Hi everyone, I've decided to start a P&M blog to help motivate myself in my goal to make a fully modular Mordheim table. I started building roughly 3 years ago and had a decent amount of terrain for my small Mordheim group to play with, but a perfect storm of the group (temporarily) disbanding, a burst water pipe that leaked directly onto the old pieces destroying most of them, and the pressures of university education caused me to drop the hobby for a time. Now, the gaming group has reunited and I'll be receiving my degree in about a week. I'm ready to rebuild the table!

What I'm looking to create with this project is a balance between quality and modularity. Looking at some of the artist-level tables people have built has me drooling, but the buildings tend to be locked into place on the board, creating a diorama rather than a wargaming table. Nothing wrong with that, however I find that the more modular the table, the more fun I have as a player.

The plan of action I've chosen is to make buildings and scatter terrain first, then move on to creating 6 2'x2' board tiles, for variety in playing on the standard 4'x4' table and the option to do multiplayer games on a 4'x6' playing field. All the terrain will be urban for the time being, when this project is finished I may create a rural setting to play Empire in Flames scenarios. But that's a long way off.

Previous works I consider worthy enough to show are this modular building created for the League of Extraordinary Riveters 30th building competition.


The building's floors are all removable, and the bridge is magnetized to stabilize it during gameplay (more pics in the gallery).

Next up is a small scatter piece I whipped up from some of the broken pieces of my old buildings.


Nothing too spectacular about this one, was a fun little project. I wrote a short story about it too which can be found here.

So, onto the current project:

This building was one of the ones caught in the great deluge that wasn't completely destroyed, however I decided it needed an upgrade. The building originally had a removable roof, which was fine and good, but it had one entrance and exit and was fairly worthless in terms of gameplay - we avoided this building like the plague. So, I decided to gut it and add another tower to give it some height and another mode of entry. My paint-test dwarf will serve as a scale mini.


Very WIP still, but I'm already much happier with it's usefulness in game. The tower will have a ladder to allow access to and from the loft.


A quick look at the interior work of the old building, and a shot of the tower loft interior - perfect for snipers! The tower will also have a removable roof, because I'm a sucker for pretty terrain.

So that's where I'm at now. More pics will be posted soon(ish)!

Brilliant to see this table getting a blog, subscribing for sure !

Thanks for sharing. Nice work, great ideas, good inspiration. Also, congrats on that degree!

Good lord, did you make a bin of individual styrofoam bricks? I mean, cool, but how long did that take?

@KernelTerror: Cheers, hope I don't disappoint!
@edwardmyst: Thank you kindly.
@Warboss_Waaazag: Yup! Took about 45 mins to make them all, and around 3 hours to glue to the tower. It's a lot slower than the usual pen carving technique, but I prefer the look of this method for stonework.

Updates:

I've finished the brickwork of the tower.


Not much more work will be done on this, save for adding some extra support beams to the exterior catwalk.

I've also begun work on the roof.


For placement, it has dowels that match up to holes in the foamcore. Not the most durable method of making it removable, but it'll do for my purposes.


And with the roof in place.


Next up is finishing the roof of the tower. More updates soonish.

Absolutely gorgeous, I ought to try that stone technique one day !

That is some great looking terrain.

@KernelTerror: Thanks, it's a very time intensive technique, but gives a very organic looking hewn stone effect. Perfect for medieval settings.
@Fifty: Thank you very much!

Update:

I finished the roof of the tower.


With that out of the way, I moved to the part I had been dreading: Rebuilding the main roof.

The beams were cut to the angle and pinned into place with hot glue, then the planks laid over top. This was largely a trial and error process, I didn't match some of the beam angles exactly but it's good enough.


A shot of the interior. Nice and ruined.

Here's where the project stands at now. For size reference, it's 11 3/4" to the peak of the tower roof.


More updates soonish.

Fantastic work on this. But you are truly a nutter for making all of those bricks individually!! Results are awesome, but how you didn't lose your mind is beyond me.

That building is looking really great, the individual bricks are fantastic. It's interesting to watch your progress, as I'm playing a Mordheim with friends at the moment.

That is a serious labor of love - and it looks great! I hope it brings you much joy.

I am joining the choir here – this is fantastic!
I think the building with individual bricks gets better results anyway.

@IGtR=: Thanks, I think Honestly I find it relaxing, a very mindful yet thoughtless exercise. Like meditation but nerdier.
@Viterbi: Thank you very much! You should post some pics/batreps, there's never enough Mordheim content around.
@kestral: Thank you kindly! Yup I definitely enjoy the craft, gives me peace and pride.
@Swaeig: Thank you! I agree that this definitely looks better for a hewn stone look, but it all depends on what you're trying to make - for modern brickwork, I find the pen carving method looks much more realistic.

Update:

The roof of the main building is finished.


As I expected, shingling around the round tower was a pain, but I got it to a point where no one will EVER see any of my mistakes - so, essentially, perfect.

Next I added the interior texture to the new tower and around the edges of the destroyed walls.


Only the one picture because I couldn't get any better ones.
It's green because of the mix I use to make the wall plaster: a mix of modelling plaster, glue, sand, ballast, sawdust, and paint. Smeared onto the walls and worked everywhere with a stiff brush, then stippled further to bring out the texture. I used green paint this time because I needed to see where I was putting the black paint - a crackle texture paint that I worked into the wet plaster. The crackle paint dries faster than the plaster and creates very nice cracks in the walls. Unfortunately I didn't apply it thickly enough in some areas this time, but for the most part the effect worked.

I then added some small details.


First was just this simple rope hanging from the tower. Hanging ropes like this, in my mind, emulate hanging vines in urban settings, creating a feeling of decay and abandonment. Of course I could just do actual vines, but meh.
I then added this little topper to the round tower. Originally I had built a weathervane for this with the twin-tailed comet of Sigmar. It looked awesome, but was very delicate and eventually snapped off. So this guy went on instead, which I am equally happy with.

Next I decided to throw on some rubble piles.


Besides the aesthetic, these piles have gameplay value allowing access to the building without having to go through the main door - good for ambushing or quick escapes. They were made by shaping foam pieces, gluing them to the wall, and dumping loads of stuff onto em'.

So, besides sealing the foam and some minor supergluing for strength, the build is complete!



Onto painting! More updates soonish.

This is simply amazing. I'm a sucker for scratch built terrain, and this is definitely one of the most impressive projects I've seen in a while. Not only have you gone all out on adding little details all over the buildings, you've also really thought about the gameplay functionality of them.

@ mcmattila: Thank you very much! Yeah, the more I play, the more I realize that gameplay value has to come before aesthetics. Hopefully I'll find the perfect balance between the two eventually.

Update:

I've been hibernating during the always lovely Canadian winter and doing some painting.



So far the stonework, walls, wood, and rubble piles are finished. It's simple painting with lots of drybrushing and washes. I like to make fairly desaturated colours with lots of greys and creams to knock back the intensity. Looking at the photos, the walls are much brighter than they are in reality, which unfortunately doesn't photograph well in the lighting of this room.

The roof tiles are next, which I have already base coated. It looks vibrant now compared to the rest of the piece, but that will be knocked back with more painting. After the roof are the metal bits and other small details which I'll paint separately.

More updates soonish.

Wow, those look great!!! Teyh really capture the twisted and strange vibe of Mortheim. A table full of those would almost justify flying all the way up to Canada!

Lovely Great choice of the cold blue for the roof tiles, I would try to keep that in some way

Wow! They look fantastic, and they’re still WIP! A good water salvage I say!

@Waaaghbert: Thanks! I use a lot of the Mordheim rulebook artwork for inspiration, it's chock-full of weird stuff.
@Aestas: Thank you! Yeah, I'm trying to keep with the Fantasy Blue roofs that Warhammer always had. It's very striking.
@gobert: Cheers man, thanks!

Update:

Did all of metal bits, bone, and details in the building.



The bones. As we all know, the one thing that just screams "Warhammer" is skulls. Gotta keep with tradition.



Some of the details inside. The backstory I had for this building is that it was home to an ex-mercenary that specialized in fighting Skaven before losing his hand and retiring as a ratcatcher in Mordheim. Here's his old war gear and some mounts of the ratmen he killed.



And here's what happened to the ratcatcher. This is Mordheim, we can't have nice things here.

After I finished all these bits, I moved on to the part I was very nervous about: The hanging sign.



I designed this freehand to emulate the wonderfully evil looking rats in the Mordheim rulebook, combined with the King of Hearts playing card where he's stabbing himself in the head. I had practiced the image quite a bit beforehand, I didn't get it quite to the clarity I had gotten on an untextured surface. Still, I'm quite proud of it.

And with that, the building I've titled "The Ratcatcher's Manse" is finished!



I'll be taking proper lightbox images of this later, for now I want to move on to other projects.
More updates soonish

Also, as is tradition with the League of Extraordinary Riveters, I've been tasked with hosting the next round. This round, titled "A Drink to the New Decade", challenges contestants to build a piece of terrain using a beverage container. The League contests are a lot of fun, so if you have any interest in joining, you can do so here. Thanks for looking!

Wowzers!
That thing reeks of Mordheim, well done!
Liking the fact that you take into account the gaming qualities of the terrain pieces.

The freehand especially is really solid. Hats off!

Been playing miniature games for 15 years or so, and just now have I started to get familiar with Mordheim. Started my first campaign during the spring and it's still going on. And I gotta say, I'm enjoying it quite a lot and am happy to see that there are others posting Mordheim content as well

Great work on the Ratcatchers Manse. The Skaven Heads and warhead hanging on the wall add a great touch. Loving the humour of the rat eating the catcher too!

Absolutely love this. Looks like the illustrations from the Mordheim book came to life. Love the little details like the giant rat heads!

This is amazing stuff! I've always thought Mordheim makes for some of the most evocative boards going and this is exactly why!

Cool terrain. I love the complex shape.

Far out these look great! The rockwork and shingles are really well done. Look forward to seeing your progress!

@Ezki: "Reeks of Mordheim" is what I was going for, thank you!
@gobert: Thanks, I had a lot of fun with it!
@Da Boss: "Like the illustrations of Mordheim coming to life" is the best compliment I could possibly receive, thank you very much.
@fingol23: Thank you. I do love the aesthetic of Mordheim, it's this obscene mix of decay, madness, and death. Hopefully I can get the whole board to reflect those themes.
@Warboss_Waaazag: Thanks - sometimes the "smash two things together and see what happens" approach pays off.
@zahnib: Cheers, hope I don't disappoint!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, and now that we're all in full pandemic mode I have a chance to work on some terrain. This one I started building a while ago and will now complete.

The building is designed from this piece of concept art from Warhammer Online. There are so many great art pieces for that game, it's a great resource for any WH Fantasy terrain projects.



And here's my take on it (still very WIP)




So far, I've done the main building construction. brickwork, and wall spackling. The building will have 3 stories, of which only the first and second are currently installed as I discovered too late how difficult it will be to paint while the floorboards are in. So, the 3rd story floor will only be put in after the rest of the building is painted.



