going to be rusted black, and then hit the entire board with some gray primer to even out the wash a little. (I also hit the black pieces with a little black rattle-can, I'll clean it up in later steps. I was tired of the brown peeking out!)





Next up is going to be painting all the black rusted, cleaning up the overspray, then followed by adding some green. Thanks for looking!

EDIT: I just noticed my images are TINY! I'm not sure what happened, somehow my image size got reduced while uploading it to Imgur. I'm working on it!

Looking really good! I am eagerly waiting to see how you do the rust! Painting Rust scares me.

Absolutely Great! Thanks I'll have to check out the drywall stuff!

RSJake wrote:Looking really good! I am eagerly waiting to see how you do the rust! Painting Rust scares me.

It's all about the cheap paint and the dabbing effect. Water helps too! All I do is use two shades of cheap acrylic paint over black primer.

dsteingass wrote:Absolutely Great! Thanks I'll have to check out the drywall stuff!

I love it. There are a ton on little plastic doo-hickeys at the hardware store, but drywall stuff is my favorite.

I got the boards finished, and I think my photo issues figured out.











I think it works. I wish I had more green on the board, or less on the terrain pieces. I don't want to add a bunch to the board, so I'll just be wary for future pieces.

Up next will be back to the factory wall!

That board looks great! Really freaking awesome!

My ONLY critique would be it's a bit on the light side. a little darker and grimier would fit with 40k better, but it's amazing, and if you don't make it darker, I won't complain! Just my $0.02

The board looks great! - But I think there should still be snow on some of the metal bitz.

The board looks great, but I think you might want to break up the green flock with some different static grasses and flocks etc.

Maybe also some orange splotches on the rust as well.

The board looks great, but I think you could do with some more hight variants- built in hills and the like.

RSJake wrote:That board looks great! Really freaking awesome!

My ONLY critique would be it's a bit on the light side. a little darker and grimier would fit with 40k better, but it's amazing, and if you don't make it darker, I won't complain! Just my $0.02

Upon looking at it while the boy and his friend played on it the first time (those are the boy's Space Marines and his friends Chaos Space Marines,) I fully agree. not only is it too light for the game in general, but it's too light for the stuff I already finished! I'll darken it up for sure.

dsteingass wrote:The board looks great! - But I think there should still be snow on some of the metal bitz.

This is what I mean! It's not supposed to be a winter board! (It's a good sign your palette is too light if people are asking for more snow!)

SilverMK2 wrote:The board looks great, but I think you might want to break up the green flock with some different static grasses and flocks etc.

Maybe also some orange splotches on the rust as well.

Also done and done. I'll pick up some different colored flock, add some weeds, and hit the rust with another layer of highlights.

I should be able to work on this some more at the beginning of the week. I'll set the boards out and hit them with layers of work in between getting the next bit of the wall done. I think I'm going to get rid of the huge overhang on the wall. I'm not sure that's the way to go, so I'm going to finish out the detailing on the lower sections, build the table it sits on, and play a game on it. I'll get a lot of pictures, and see what you guys think.

pox wrote:

This is what I mean! It's not supposed to be a winter board! (It's a good sign your palette is too light if people are asking for more snow!)

I'm so sorry man!

WOW! Just WOW! I LOVE your terrain, its friggin amazing. The complexity and detail...... wow!

Subd and exalted!

Loving the board AND the Gargant

The ceiling tile is amazing alternative to non-spray friendly foam.good job!

Wow! you have an amazing amount of talent!

I learned piles of things just browsing in here!

Thanks for the edification!

*exalted*

really nice complex orky terrain and i like it

MIND OFFICIALLY BLOWN

that is one sweet table. cant wait to see more of it done. i hope my sdludge pond comes out half as good as your stuff.

This is some amazing stuff, keep up the awesome work

that board! nice work mate!!!!

I really like what you have done with the ceiling tiles what a great Idea .