A bit of the interior. I started painting the interior a while ago, then got distracted with other projects. The rubble pile was created by carving a couple pieces of foam to shape, then coating it with glue and dumping loads of foam bricks, broken coffee stirrers, model ballast, and sand to build it up and make it look natural. It was then soaked in water and diluted PVA to seal it all in. I still need to do some more rubble piles in the building...



There are a few design elements I deviated on from the original image, most notably the arches on the stone foundations of the building. Gives the building an ancient feel IMO, plus I think it looks rad.

Overall this is the largest building I think I'll make (9x6" at the base, and will be 13-14" tall with the roof). Currently the issues I'm having with it is breaking up the brickwork on the side and front of the building. On the side I think I'll add a bunch of posters, and the front I'm thinking of some sort of crest. I have to do some research on crests and guild signs to come up with something for it.

Also, if you've read this far already, I'm going to direct your attention to the League of Extraordinary Riveters Terrain Contest - Round 31 public voting poll, hosted by yours truly. This round tasked the contestants with building terrain from beverage containers. If you'd like to see some great terrain, go take a look at the contestants work and throw in your vote - they put in a lot effort into their pieces.

Thanks for looking. More updates soonish.

Very nice start there Thumpingbear.

Cheers,

CB

Very cool stuff. Would love to see a game on those pieces.

It's all wonderful. So much patience and care shown!

That's some serious building, love the overall look and it will make a great addition to a Mordheim table!

Beautiful work! Look forward to seeing this one painted up. Ah yes, Warhammer Online. Sad to see it go, I remember seeing the early concept art for it in White Dwarf

@Captain Brown: Thanks man, cheers!
@Flapjack: Me too man, hopefully within the next few months I'll talk the guys into getting a game going.
@Fifty: Lots of patience, tempered by a greater amount of cursing
@Viterbi: Thank you kindly!
@zahnib: Thanks! Yeah it's a shame, I played it for like a week when the servers were running. A lot of work went into the game.

Some updates:

Added rubble piles to the interior.



Some quick and dirty work, I hadn't mentioned the hole in the 2nd story floor (as seen in pic. 3), which will house a staircase once the painting is all finished. The last shot is the 2nd story sniper nest, which gives a 180 degree view of the front of the building - perfect for the largely underwhelming shooting in Mordheim.

Once the rubble piles were in place, I moved onto painting.




Currently the stonework, 1st floor walls, and some of the exterior 2nd floor walls are nearly finished, just needing some washes and dirty blending to grime em up. The wash I put on the stonework unfortunately pooled in a few places, which is something I'll have to watch for the next project.

Finally, I designed a hanging crest for the front of the building.



The building's name now is the House of the Flying Ass (or Donkey, not sure if that word violates the language restrictions on the site), aka. Flying Ass Usurial Loans, the shadiest bank in Mordheim. A bit of fluff and design research for those interested:


And here it is, primed and set into it's place.



I think it breaks up the front brickwork very nicely, along with the hanging lanterns on the door. I think I'll try some OSL on the lamps this time around.

So that's all for now. For now, I have to continue painting until at least the interior is finished, then I can start on the 3rd floor and the roof. More updates soonish

The building looks fantastic! You've done a great job on the stonework, it looks straight out of a dark, medieval alley. Also I love the crest, it's strange and historical-looking. Maybe you could add a motto somewhere above/beside it, like 'homines sunt asini'.

That sign is great! I'll second Pomander Cask, that stonework looks fantastic.
I wonder if GW will revive Mordheim like they have some of the other specialist games once the Old World returns

This building is unreal, the level of detail is insane. With the sunlight beaming in it almost looked like a photo of an old abandoned building! Keep up the awesome

@Pomander Cask: Thank you. And thanks for the motto, I was not expecting to go down a wiki-hole on medieval philosophy today. I think I'll be using it in a themed warband I'm brainstorming.
@zahnib: Thanks. Honestly, I couldn't care less if GW decided to put out another Mordheim-esque game. If they do that'd be great, I'll check it out. If not there's like 15 years of free Mordheim resources online, official and fan-made, to play with.
@gobert: Thank you! I try very hard to keep my awesome levels stable lol.

So... it's been a while. The current pandemic made life tough for a bit, especially on a mental wellness level, so the hobby was abandoned temporarily. Got some Mordheim games in with the group recently - lots of one-offs, experimenting with fan-made warband lists and house rules (I like Necrarch: Soul Stealer vampires and Hochland Bandits a lot!). Those games caused the hobby itchiness to come back, and here I am scratching it.

As a brief aside, if anyone reading this is curious about Mordheim or would like to try it, Broheim is a great database for all the rules, for free. There's A LOT of stuff on there though, so I'd recommend any new players to just stick to the core rulebook, and expand outwards.

Anyways, updates:

The plaster, wood, and rubble piles of the building are finished on the House of the Flying Ass.




Some shots of the interior. The staircase has yet to be glued in, I like the way it turned out.




With that out of the way, I moved on to putting in the 3rd story. Here it is, snugly dry-fitted in place prior to painting and gluing.



And here it is, finished. I should probably go back in to do some rubble piles though...



Access to the third story is up this ladder. I debated making another staircase, but couldn't figure out how to fit it in. My official explanation is the staircase was on the side of the building that collapsed.



At this point, the building is (nearly) fully functional as a gameplay piece, save for a flat area on the roof that can connect to other roofs via bridges and catwalks. So, onto the roofing.

This is the frame for the back roof, on that weird little addition beside the chimney. The roof intersects part of the second story, hence the removal of planks from the one side. I wanted to have a hole in this roof so bridges could be placed into it - a one-way entrance into the building from the back. This part would have been a nightmare to paint if built onto the building, so I decided early on to build and paint it separately before gluing on.



Here it is in place. It is an EXTREMELY tight fit. Good thing wood is such a pliable material.



That's where the House of the Flying Ass stands. Next updates will see the back roof constructed, and the top roof construction beginning - maybe even ending, who knows? I certainly don't. Maybe I'll abandon this blog for another 4 months before another update. It's the 2020 pandemic baby, there are no rules! The only constants are these 4 walls and the slow creeping mania of forced hermitage.

Jokes aside, more updates soonish.

Good to see you back Thumpingbear! Cool to know that there is an active Mordheim community going

Great update and amazing to see the work you put into the details, love the roof progress!

@ Viterbi & zahnib: Thank you guys, much appreciated.

Some updates:

On the House of Flying Ass, the back roof construction has been finished.



The roof spikes are plastic cocktail stick spears, I picked them up at a party supplies store in my city. It was ~$10 for 250 of the things, they're absolutely fantastic (and I'd argue essential) for Warhammer scenery. The strip connecting them is just cardboard hardened with liquid superglue. It will be painted at a later time.

Next up, I got to work on the main roof.



I was debating whether to make this roof removable or not. Then I remembered I'm stressed enough as it is, so why torture myself? So, I glued on this rough frame of roof beams and started laying on coffee stirrers for roof slats.



Here is the slatted roof. I'm going to paint the exterior black before laying on the cardboard shingles. I also fitted in 2 small connecting wall pieces, shown in the third picture.

That small connecting wall piece created a bit of a setback, completely of my own making. I made a batch of my plaster mix to texture + strengthen the walls, but only ended up using around 1/20 of all of the plaster. I'm not one to waste good hobby materials (on purpose, anyhow), so I decided to use the remainder of the plaster on one of my older projects that needed updating - a simple house ruin.



This is one of the terrain pieces that survived the destruction of all my old terrain. It's great to play with too - the open 2nd story allows for movement to other elevated areas via bridges, but the entrance to the second story is a thin stairwell - only an inch wide. It's fantastic for defending, you can line your models up on each step to create a gauntlet for attackers to get through.

Anyways, I didn't snap a picture of the previous roofing, which was just cardboard with shingles laid overtop. I ripped that off and installed beams and slats, as per my usual technique. The corners of the main floor also had some megalithic corner stones on em that looked out of scale with models next to them, so those came off and new ones were put in place. With those installed, I plastered the rest of the building and put on cardboard shingles.

I also decided to replace the stones on the stairwell. I had carved them originally, which looked decent, but not in line with how I do stonework now. I carefully shaved down all of the old stonework and glued everything on.


Before

After

I did a bit of detail work as well.



This is a gate fit into the arch under the stairwell. It's hard to see as I prepainted it, but the construction is 2 toothpicks stuck into the wall as horizontal bars and more of the cocktail spears glued onto them vertically in an arch. I imagine this gate would be an entrance to the labyrinthian catacombs that lie beneath Mordheim (even though, physically, it should just be a side entrance to the building). Perhaps if I make more entrances like this, I can come up with some shortcut rules for crossing the board through the tunnels...



Some simple decorations. The first pic is a skull sculpture above the window. The bit from the second pic, installed above the 2nd story doorframe, was actually from the Ratcatchers Manse in it's first form. The third pic are gargoyle head installed above the first story door to break up the flatness. I measured wrong on it though - the left head is ~1.5 mm out of line, an asymmetry that no one but me will notice, and I will be annoyed by it every time I look at it. Unfortunately it's superglued on and I don't want to break the balsa wood to get it off, so I must live with my mistake.

I finished up by doing some rubble piles and general dirtying.



With that done, construction on the ruin is finished!



Painting will have to wait on this guy as I want to finish Flying Ass Usurious Loans first. I should have the main roof finished next, and I can work on basecoating the ruin while I wait for glue to dry.

More updates soonish.

Awesome update Thumpingbear! The new stonework on the smaller buidling looks fantastic, I'd love to know your method. The roofs on both buildings look fantastic as wekk, I especially like the truncated pyramidal roof on the House of Flying Ass.

That is a monumental update. I really love the thoughts in regard to gaming you put into this.

Some amazing ruins! Great work.

that’s looking fantastic, the attention to detail and realism are spot on. Great to see a master at work!

Some more fantastic ruined buildings coming there Thumpingbear.

Cheers,

CB

@ zahnib, Viterbi, Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll, gobert, & Captain Brown: Thank you for the kind words, you're keeping me motivated to finish this project.

@ zahnib: It's a method that I picked up from the "Tabletop Workshop" Youtube channel (absolutely fantastic content), this video specifically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1DrL45dzBU. Basically pre cut your bricks, shake em around in a bin with some rocks to texture em, then glue them on one by one. It's a time consuming method but gives pretty great results IMO, and I've started to see other builders use the technique as well. The only thing I do different is I use much smaller bricks and stones.

Some updates:

Finished the cardboard shingles on the main roof.



I also installed the roof fencing.



Pinned the spears on top, then used cardboard to make the connecting bar, then stiffened it with liquid superglue. I'm a little disappointed in the bends in the cardboard bars, they're a little too exaggerated and cartoonish. Still, it's fine and, more importantly, finished.

Next up was the tower roof, which I was excited to make because, according to the concept art of the piece, uses rounded Monk and Nun roof tiles, which I had never made before. But before that, it needed a base.



For my conical roofs, I do have a very simple method: cut a circle out of cardboard, cut a "pie piece" out, overlap the edges to make a cone, adjust the size of the circle/pie piece until I like the base size and angle, then tape + glue in place. By stacking 2 on top of each other like I've done here, you can do a "witches hat" style, a technique I used on the Ratcatcher's Manse tower roof.

The biggest drawback of this method is that the bottom is untextured cardboard, however it's usually something people don't notice, and if you really want to you can put pieces of balsa underneath to add some detail. This wasn't the final cone I used as it wasn't tall enough for what I wanted, but I didn't get a picture of the unpainted final one and I wanted to demonstrate how I did it. Also ignore that the cardboard has 40k Boyz on it, that's not the subject of this blog

Anyways, here's the final tower roof, pre-primed so any gaps in the tiles wouldn't show too much. I also threw some small balsa pieces on the underside to simulate roof beams.



With the tower roof finished, I got to work on tiling it. I really wanted an easy way to do this. I really did. I tried laying strips of corrugated cardboard along the top, but I couldn't get it to look good.

So I made individual tiles.



I didn't take any WIP pictures, but here's the results.



Turned out pretty good, but I screwed up the alignment on the bottom half that makes it look a bit twisted. Still, it's finished, which is the most important part. I also threw on a cardboard strip with arrows on the cap, which will be painted iron. It's actually a sneaky 8 sided Chaos star, a remnant of the blatant Chaotic influence that permeated Mordheim before the comet struck.

Finally, I'm sculpting an eagle statue to place on top of the tower roof (WIP).



Could've just used one of the extra Aquilas I have lying around, but that's boring. I wanted a weird heraldic-looking eagle, which I think I'm getting close to. My sculpting skills aren't particularly strong, so it's a good opportunity to practice.

Not gonna lie, I've been working on this building for far too long and I'm getting burnt out. I make a solemn vow that my next update will be see the House of Flying Ass finished, cause I just want this thing done.

More updates soonish.

Thanks for linking the video, its an awesome technique, you've really nailed. That conical roof looks great! Doing all the tiles individually really pays off. Also as a side note, I love the multicoloured roof with the rainbow spikes before base coating

That’s some serious dedication, making individual bricks and tiles! Do you mix mortar and lime render too? I think the eagle looks great, and I love that it’ll be mounted atop a chaotic symbol! All in, the house of the flying ass is going to be spectacular, well worth the time and effort.

Oh yeah, the house is nearing completion! It's already glorious, can't wait to see it with paint on! I just can't stop admiring all the details and the amount of effort you've put in.

The eagle's great, even if not quite up to the modern GW's computer-created quality. Certainly better than what I can do, I'm basically still at the gap-filling stage! Is that all greenstuff, or do you have a small wire armature in there?

@zahnib: thanks! the multicoloured spears do look festive, don’t they? Although I do like them better rusty and metallic.
@gobert: thank you - I don’t make my own mortar/lime, but I do mix my own plaster for the walls!
@mcmattila: thanks. I have a bit of an aversion to GW’s computer created stuff tbh - maybe I’m a neo-Luddite, but there’s something about the imperfections and limits of hand sculpting that seems very authentic to me. Not that GWs new stuff isn’t nice, just a bit soulless, depending on the sculpt.
My own unasked opinions aside, there is a small armature in there- the body and head are roughly formed, and the wing outline was created with wire. It’s my first full sculpt, and it’s certainly not perfect, but I had a lot of fun making it!


I’ve been putting off updating for a bit since I’m now doing it from my phone - my laptop had an unfortunate encounter with a glass full of paint water and is now a very expensive paperweight. The phone is a pain to update with, so I’ll be doing infrequent large updates until I can save up for a new computer.

Anyways, updates:

On the House of Flying Ass, I finished the eagle sculpt and glued it in place.



Next I did some rubble piles for the top floor and painted them. I switched brands for my Burnt Umber paint so they are a slightly different colour than the lower 2 floors, but it can’t be helped.



I then decided to try something new - glass panes for the leaded windows. These were created by mixing gloss medium with a bit of water, then brushing it on to the wire mesh. I think it turned out a little too well - you don’t notice it unless you’re up close! Next time I’ll mix in some blue ink to make them stand out.



I also glued the stairwell to the second floor in place.



With the completion of the roof and metals, the House of Flying Ass (aka Flying Ass Usurious Loans) is complete!



Simultaneously I finished the small Ruin. Nothing to write home about, and I’m happy it’s painted.



With those projects behind me, onto the next one: The Culverhouse.



The concept. I had created the general design first, then decided the function later as a messenger pigeon service in Mordheim, adding the tall tower on the right as a pigeon house. The building also has a large tree growing on the side of the house, mainly cause I haven’t done any trees yet and I wanted to take a crack at it.



Here’s the initial build. I had actually started this building a while ago, but stopped when I got stumped on how to get access to the roof platform.

We use it in games, but we all typically avoid the ground floor since there’s no access to the roof and it essentially acts as a platform for connecting high level bridges. This is quite annoying in games as any models with ranged weapons can plunk themselves on the roof, fire freely at all models, and be pretty much untouchable for the entire game (unless you plan to send models to deal with them).

This is only an issue because I couldn’t figure out how to actually get to the platform. I wanted a stairwell of some kind, but couldn’t figure out a way to do it while still being able to move models easily inside it. Eventually I decided to simply have a very long ladder from the bottoms floor, through the second, and to a hatch in the roof. The hatch will open to another platform connecting the house to the tree, which will have another ladder that leads to the roof platform. I apologize if that’s a bit confusing, when I build it it’ll make sense.

Anyways, here’s the roof hatch finished, along with the front roof addition.



Here’s a couple pics of the pigeon house, the second with the roof tiles placed. The material to make the tower was a clear tube, so even though it looks black, each of the openings is clear and you can see into the structure. There will eventually be a small platform for access to the small door, used by the postman to grab messenger pigeons for deliveries. I also put a green stuff cap on the roof, which is visible in other photos.



After that I bricked the buttresses on the sides of the building. The intact one in the second picture is what the tree will be growing out of.



Last up is the tree itself. I apologize for not having any WIP pics as I just forgot to take any. It was created using the wire wrap technique, with the burls sculpted onto the frame with green stuff. It’s been coated with a mix of acrylic caulking and black tea to strengthen it and give it texture, it still needs a few more layers and a final layer of wood filler, into which the bark will be sculpted.

The second pic is it in place on the building. After it’s finished and glued in place, I’ll be sculpting roots wrapped around the buttress and writhing out of the brickwork.



Overall I’m satisfied with how it’s turning out - I was trying to get a gnarled and twisted appearance to it. I think I nailed the gnarly aspect, but it’s not as twisted as I’d like. Still, as a first attempt, I’m happy.

Okay, update finished. I’m gonna keep plugging away at the Culverhouse, and will update probably later than soonish

That sucks about the laptop! We’ve all at least had near misses like that. The small ruin and House of the Flying Ass both look AMAZING! The realism you get in to your models is fantastic. The culver house is coming along great too, so much attention to detail it’s beyond anything I have the patience for. Hopefully the updates can still trickle through via your phone

Stunning work there mate! Your buildings put mine to shame
Seconding gobert, but the attention to detail is amazing. I especially like the bricks.

Sorry to hear about the laptop accident. Happens to the best of us.
Best case scenario, the battery or the main power outlet is the only thing that fried. Seen that happen a few times and they started working after changing it.

Amazing update post, finished buildings look so great! And I love that the glass experiment went too well
Sorry to hear about the laptop!

As usual Thumpingbear, wonderful creations you put together.

Cheers,

CB

@ everyone: thank you very much for the comments. Sorry for not responding individually, still going from the phone and it’s annoying. Also it’s Christmas Eve and I’m about 7 Yuletide drinks in.

Some updates:

First I put most of the flooring in.



I left part of the second floor uncovered because I was fitting in the ladder, which is the longest one shown here.



The longest ladder and the stairwell provide access to the roof hatch and small sniper platform as shown in these pics.



Unfortunately I didn’t get pic of the 2nd stairwell in situ, as I was finishing the construction of the building at the time. As I had said previously, the tree on the side of the house was to have a platform that would connect the interior ladder to an exterior one that would go to the roof.
Anyways, here is the (mostly) completed building. Finished the plastering, and the tree platform, and the roots of the tree around the pillar, which were done with green stuff and textured with a mix of caulking and saw dust. Hopefully you can see where that ladder would go: right beside the hatch, ending at the break in the roof spikes seen in pic 4.



I apologize for the tree side of the house being difficult to see, I primed it before gluing the tree in place because I figured it’d be easier. Turns out it’s still annoying to prime this thing.

With the main construction done, I turned to putting some small details in:



First is this weathervane on the top of the tower, bedecked with the twin tailed comet of Sigmar. This was a scavenge from a previous build that had broken off - now the interior of that plastic spear is mostly paper clip, all from some delicate and nerve wracking drilling. Unfortunately it doesn’t have the 4 spikes for the cardinal directions like true weather vanes have, but whatever. It looks cool and I’m happy.



Next up is this ugly little guy - the wyrdstone that crashed into the city caused much mutation. Was this thing a human that mutated into a bird, or a bird that grew a human head? Whatever the case, it flies around crying portents of doom at any soul unfortunate to come across it.



Finally, here’s my take on giving The Hanging Man tarot card a Mordheim twist - the original has his hands tied behind his back, but I feel a corpse holding his own severed head was twisted enough to be forgiven. Fun fact: the noose around his foot is the actual Hangman’s Noose, which was an incredible pain in my donkey to tie. Looks pretty cool though IMO.

I’m currently priming The Culverhouse, painting should be done soonish.

However, in this blogs title I specify that I paint the occasional model. So here’s a model:



This is Mr. Scale. I’ve been bothered that I don’t have a human sized model to give a sense of scale to my builds, so I decided last night to paint up this guy. Please forgive the crime that is the glue job at his feet, I bought these models second hand and had no part in that travesty. Mr. Scale is painted in the traditional purple and yellow of Ostermark, the Imperial province Mordheim is found in - this was also a test of a paint scheme I’ll be using in the future. Mr. Scale will be in most of my photos from here on out.
For a personal nitpick, the eyes look awful - however the eye sculpt was weird, so I’ll forgive myself. For a personal praise, I’m VERY happy with the stubble - it was done with a turquoise glaze, which I had read somewhere was a good way to do it. I think it looks great.

I plan on setting up a lightbox to take some glamour photos of the buildings I’ve recently made, some of the scatter terrain I’ve painted but not shown, and a few shots of all the terrain so far.

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to all, thanks for stopping by. More updates soonish.

It’s always a treat to see your thread pop up on the subscriptions list! Another fabulous amount of detail to feast on. Glad to hear you’re having a Merry Christmas too!

Oh and thanks for the tip on turquoise for the stubble, interesting how well it worked on Mr Scale.

Wow, these terrain is a pure awesomeness!

Great update, platform on/in the tree looks amazing! Love Mr. Scale and nice trick for the stubble. I've only tried mixing grey with the skin color one used, but will try out yours sometime too.

@gobert: what a kind thing to say, thank you. Hope your Christmas was stellar as well.
@Shadow Walker: thanks man, I aim to please!
@Viterbi: thanks, I was trying for a real ramshackle look, like if you sneezed near it it’d collapse. Takes a while to get right, I’m pretty happy.

Some updates:

Painting of the Culverhouse is coming along, albeit a bit slowly. Here is the stucco finished:



With Mr Scale in the shots you can see the size of building - it’s 15.25 inches to the top of the weathervane. Apologies that most of the building is inscrutable - the contrast between the black prime and walls doesn’t allow for great pictures on an iPhone. Next up will be the stonework.

In the last post I stated I’d take glamour shots of the buildings and some other scatter terrain I haven’t shown yet. Well that didn’t happen because I got distracted by another project - painting Mr. Scale reminded me of the fun of converting and painting figures. So I decided to build a Human Mercenary Warband.

The Warband will be run as Reiklander mercenaries, which confers a bonus to Ballistic Skill to Marksmen henchmen, and an increase to the Leader’s Leadership buff range, which serves well facing against warbands that cause Fear. The backstory I came up with is the Warband is made up of various Mordheim citizens that managed to escape the destruction of the city, now returning to plunder the empty streets. The paint scheme I’ll be using is the traditional purple and yellow of Ostermark, which I tested on Mr Scale.

The kits I used were mostly the Empire Militia and State Troopers (not sure what they’re called now in AoS), along with a ton of Empire bits from a giant bag of miscellaneous bits I had bought a few years back. Mordheim is supposed to be a WYSIWYG game, however my group plays with the Rule of Cool when it comes to modelling, so I took the opportunity to make characterful figures.

Anyways, here they are in no particular order:



The Ratbasher
I made this model a while ago before I had any concrete plans to make a Warband, mainly just as an exercise in modelling. In the Warband he’ll likely be run as a Youngblood hero. The legs of the rat nailed on his shield are a little wonky, but I’m sure it’ll look better painted up.



The Dualist
This model only had a simple weapon swap for an extra sword. Overall this guy is kind of plain, but I like him.



The Tortoise
This is the first model I put a lot of effort into greenstuffing by extending the brigandine chest piece and adding some cuisses to the legs for extra bulk. I called this guy the Tortoise because he reminds me of the turtle-like Ironclad Soldiers from Dark Souls 2, and because I plan to add a shield slung over his back. I haven’t put the shield on yet because I put too much work on the chest armour and I’m hesitant to make that effort pointless by covering it. I’ll have to eventually do it...



Crossbow Youngblood
As evidenced by the name, I intend to run this guy as another Youngblood hero. This model was an exercise to try sculpting fur for his collar - turned out pretty well IMO. I used Juan Hildago’s method for doing it, which I think can be found in the Tutorial section here. I included a third pic because this model is pretty hard to photograph - I wanted to show off his bayoneted crossbow.



The Mad Gunner
Extended periods of time in Mordheim comes at a risk to your health and sanity. This model exemplifies this with his peg leg and the fish he impaled on his helmet spike. This guy is loosely based on a couple pieces of art from the Mordheim rulebook, which I would show here but I’m lazy. The fish spike took FOREVER to get on there, it was incredibly fiddly. I’m very happy with this one, he’s one of my favourites and I’m excited to paint him!



The Nuln Gunner
This model took some effort to have the gun resting on his shoulder, which also required greenstuffing his hand on the rifle butt. This one will represent the model that gets a Hochland Long Rifle in a campaign, which is the most powerful base blackpowder weapon warbands can get. I’ll probably add a scope to the rifle at some point. This models pose is my favourite of the bunch.



The Archer
This was another very simple conversion, just a Militia arm swap on a State Trooper body, and a strap for the quiver. Nothing special, but I like his look.



The Goat
I love front facing horns like this, it’s very under-utilized and looks dope. Other than the horns, the ends of the bow were bent inwards to sell the effect of the drawn arrow. I’m a big fan of this one.



The Prospector
It might be a little anachronistic to have a Wild West prospector in Mordheim, but they’re all Warhammer bits so whatever. This model is just fun, and I think I could count his bottle as another mace if I wanted to.



The Bard
I was never a big fan of this head from the Militia kit - I now realize it just needed proper context. The ruff was fun to sculpt, I followed a tutorial on the Gardens of Hecate blog. On his belt is a playbill and the skull of his good friend Yorick. I think I’m most proud of this guy because the ruff came out so well.



The Warden
This guy I imagine was a warden at a prison in Mordheim before the comet fell. This again is a fairly simple conversion - State Trooper body, Militia crossbow arms, and the head is from the Demigryph kit (I think), and a fur cloak from the Marauders of Chaos kit. I’ve become very fond of this one though, not quite sure why. I’m going to be giving him a spiked cudgel on his belt at some point.


So those are the models that I’ve made for the Warband, however I have a couple that I need some input on:



The Templar
This model took some effort to rebuild the sallet, which had a big Jaguar on top before I removed it. The body is from the Militia kit, which I’ve converted to hang more closely to the legs.

I like this model, however I don’t think he quite fits the theme I’ve established with the rest. He’s a lot more menacing. I think he’d probably be better suited to a Witchhunter Warband, in which cruelty and menace are expected. What do you all think?



The Meh Model
This guy I’m just not happy with. I don’t think the head fits, and the axe arm just looks awkward. I’m open to suggestions for this model - maybe he needs something on his back? A loincloth? What do you all think?


So thats what I’ve been up to. I’ll continue painting the Culverhouse. I also have a few more models to make for the Mercenaries to get to the maximum of 15 models, including the Leader. I also want to make a Warlock hired sword to run with the Warband, which I have some ideas for. More updates soonish.

So great seeing the mercenary builds. Prospecter face is my favorite one. I have it on a pikesman (who failed to kill a single model in at least 20 games ).
Regarding the Meh mini, I think it might work better, if you switch out the axe for a hammer to go with the stake. Other than that he looks like a proper Mordheim citizen

Great stuff! Love the complexity of your builds in contrast with the pragmatic approach when it comes to materials. The warband is also shaping up nicely.

@Viterbi: thanks man! Yeah sometimes you just have cursed minis in a campaign that are useless, i feel ya.
Funnily enough, the axe is the non-negotiable part of the model I don’t have any models with an axe, so I needed to put one in there. You are right about the hammer and stake though, that would’ve been the best fit. I decided to take it in a pretty different direction though.
@Monsterzonk: thank you! Pragmatism is a tenet I try to live by, a very nice compliment.

Some updates:

Made The Spearman



I wanted a guy with long hair, so here’s my attempt. It was my first time doing hair, I think it came out pretty good. It’s not perfectly smooth, I could’ve gotten to that point if I worked a little longer at it. I was working on multiple sculpts at the time though, so whatever. Dude definitely has a mean look to him though, I’m pretty happy.

Next up is the Meh mini. Viterbi’s suggestion made me realize the stake hand was not going to work with the axe, so I removed the stake. I also switched the head. I’ve had an idea floating around for a mini and decided make that vision.

Here’s the Meh mini, now The Patient:



Much happier with this guy now. The idea of him going out treasure hunting with a broken arm gives an air of desperation and toughness to the model. I think might sculpt some taller boots on him too, not sure yet.

Also, need opinions again: I’m debating putting a shield on his sling arm. Here’s a pic of the mock-up:



I’m a bit worried that the sling will be covered up too much. I’d love input on it.

The Culverhouse is coming along, next post will have an update on that. Tbh I’m focusing more on the Warband right now, I’m having fun challenging myself with the sculpting.

More updates soonish.

Love the long hair on spearman and it works better, if it's not too smooth. Man is walking through grime the whole time, so it stands to reason it is cared for very well.
Great work on the patient, the mini now looks great, amazing work with the sling. I would omit the shield, because the guy is running into Mordheim with a broken arm and a head bandage, he doesn't need a shield

Absolutely love these models. You've given them so much character with your posing and greenstuff work. Looking forward to seeing them painted.

And I'd say a definite NO on the shield - that sling oozes Mordheim and doing anything to obscure it would be virtually criminal.

Amazing greenstuff work there mate! Really gives some character to the minis.
The hair is really good and fits the guy perfectly!

Looking forward to that glamour shot from the buildings, if you are still thinking about doing that!

Agreed, don't hide the sling with the shield! The more noticeable the sling is (accentuate it with the paint job; like maybe the sling is made with a scavenged flag) the better!

Also, I’m not sure how effective a shield is going to be on a broken arm. I also agree to leave it off. Could always put it on his back.

Ah mordheim - I have a bunch of plastic mordheim models that my kids painted. maybe I should dig them out....

(these are sweet looking conversions too!)

Thank you for your input and kind words everyone, I left the buckler off of The Patient.

@Ezki: the glamour shots will come eventually, I think I’ll do it after I finish the Culverhouse. I don’t have a large enough lightbox to fit any terrain pieces in, so I have to jerry-rig a lighting system. It’s a real pain to set up and I’d prefer just to do all the shots at once. So yup, eventually!
@Gwyn: a salvaged flag sling is SUCH a good idea, I’ll see if I can pull it off. Need something that looks interesting but not distracting.
@darkkt: do it! Mordheim needs more love on this forum.

Some updates:

Made a scope for the Nuln Gunner.



Made with green stuff and plastic tubing. I’ve also started priming the models and will start painting as soon as I’m done building the rest of the models.

Speaking of which, here’s The Captain of the Warband:




Made him have the most unique markers of rank with a full cape, pistol, and feather in his cap. I’m particularly happy with his 2 handed axe, i think it looks very imposing. The tassels on the boots were also fun to sculpt.

So that makes 15 members, the max amount for a Mercenary Warband. However, I’m unhappy with The Templar model as I think he’s too menacing and doesn’t fit with the rest of the models. So I’ve reserved that model for other use in the future - I’m pretty sure you can get a Witch Hunter hired sword...

One thing that I want to do with this Warband in a campaign is get a Warlock Hired Sword for some sweet n’ tasty magic. Casters can be pretty devastating in Mordheim, and are always fun to play with. So here’s Cassander, the Mad Mage of Mordheim:




Made with a flagellant body, arms from the Vampire Corpse Cart, head from the Zombie kit, and the collar from a High elf torso. He’s still a WIP, I need to do some tidying and finish the flames on his skull staff, burning endlessly in the shape of the twin tailed comet of Sigmar. The head was a bit difficult to get right, as the zombie heads are ridiculously out of scale and I needed that dazed, confused look on his face - it looks a little weird but not terribly so. I tried to model him as a Celestial Wizard, I’m missing some astrological imagery but i think I’ll be able to freehand some on. I’m coming up with some fluff for him too which I’ll post eventually - as Cassander is the male equivalent of Cassandra, you may already have an idea of what the fluff is. Quite proud of this one.

More updates soonish.

Wow! Great work on these Mordheim conversions, the mage is a particular work of art. They’re going to look immense crawling all over your terrain pieces

Very cool update, captain is an amazing kitbash and the mage is already shaping up nicely!

Nice greenstuff work Thumpingbear.

Cheers,

CB

@gobert: thanks, I’m looking forward to getting everything painted and doing some batreps. Gotta convince my buddies to paint their models though...
@Viterbi: thankee, I realized after I made the captain that I ripped the pose off of an oop empire general model. Still, very pleased with him.
@Captain Brown: thanks man. It’s been fun improving my sculpting technique with these guys.

A quick update:

Cassander the warlock Hired Sword is finished:



Layered the flames on his skull staff, and gave his robes and feet a quick layer of liquid green stuff to give em a rough texture. Will be painting him at a later date.

I’ve also started basing the rest of the Warband:



One thing I love about Empire armies is the unified yet chaotic approach to their colours. Everything should generally share the same colour scheme, but expressed in different ways. I’ve taken that approach to the Warband, with each model having the yellow and purple fabrics of Ostermark on them somewhere, accompanied by black and brown leather, and off-white cloth. They’re still early stage but I already dig their vibrancy.

I’ve burnt myself out a bit on the basing though, and have been putting work into the Culverhouse:



Since the last update I’ve finished the stone and wood, and I just finished basing the main blue for the shingles. I’ll be continuing the roof by picking out random shingles with lighter and darker blue tones, washing it all with a brown, and highlighting with drybrushes of creamy greys. I’m aiming to have the building done by next week.

More updates soonish

Some updates:

I finished the Culverhouse over the weekend, but didn’t have time to take photos and post until today. Here’s the finished product:




I tried a new painting method on the roof tiles to increase contrast - not much of a change, just an extra wash and more selective dry brushing. I’m happy with the result.



Views of the interior. Forgive the darkness, it’s difficult to get a good photo of the interior. Also forgive my thumb in the ground floor pic.



Here’s some shots showing the path to the roof from the ground floor: the long ladder with access to the second floor and roof hatch, the tree platform from the roof hatch, ending on the roof. I’m excited to use this piece in a game as more than an inaccessible sniper platform.



Here’s the tree painted up. It was painted with a brownish grey, with more white added in multiple dry brushing layers, a thinned brown wash, and a green wash in selective areas. I’m not entirely happy with it, I think a black/brown wash would have been better, and the green needed thinning. Other than that though, I’ll give it a “good enough”.



The Hanging Man came out decently. I was matching his colours to the depictions on tarot cards. The pants are a bit too vivid compared to the rest of the building, but overall it’s good.



The spikes and skull on the gable.



The roof hatch and mutant bird. I’m very happy with the mutant bird, he was painted with blues, browns, and greys that match the roof, so he blends in nicely while still being bright enough to be distinct. He just looks like such a vile little creature, I adore him.

And here’s the obligatory shot with Mr Scale:



A while ago I said I’d do some shots of the scatter terrain I’ve made so far. So here we go:

First up the bridges:



The large ones (12” and 10”) are made from bamboo skewers and popsicle sticks, while the smaller (6.5” and 8.5”) are balsa and leather working thread for the rope. The bridges with the walls also have a bunch of random bits thrown on, which you can see in more detail:





Next up are the Crates n’ Barrels:



Crates are made from blocks of wood covered in coffee stirrer sticks and cardboard strips. Barrels are entirely paper, I made them a few years back so I can’t quite remember the exacts of it. It was a modified version of Bugbait_nz’s method of making barrels somewhere in his thread over on Warseer. The grain bags are Milliput, they were repurposed from a bunch of sandbags I had previously made.

My skill in making terrain is much higher now than when I made these, but they’re still pretty okay. I do like the haphazard way they’re glued together, they look fairly natural in any organization they’re put in - separate like in the first pic, or in a defensive ring:



Or just jumbled together:



The crates and barrels are mostly under 1” in height, so models can move over them without penalty while still getting cover bonus.

Next up is my favourite terrain piece: The Hero Pig Statue.



Made from a sow toy, and a green stuffed hat and feather. This pig heroically saved Mordheims nobility from starvation during a siege of the city. It’s just a goofy little piece.

Next up are some more traditional statues:



Made from dowels and some old Empire spearmen. The upright statues are actually pretty useless as far as gameplay utility goes, but they add a little bit of detail to the board.

Next up are some urban barricades:



Made from a bunch of different items. These are higher than 1”, so these are hard barricades in-game.

Next are the wells:



These are some of the first pieces I painted, did a lot of experimentation to get the look I wanted.



Some detail shots of the roofed one. The turning wheel was entirely scratchbuilt from plasticard, and the bucket was made from a mechanical pencil tube.



And some details of the unroofed one. The pulley was also scratchbuilt from plasticard, a really unnecessary bit of effort i put into the piece. The gargoyle bits are from one of the Pegasus Gothic kits. The backs had a tab to fit into the walls of that kit, so I had to clip them and sculpt the back on, including the butt cheeks. Exhilarating stuff.

Finally, I did a quick setup of a board with the finished terrain:



Currently it fills a rough 3’x3’ board, which isn’t quite big enough for the 4’x4’ Mordheim recommends. This isn’t all the terrain I currently have, it’s just the painted stuff - i don’t have the unpainted stuff on because I’m unhappy with them and will be redoing them all, and also I didn’t feel like taking more pics today. I also wish I had a fully painted Warband to spread out over the board for some sweet diorama shots, but c’est la vie.

Whew! Update over. I’ll be focusing on the Merc Warband for the immediate future, then I’ve got some ideas for more terrain in the works.

More updates soonish.

Fantastic terrain. I love how enthusiastic that hanging zombie seems to be.

Excellent work, Thumpingbear! I knew watching the individual pieces come together that the total effect would be excellent, and I'm not disappointed. Will you build and texture a tabletop, use neoprene, or something else?

Truly magnificent !

Magnificent town! Very gothic.

Brilliant, both the dusky atmosphere in general and the weird details like the mutant bird & the Hero Pig. Must be extra fun to play with terrain that tells this kind of little stories!

What an update post Finished culver house looks so great, like it escaped an early Burton movie. Love the setup of the whole board and the pig statue. Currently watching Disenchantment, so was instantly thinking of Merkimer, when I saw that statue

A great update, and some cracking terrain and conversions to pore over for inspiration.

Terrain is gorgeous, and really excited to see your chaps up and running around them!

Thanks for sharing

@Warboss_Waaazag: Thanks. Yup, the zombie is stoked to see some bloodsport on the streets of Mordheim!
@MacPhail: Thank you, I plan to build 2x2 ft board tiles in the future. I've recently discovered MSTerrainLab's Youtube channel, he's doing a series on building Mordheim board tiles, it's given me tons of inspiration.
@KernelTerror: Thank you very much man!
@Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll: Thanks! Gothic is what I'm going for!
@MobileSuitRandom: Thank you. I remember reading an article on Dakka that I now can't find that was about incorporating narrative into your terrain. I thought it was cool, so I try to do it as much as I can.
@Viterbi: Thanks man! Good thing you qualified an "early" Burton movie, or else I'd be insulted . Haven't watched Disenchanted yet, I've been meaning to but just haven't gotten around to it. Hopefully soon!
@IGtR=: Thank you very much. I'm also looking forward to the day I can do some in-game shots. I really want to do some campaign bat-reps after reading Thor665's incredible Pyres of Petod campaign. Gaming is fun, and telling stories at the same time is even more fun!

Some updates:

Haven't done much hobby stuff in a while, it's been a rough few months and I've lost a lot of drive for most things, including the hobby. Seasonal depression is a problem on my Dad's side of the family and I was not exempt. Merc warband is still in the works, not sure when I'll finish it. In the meantime I wanted to share this statue I finished a while ago and decided to photograph today:



This is the statue of the Nameless Saint. The holiness of the saint spared her image from the destruction that visited Mordheim. Recently the statue has begun to weep blood - is it a sign from the Saint, or indicative of the insidious Chaos infection that permeates the city?

Base and bricks are foam, statue is a little dollhouse piece from Michaels. The halo is plasticard, and the candles are plasticard tubes with a wire wick, with candlewax buildup made from PVA mixed with plaster powder, built up in multiple layers for a nice dripping effect.



A couple closeups of the blood tears and the skull pile + candles. As you can see, the skull pile floats a bit above the tiles, but it's not noticeable from afar so I'm not worried about it.


That's it, just a small update. Hopefully I'll be able to start working soon and get some more drive for the hobby. More updates soonish

Very atmospheric, again! And thanks for writing up the DIY candles process, this might come in handy ^^

Now that's a proper statue for the streets of Mordheim. Love the story behind her and great scratchbuild!

Great stuff Thumpingbear.

Exalted.

Cheers,

CB

Not sure how I missed this, but fantastic work throughout! The statues are great, I'm especially loving Hero Pig!

@MobileSuitRandom: Thanks, hope you find some use with the candles! Just remember to do multiple layers with the glue, and go slowly with it.
@Viterbi: Thanks my dude.
@Captain Brown: Very kind of you, thanks man.
@endtransmission: Thanks, glad you stopped by. Hero Pig's my favourite too, I've got a couple more ideas along the same vein I'll be building in the future.

Some updates:

A confession: I don't like painting minis. I like building/creating them, and I tolerate painting terrain, but mini painting doesn't do it for me. Might be an anxiety thing, I feel there's a lot of pressure in painting in that scale, especially if you screw up and have to redo multiple steps to try again. Regardless, this was a roundabout way to say the Merc warband is still a WIP.

To avoid the judgmental stares of the unpainted minis on my desk, I've started a new summer project: building terrain tiles.



Recently I've been enamoured with MSTerrainLab's excellent Tower Board build series and decided to try my hand at it, using his videos of the construction as a rough guide. It's been a learning process, to say the least.

To start, I bought enough 2x1s to build 4 2x2' boards. I quickly learned that 2x1 is a ratio, and not a measurement: the lumber measured to 1.5x.75". This was annoying because I had specifically wanted 2" in height to match a bunch of 2" XPS foam I received from a family member from their house construction. No matter though, I thought, and picked up some cheap 1.5" EPS foam to bulk out the tiles (more on this later).

Anyways, the 2x1s were cut into x2 23.625" and x3 22.125" segments, which were dowelled and glued into place. This leaves a 3/16" gap on each end that will be covered with hardboard at the end of the build to protect the foam as it's build up.



After the frames were glued, I glued and screwed them onto 2x2" plywood with a thickness of .5". This was a mistake because the boards, while incredibly sturdy, are now also pretty damned heavy. Lesson learned for the future: use thinner boards for the bottom.

The results of this: 4 2x2" frames that fit together pretty well!



The next task was putting in the EPS foam:



This is where I ran into my next problem. As you can see in the picture, there is a slight gap between the foam and the frame. At first I thought the lumber the frame was cut from had inconsistent height and would have to plane it down, but then I measured the foam: The foam labelled as 1.5" was actually 1 & 3/8". I'm quickly learning that I have to bring a tape measure and measure everything in store when I make purchases, which is some .
Anyways, I used acrylic caulking to fill the gap and glue the foam in place.

With the boards built, I made some plans on some 12x12 grids. The things I wanted from the board were 1) a canal system and 2) built-in platforms. As I planned, I realized I couldn't have one without the other while still being highly modular, so I'm settling for just a canal system. Anyways, here are the plans:



The crosshatched areas are roads, the winding thing is the canal. It may be hard to make out, but there are outlined areas near the canal which are walkways running alongside them, which will be at a lower level than the majority of the board, with stairways leading up and down them. I also put the sunken bow of a ship in the canal as a makeshift bridge - talking to one of my friends I play with, he made a great suggestion of having the mast and crows nest be in place too for a sniper nest, which I am all for. The roads all are connected at the 5" mark, so they all line up very well. Goes without saying you can rotate the pieces and they fit together in all positions.

The 4 tiles are just the initial plan. I want to extend the board to the full 4x6' table, which I also made plans for:



So this is where I'm at. Still very early stages, it will take time to make lots of progress on this. I recently got an interview with an archaeological consulting company, which I hope I did well enough on to get hired on for the season. If that's the case, I won't have much time to work on this over the summer, so I'm gonna try to make as much progress as possible while I still have the time.

More updates soonish.

Amazing plans thumpingbear, I can already imagine the details you’re going include on the board. Looking at the last image particularly the bottom two canal tiles, would it work better for modularity to have each canal/road meet the edge of the time at right angles? That way you’ll not have odd angles to try to figure out the correct roadway widths

fantastic, used to make mordheim models using similar methods so i know how much effort goes into every one of those pieces, subscribed look forward to seeing it progress

That looks like a really cool project, excited to see it develop!

@gobert: Thanks man. Yeah, it's not clear from the plans but I intended to leave about 3/4 to 1 inch at each canal join and ~1/2 inch at the roads.
@bobbuilder: Thank you kindly, it's a labour of love for these models.
@Viterbi: Cheers my dude!

I've done sporadic work on both the board tiles and the Mercenary warband, with the Mercs being nearly finished and the tiles being pretty far from finished. I'll make a proper post of both the tiles and the Mercs when I finish off the warband and get a bit more work done on the tiles.

In the meantime, a small update. I was getting a bit burnt out so I painted up this bounty hunter Hired Sword I had made ages ago, now christened as Rabiat the Bounty Hunter:




The body is an old Empire soldier holding a rifle which I replaced with a crossbow, a head and shoulder pad from the Chaos Maurader horsemen (I think), and a few other bits. The rope and hook are scratchbuilt from a random hook bit and a metal rope I had made ages ago, and the pistol was a tube, bit of plastic to look like a handle, and a sculpted pouch/holster. The model has nearly everything the Bounty Hunter comes equipped with, save for a lantern because I couldn't figure out a good place to put it.

The colour scheme was based on this artwork which is apparently a Black Library book that I haven't read. Everything was shaded with a wash of Asurman Blue mixed with my homemade washes of black and/or brown, which I think helps unify it. I tried the trick of glazing the skin with a dark turquoise to represent stubble on his chin and bald head (which he shaves - you can see his bald spot), however without the rest of the face for contrast the stubble just looks green. I'll have to plan my paint schemes accordingly in the future. I also feel the reddish brown of the leather is a little too contrasting, especially on the boots. The blackened iron of the helmet and shoulder pad was also a little too heavy on the washes - 1 less would have been optimal.

My self criticism aside, I'm still happy with how Rabiat turned out - a real nasty looking denizen of the ruins of Mordheim. It was nice to plan a paint scheme for a single model and just focus on that, rather than the monotonous batch painting. I may go in later and add a blood spray across his helmet to ramp up his vicious image, but we'll see.

More updates soonish.

He looks pretty boss. I think you're being a bit hard on yourself about the criticisms, but I also know the feeling and It's important when you finish a miniature that you feel it looks "just right." At any rate good work. Excited to see more like him.

I love your painting log, lovely work putting together that warband and the scenery. Excellent painting on your recent post. I know exactly where that shoulder pad is from - the old 6th edition marauders box. I've used plenty of them in the past, dead handy to have around!

Looking forward to seeing more

Another triumphant return Thumpingbear! As the others have said, you’re self doubt seems unfounded to us mere mortals. That said well never get any better if we don’t look for what could have been done better! It would be great to see some WIP pics of your board, to see how you’re doing it

That merc looks utterly brilliant! Proper gnarly and mean and old world. This blog is yet again filled with really genius stuff, looking forward to what ya do next!

Great miniature, he oozes Mordheim! Hope you find the motivation to tackle more stuff, always excited when you post an update.

@brushcommando: I am my own harshest critic, it's true. I took it more of a learning + recording experience for techniques though, and overall I'm pleased with him - and besides, any paintjob is better than plastic! Regardless, thanks for the kind words.
@Olthannon: Thank you very much. Ha, I knew it! Looking back at the lore of Ostermark, the province Mordheim is located in, the people there have ancestry in the Ungol populations in Kislev, who in turn have Chaos Marauder blood (specifically the Kurgan tribe). Perhaps the shoulder pad + helmet are family heirlooms?
@gobert: Thanks dude - yes, part of the reason I'm critical is because I'm taking notes on my paint schemes, especially for effects like the blackened iron. Gotta be specific if I'm to get accurate notes. I've got some updates to the board down below!
@posermcbogus: Thank you, "proper old world" is what I'm trying to do with these projects. I'm still pretty salty that they nuked the Old World - hoping for the best with the New Old World project that GW is doing.
@Viterbi: Thanks man. Motivation is seriously lacking here at the moment in more areas than the hobby - I'll get there eventually though! As with most things in life, gotta keep moving.

Before the updates: the colour balance is off on my camera for some reason so Rabiat on the previous page was much more green than he actually is. I've balanced the colours and replaced the pics in the previous post, he looks much closer to reality now (I've left one of the originals in the gallery for comparison if anyone is curious).

With that out of the way, some updates:

On the board tiles, I've been mostly focusing on the curved canal + bridge tile, which is nearing completion:



The ground is hand-carved stone - mostly the random flagstone pattern, but with some random stonework patterns to help break the monotony:



The main focus of this tile is the great bridge that spans the canal:



The bridge was actually a bit of a nightmare to make - the area of the canal it passes over is not straight, so the support columns are angled, and the arches warped to accommodate this. I ended up making a skeletal structure, covering it with thin foam sheets, and carving on top of it - I'm happy with it. Unfortunately, the structure didn't quite sit flat when glued into place as there are slight gaps between the bridge and ground - that's easily covered with stone and rubble though!

Another feature of this area is the curved road that allows access from the canal path to the bridge + main areas. Same deal as the bridge: a curved wedge of foam, covered with thin sheets, then carved to my liking. The angle is a little steep in areas for models to stay on - I'll probably raise/lower some of the stones to help the models stay in place.

On the other side of the canal lies entrances to some old crypts, part of the labyrinthine catacombs that lie beneath the surface of Mordheim:



This area is a tunnel that connects the far side of the board together, without having to go up onto the main board. I carved some pillar adornments in this area to suggest it was built in an older period of Mordheim's history. The one bricked-up entrance has been broken open, and I'm going to place rubble on outside to imply something has broken out, rather than in. I also think I'm going to destroy at least part of the ground in this area as a "ladder" for any models that fall/jump into the canal.

I also placed the arch+pillars to support the stones above. I think these aspects of the tunnels look a little weedy - there should be more pillars, and the stone above looks thin comparatively. However, it'd be nearly impossible to actually place models in this area if I made it look exactly how I want, so it'll have to do - hopefully it'll look more rugged painted!

Besides the bridge canal tile, I've done some work on the main ground tiles:



Not much to say about these - glued the foam down and did some slight carving on one. I've been avoiding these a bit because carving is so boring.

I did do some carving on this one - I wanted a big circular paved area with Sigmar's Comet on it, so that's what I put!



It looks a little messy because I tried a bunch of different flame designs before carving the final product. It'll look great when painted. I also tried my hand at doing a fan brick pattern, that's what the overlapping semicircles are in front of the comet. An elegant pattern that's slightly complicated to do, but it looks great - I'm very excited to get some paint on this area.

The other canal piece hasn't even been started - once the bridge is done I'll be starting on it. I plan on facing each edge of the board with hardboard to protect the foam inside, and to magnetize the board as well - I've found some thing magnets that look pretty good as stone when roughed up a bit with a dremel. The plan is to replace various stones with these magnets, then glue thin steel sheets to the bottoms of the buildings. It likely won't hold if you hold the board upside down, but it'll be strong enough to resist bumps during gameplay.

Besides the tiles, I've finished my Mercenary warband: The Ostermark Reclaimers. All of the members are either former inhabitants of Mordheim, or hail from the Ostermark province. They seek to plunder the ruined city for various items of importance to the history of Mordheim and the identities of it's people who now inhabit the refugee camps outside the city's walls. Don't mistake their cause as noble - they're driven by greed and prestige rather than a sense of historical preservation or moral duty. Additionally, each mercenary has their own motivations and goals, their alliance held tenuously together by the promise of steady pay. Time spent in the madness of the doomed city has had an impact on their sanity - and many of them were fairly unhinged to begin with!

Here's the models. I have written some small lore pieces in the spoiler if anyone is interested. The lore was inspired by the characters in the game Team Fortress 2, where derangement is the only commonality between the characters.

The Captain





I tried to do something new or complicated on each of these models - for the Captain, I tried to do a salt+pepper beard. I think it turned out pretty well!

The Tortoise





The freehand on his shield is what I pushed myself on - the purple/metallic side is a little difficult to see, but I managed to get a pretty decent mirror image. The shield design is based on the Grass Crest Shield from the Dark Souls video game series, a must have for 2 handed strength builds - fitting for the Tortoise' armour and double-handed warhammer.

The Yellowbelly (Formerly the Crossbowman)





I really like his pose - he seems to be slinking away while loading his crossbow for another shot.

The Warden





The area that I tried to push myself on the Warden (along with the Hunter) was the checkered sleeves. I really like the effect.

The Hunter





As with the Warden, I made one of his sleeves checkered. It's a nice effect with a lot of effort put into it. I also just noticed I missed the wax seals on his right hip.

The Devotee (formerly the Spearman)





It's hard to choose my favourite model out of all these guys, but the Devotee is up there. On him I tried out tattooing, which were inspired by Coptic tattoo designs from the Balkans. I think I glazed them a little too much with the skin colour to make them appear faded, but for a first try it went pretty okay.

The Ratbasher





I like how his striped pants came out, as well as the subtle blood effects of the dead rat on his shield.

The Ram





Didn't really push too much for painting on this guy. Still he was a joy to paint - I'm such a sucker for the ram style of horned helmets. Also gives him a slight samurai vibe.

The Prospector





On the Prospector I wanted the bottle to look like it was full of some sort of foul alcohol. Overall I think the effect is okay. I think the glass should have been slightly paler - I was going for the look of Forest glass which was produced in medieval Europe, and I think it came out looking more like a modern green bottle. Still, not gonna beat myself up over it. I also glazed his nose fairly heavily with red to make him look like he's been drinking.

The Patient





Another one of my favourites. Didn't push too much on him paintwise (he has an hourglass and bottle of booze like the Prospector), but he was just so much fun to paint up. I may go back and put some writing on the sheet on his back - a will, perhaps? The blood leaking out from his headwound was done with Blood for the Blood God, stippled on the area to make it look like the blood is slowly soaking through the wrap.

The Nuln Gunner





Again, not much pushed on this guy besides the striped pants - regardless, I love this guy's design. One thing I'm not completely happy with is the face - my paintjob is fine, it's the sculpt. Most of the heads in the warband are from older, discontinued lines, but the heads of the Nuln Gunner, Ratbasher, Yellowbelly, and Dualist are from new kits. These kits all seem to have an issue of Wallace Face (of Wallace and Gromit) - beady eyes and super pronounced mouths, which is most apparent on the Nuln Gunner. The older sculpts have much softer and realistic features (like the Ram and the Hunter), whereas the new ones look cartoonish. My griping aside, he still looks great.

The Mad Gunner





Again, vying for one of my favourites. I think the fish on his helmet turned out super well - based in the yellows, browns, and creams that the rest of the paint scheme has, with purple dots stippled on top. I think I should have sculpted it to look more limp, but I'm still super happy with him.

The Dualist





Not much to say about him - he turned out well.

The Bard





Once again, another contender for my favourite - I think it has to do with the amount of sculpting work I put in. I put a lot of effort into his ruffle, which turned out excellently. The script on his shield script also turned out very well, despite my brushes not wanting to stipple easily.

Finally, a group shot in situ:



Overall, I'm really happy with this warband. It's the first group of models I've fully finished for wargaming, so that's a pretty big achievement for me. I did a lot of sculpting work and tried to push my painting to try out new techniques. The thing I'm happiest with is the skin - I went for a really desaturated and sallow look by mixing Rakarth Flesh with a base skin tone, shading with a 1:1 mix of Asurman Blue and Gryphonne Sepia, then building up with more Pallid Wych Flesh added to the mix, then glazing certain areas with purple (eyesockets), red (lips, cheeks, nose, knuckles) and turquoise (jawline). Overall the effect makes them look rather pallid and unhealthy, but with enough colour thrown around that they look interesting and lifelike.

Unfortunately I've not completed Cassander the Warlock, however he's a hired sword and not part of the core warband - I'll work on him next, along with another couple warbands that've been a PIP for ages - but the board comes first.

Whew! Done with that major update. More updates soonish.

Congratulation on the completed warbands, they are something to be proud of. Unified in look, yet each with its own distinct personality.

Beautiful bridge and canals too !

I very much like the playing board sections. I've always tried to include an element of three dimensions in the more limited scope pieces I've made and really appreciate the skill and planning you've put into giving the canal and road and bridge depth and character. Marvelously done.

Absurdly good work on the warband, I particularly love your manky pallid flesh, some of them look like they have terrible liver conditions, must be all that warpstone in the air!

I wish GW would re-release the militia box, it's one of the best they've ever done. Also a big fan of the chaos cloak on your Captain, that's another bit that I've used on so many conversions, it just looks so cool. I think my old IG general had it as well as some white wolves.

What else can I say Thumpingbear.

Exalted.

Cheers,

CB

Fantastic warband with a ton of character. The board is also looking like it is going to be amazing

Amazing detail and character on those warband members, the way you have their appearance link to the back stories is great!

That city scape looks fantastic, the minor details, realistic architecture, proportions and Warhammer flair all mix to make an immersive environment! I can't wait to see the whole area take form!

Woah! Both the warband and the terrain are beyond stunning! The attention to detail is mind boggling, I hope the motivation returns to bring this epic cityscape to completion (if there is such a thing with projects like this!)

OMFG, I was really flashed by the WIP of the board (That two-level canal bridge tile is amazing) and then you knock it out of the park with the whole warband and their stories. Really cool seeing all those characters together in the group shot with the building.

Amazing work on all of these. That board is looking absolutely stunning though... can't wait to see it painted up and come together more!

@KernelTerror: Thanks man. I tried really hard on these guys to make them distinct yet unified, so I'm glad it payed off.
@Meer_Cat: From a prolific builder such as yourself, that's high praise. Thank you very much.
@Olthannon: Thanks! Thanks for the compliment, that's actually a look I was going for - in my imagining of Mordheim, there's pulverized Warpstone dust in the air, so being in the city for too long is ultimately fatal, a fact lost upon or ignored by the treasure hunters that plunder the ruins.
And I completely agree about the Merc kit, it's such a fun one. I haven't bought a new GW kit in a long while as I'm not a fan of their new monopose styles they've been putting out, it's a shame.
@Captain Brown: Cheers Captain!
@Illumini: Thanks very much. I'm very excited to have it all finished... someday.
@ValhallanWinter: Thank you kindly. I worry a little about the board because the proportions are just a tad bigger than the models, which means moving the models on the board may prove challenging when finalized. Still, I'll be happy with it when finished.
@gobert: Thanks man! Unfortunately the motivation isn't quite there yet, I was having fun painting so I continued down that route. With the new League terrain competition, I'll get back into the swing of terrain building.
@Viterbi: Thanks dude! It's a shame you're all the way over in Germany, it'd be great to have a game. Maybe someday when the world is calmer.
@endtransmission: Thank you. I'm eagerly anticipating it too, but it's a long while off.

Some updates:

I haven't done much more work on the board tiles. I did a bunch of brick carving, then got bored (pun unintended) with it. I know that when I finish the carved stones will look great, but getting there is just a slog.

To take a break from the tiles, I painted up a warband that's been a Paint in Progress for like 2 years: My Dwarfs!



About 8ish years ago, I purchased a huge bag of bits off eBay, hoping for 40k stuff and receiving mostly Fantasy. At the time I was a little miffed, but it's great for my groups current love of Mordheim. Anyways, within the bag were exactly 10 Dwarfs - almost the exact number needed for a warband, besides 2 Slayers! I did a fair amount of conversion work on them, but took barely any photos of the WIPs - this was long before I started this thread. The WIP photes I took will be displayed with their respective models, and I'll try to recall the conversion work I did on each model.

The backstory of these Dwarfs is not as in depth as the Mercs, but they do have a little one:

This cohort of Dwarfs hails from Karak Kadrin (aka The Slayer Hold), nestled in the Worlds Edge Mountains to the East of Mordheim. The Slayer Hold earned it's nickname from the dearth of dishonoured Dwarves that make pilgrimage to the hold to visit the Shrine of Grimnir and take the Slayer Oath. It's king, Ungrim Ironfist, dictates which Slayers may set out to seek their honourable death by combat, and which must remain to defend the hold from the monstrous inhabitants of the Dark Lands to the east.

When the comet crashed into Mordheim and infected it with foul Chaos energy, it attracted scores of foul monsters in addition to the unholy Daemons that now call the ruins home. When the stories of these fearsome creatures reached Karak Kadrin, Ungrim sent out this retinue of Dwarfs to set up a satellite of the hold, a launching point for the Slayers to seek their death against the monsters of Mordheim.

With that out of the way, here's the pics:

Heroes

Noble


So first of all, the warband is decked out in the colours of Karak Kadrin: red, green, and gold. As with all the horned helmets, I ditched the dinky horns that came with Dwarf helmets in favour of big, stupid ones from the Chaos kits. The Noble, being the most important, has the biggest horns. He carries with him his Personal Book of Grudges that has rapidly filled up in the cutthroat world of plundering Mordheim, which was made from a Skaven book (I think). I attempted to write the at least part of the grudges in actual Dwarf Runes, which read as follows:

Grudge: Two hundred and 13
{incomprehensible}
Payment: A night of binge drinking

Grudge: Two hundred and 14
Kin slaying
Payment: Death by slaying

The text was written in Blood for the Blood God, as blood is the traditional writing medium for Grudges, but it was a pain to paint (heh). Next time I'll use regular red paint. The cloak was painted in a tartan pattern, using Kujo Painting's tutorials as a base guideline. The Noble's design underwent several changes - he originally had a custom Dwarf sword I built, which I decided was quite un-Dwarfy. Then I gave him a shield, but he looked unbalanced, so I decided on the Book. Overall I'm happy with him, save for the eyes - I had a hard time painting them, a difficulty unfortunately shared by most of these models.

Engineer


The two areas I converted on the Engineer were the helmet and the hammer. The helmet originally had a bunch of candles on the top, which I cut off and replaced with the ram style horns, which I have previously stated that I'm a huge fan of. I also think I sculpted the ridge running down the centre of it, but I'm not sure. I also gave him a little glass scope on his eye to help him aim. The hammer was created using a gear from an old toy I busted apart to fit in with the Dwarf engineer aesthetic of geared melee weapons. Again, I gave him a tartan cloak, but with reversed colours from the Noble. Very happy with the way he turned out.

2 Handed Slayer


Of all of the very cool things Warhammer Fantasy has created, I feel like the Dwarf Slayer is the most iconic. They are just the coolest. I bought this guy and the other Slayer as a graduation gift for myself, and finally finished them off. These guys are metal and Out of Production, so I had no intention to convert them in any way. The model was in a bit of rough shape - the mold lines were horrendous, and his right ear is missing (I actually think guy might be a recast - don't care), but they're not terribly noticeable. Very pleased with him.

Dual Wield Slayer


Not much to say beyond what I already said about the previous Dwarf, so I'll talk about some other things. The gold on all of the models was painted with some old metallic alcohol ink I was gifted years ago. The colour is amazing and the pigment size is incredibly fine, but dear lord was it awful to work with. Never again.
I had also planned to paint tattoos/warpaint on the Slayers, but there's not really enough room on these models to do what I wanted - I feel it would have overcrowded it with detail. I may revisit tattoos in the future, but for now I'm done.


Troops

Blonde Clansman


This was the first Dwarf model I painted, as a test scheme for the rest of the warband - I use him in scale shots of some of the buildings (Ratcatchers Manse specifically). Parts of his beard were sculpted on because the original head was slightly damaged. I wasn't terribly proficient at sculpting yet so it's a little rough (particularly on his left side), but it's not too noticeable. The hammer was bashed together - can't remember what the middle of the head and rear spike are from, but the main part is a bell, likely from a Skaven bit. Tons of bells were donated to make hammers for this warband.
Both of the weapons have been broken at some point - I tried a new converting technique by ditching the traditional paper clips for pinning and used plastic rod instead. My thinking was that the plastic glue would melt everything together in a strong plastic bond. Turns out it just makes a weak join, and I'm not looking forward to repairing the rest of these guys in the future.

Black Clansman


I recall this guy's horns were very annoying to attach. The hammer was made from a Chaos warrior hammer, and the back wings were made from a 40k aquila, glued together and stuck to the back.
Not too much else to say, so I'll talk about the leather: It was painted with a series of muted browns, stippled to build up coverage and give texture. The final highlight was Balor Brown, tying it back to the gold colour, and then washed/filtered with black to dull it back down. I'm very happy with the leather on this project.

Blonde Thunderer


Not a lot of conversion work on him, save for the horns. The bolt quiver on his back was converted for a bigger look, which is shared with the other Thunderer. Not much to say, I think he looks pretty cool.

Brown Thunderer


This model, along with one other, are from the Battle for Skull Pass starter kit. He originally had a rifle that I converted to a crossbow. I kinda regret doing that now as it would have made him more distinguishable from the other Thunderer in terms of loadout, but oh well.
This model is one of the ones that I have a WIP shot of!



I forgot that I had stuck a central spike on his helmet, going for a pickelhaube kind of look. It was too busy with the horns and looked a little too Chaos-y, so I ditched it. The other model is Lighty, one of the 4 Beardlings:

Lighty (Beardling)


Not too much conversion work on this guy, save for the hammer, which I believe was a larger Dwarf hammer that I cut down to a more modest size. A feature shared among the Beardlings is that they are without horns to denote their unspecialized role. One thing I tried with him was a super-basic OSL on the candle, which ironically is in the shade and not very brightly lit to show my work. Oh well. It went okay for a first attempt, but is much more stylistic than realistic. I'll be trying again in the future.

Pipey (Beardling)


Pipey's head was a musician head, which I sculpted the lower lips and beard to fit his pipe into his mouth. His backpack is (I believe) a stowage bit from an Imperial Guard tank, which I flipped upside down - don't pay attention to that canister thing on his right side that is defying gravity and that I painted red to look like a stick of dynamite! The hammer is a pickaxe bit, again from an Imperial Guard kit (I believe), with another Skaven bell as the head. I also attempted to paint an ember inside the pipe, but I forgot to take a picture, and it doesn't look super great either so no big deal.

Hoodie (Beardling)


You may have noticed something about these Beardlings - they follow the Snow White naming convention.
Hoodie I imagine is the Shield-Bearer for the Noble, dutifully carrying it as the Noble marches into battle bellowing about grudges and debts. As such, he doesn't get a backpack like the rest of the Troops (save for the Thunderers). The hood was sculpted, and it was sculpted before I learned you should shave down part of the head when putting a hood on - as a result, it looks a little bulky and unnatural. Still, I'm at peace with it, and I think the folds look striking painted up. The hammer, once again, was 2 Skaven bells. I also broke his hammer when I dropped him on the way to his final sealing, so that's why the hammer shaft looks a little funky near the handle. I didn't quite get the colours and contrast right in the photos, but the skin on his pointing left arm is probably the best thing I think I've painted yet.

Keggy (Beardling)


Keggy is my pride and joy, the Dwarf with the most pure intentions - protecting his precious keg of premium Dwarf ale. Keggy was the model I think I put the most conversion effort into. He was originally part of the Battle for Skull Pass cannon crew, the one holding the cannon ball. I carefully removed the ball, keeping the original hand in place, and incorporated it into the keg, which was some Dwarf barrel that I sculpted the wood texture along the body, and used wooden shields for the top and bottom. The hand looks a little thin, but the point still gets across.

The other major surgery was removing his right arm that crossed the chest, sculpting the flowing beard and his clothing so his new right arm wouldn't look too weird. The pose is a little strange looking, but I think I did a decent enough job. The hammer is a Space Marine melta bomb, repurposed as a hammer head. I also gave him a helmet because everyone else has one. Like I said, Keggy is my special little guy and one of my favourite models I've made.

I need to get more practice with these Dwarfs in game, as they're a bit of a tough warband to play. Incredibly tough and durable, but have a Movement characteristic of 3, which can lose you games purely through not being able to keep up with the other models. That, and a terribly low Initiative of 2: one game I had against my friend (playing Chaos Marauders) pitted nearly my entire Warband against one of his Champions on top of a catwalk over the battlefield below. My buddy's Champion proceeded to knock every single Dwarf off of the catwalk, killing all but one from the fall damage. It was really funny, but taught me to NEVER put Dwarfs on high paths!


Now that the warband is done, I will be focusing on my entry for the latest League of Extraordinary Riveters Terrain Challenge. This rounds theme is Crossings, meaning anything related to crossing something. I chose to do the sunken ship I have planned for my other canal terrain tile. I've posted my concept sketches in the League thread, but I'll do so again:

As I stated in the League thread, I like the silhouette of the first, and many of the design elements of the second. I'll find a way to combine the two designs.
Unfortunately I don't have any work done on these yet besides the concepts. Like many of you I'm sure, I have a problem with starting projects, getting bored/burnt out, then starting something fresh and new, resulting in a backlog of half finished projects. Part of the reason I painted the Dwarfs was to try to break this pattern of behaviour and replace a half-finished model with a realized project. Now that the Dwarf project is finished, I can devote all of my attention to the build - and since the boat is technically part of the board build, it's not starting something new. At least that's what I tell myself.

If anyone reading has any interest in building terrain but is a little hesitant to get started, I encourage you to join the League of Extraordinary Riveters Terrain Challenge. It's what made me get off my butt and start producing more terrain, with more complex and detailed designs (a lie actually: I sit on my butt way more making terrain now!). This round we decided open up the scope of the challenge to include other scratch-built items like scenic bases, objective markers, dioramas, etc - anything that's scratchbuilt and isn't a model is fair game! The guys and gals in the thread are pretty great and very encouraging, so if you've any interest take a look and take the plunge.

That's all for now. More updates soonish.

Thumpingbear,

Well the Dwarves were worth the wait.

Cheers,

CB

Yeah CB wasn't kidding.

Absolutely superb, love these dwarf minis, so much character in the sculpts.

The fact that you painted tartan cloaks is frankly absurd, just too damn good. I like Keggy and the Noble most of all.

Tartan. That's impressive. That's really really impressive.

Soooo much to catch up on! Amazing progress and updates Thumpingbear. The Culverhouse looks amazing, the interior joist work in the ceiling is really impressive and the little characterful touches like the hanged man and the man-headed crow are so awesome. And Mr. Scale! So good, haha. Please make him a regular.

Great to see your warbands coming together! So much character and really impressive conversions. And speaking of impressive your green stuff skills are top notch! The cloth and scratch built weapons look very much the part and blend right in with the original models. And the spiked fish is *chefs kiss*

For someone who doesn’t enjoy painting you are an amazing painter! Really nice skin tones and all the material like the leather, cloth and metal all look distinctively like those materials. The Prospectors bottle is especially nice. The backstories are a great touch and really show in the models themselves. And your freehand is very impressive.

I really look forward to seeing your board tiles progress. As Meer_Cat and others have said the dimensionality and evident planning is really impressive. And that sunken ship crossing looks very promising.

I hope you had a good festive season. How’d you go with the interview? If Canada is anything like here getting on fieldwork can be a pain in the butt.

Great update, the dwarves are amazing. Can't believe you painted a tartan on such a small mini. That is quite something and at least to me the eyes look perfectly fine. I mean I know how small those minis are.

Thread necromancy GO!

@Captain Brown: Thanks man, much appreciated.
@Olthannon: Thankee, honestly the tartan was way easier than I expected once I got into it - it's literally just straight lines!
@Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll: Thank you kindly!
@zahnib: Thanks bud, much appreciated! The first interview I had went well but they didn't hire me, but asked me to apply next season - which I did and they hired me on. Archaeology is handled provincially in Canada, and my province has pretty strict regulations for most industries to require testing, so there's always a ton of work.
@Viterbi: Thanks man - like I said to Olthannon, tartan is waaaayyy easier than you think once you get into it. And yeah, no one except me will look at the eyes anyways.

Alrighty, it's been a while. Got burnt out doing hobby work and haven't done much work on the Mordheim board in a while, shelving most of the projects for the time being. Haven't been completely inactive though, I built this Ork trukk:



Was a fun lil exercise, hadn't done any Ork scratchbuilding for a while. I made a post in the P&M section with more pics, or you can look in my gallery if anyone is interested in seeing more of it - didn't put it in this blog cause this is for me Mordheim stuff.

IRL, I finally got a job in my field doing archaeology. It's a lot of fun, a lot of exercise, and a lot of work. Spring/summer/fall are my work seasons, so winter hobby work will have to be the new standard going forward. A couple of the guys at my company also play Fantasy and 40k, so it's nice to nerd out with my workmates - archaeologists are a fairly dorky bunch to begin with, so it's nice to be among my people!

Anyways, to ease my way back into the hobby I've started work on a new terrain piece for the League of Extraordinary Riveters Challenge, Round 41: The Vault. I wanted even more vertical access for the board, so I decided to make a wizard's tower: The Astrologers Tower.



When the good news of the twin-tailed comet appearing in the skies above Mordheim spread across the Empire, pilgrims seeking enlightenment and redemption were drawn to the city like a moth to flame. It wasn't just pilgrims though - along with them came merchants, tradesmen, and anyone with a keen nose for making coin. Chief amongst these new peddlers were the astrologers, a new industry of soothsayers who would tell one's fortune by reading the comet's trails - for a nominal fee, of course. The seer, the charlatan, and all those in-between slithered into Mordheim and set up shop, making fortunes in the fevered anticipation of Sigmar's blessed return.

Unsurprisingly, not one of these astrologers made the most important prediction of all.


So the plan is to make a tall tower with a balcony, and the one side destroyed to allow for players to manipulate models inside. While the tower is inaccessible from the interior, the exterior will have scaffolding and ladders on the right side, and a crane and climbable rope of some sort on the left on the balcony.

The League's primary theme this time around is a Vault, or something that would contain valuables of some kind. Wizard's towers are always a good source of magical treasure (or, maybe in this case, a fortune of scammed gold!), so I think the theme fits. The secondary theme of the Vault is a project that's in YOUR vault: an unfinished project that's taking up space. I had actually started this project sometime in December by gluing a couple tubes to a base and making some cardboard mockups, then left it for 2 months:



It then was placed on top of my desk and stared down at me judgingly as I played Rimworld instead. Thanks to the League contest, I decided to get off my butt and work on it again (Rimworld just runs in the background now).

The first bit of work was on the roof frame. Usually when I make conical roofs I make them out of cardboard (as seen in the mockup pics), cover em with shingles, and glue some wooden beams underneath to represent rafters. Since both of these roofs were to be partially destroyed with visible interiors, I wanted them to look as realistic as possible. So I created a frame of balsa rafters and glued the coffee stirrer decking on:





I didn't take any photos of the WIP or my process, but I'll describe it for anyone interested: I took the cardboard cone I made for the mockup and laid the rafters inside of it, gluing them into place at the just at tip of the cone (visible as the apex of the roof). I then carefully cut the rest of the cone off, then cut each decking piece individually. The bottom part of the rafters was made similarly to the first by affixing them temporarily to a cone, then gluing the top part of the frame the pieces, removing them from the cardboard cone and placing the decking.

They're not quite finished yet - I want have the destroyed square turret's roof meet with the conical roof seamlessly, and the conical tower's damaged decking has to be put in place, which will look like the other finished turret when completed. It's like 80% completed though, and enough to share.

Gonna try to be more regular with the updates, which will be coming soonish.

Wow that Trukk is amazing. Scatch building all of those track links must have taken an eternity!

The tower is looking great already, I can't wait to see how it goes.

Nice builds there Thumpingbear. You always have such great ideas.

Cheers,

CB

@Bencyclopedia: Thanks! It was definitely a chore, but worth it in the end.
@Captain Brown: Thanks man, it's a labour of love in an abusive relationship.

Still plugging away at the Astrologer's Tower for the League of Extraordinary Riveters challenge:



Finished bricking up the bottom portion of the tower and all of the decking on the roof. I hummed and hawed about the construction of some structural elements, mainly the buttresses and the corbels underneath the top portion of the tower, but I've gotten to a point that I'm satisfied with.



The doorway and big ol cross above the door.



The buttresses and some more skulls. One thing that I've noticed about my terrain is that it doesn't have enough skulls - my pieces certainly HAVE skulls, but not the ridiculous amount that Warhammer terrain should have. Wanted to be more idealistic with this one.



The finished decking and the top tower portion. The lines on the floor indicate the direction the plank flooring will go in. I'm still trying to figure out how I'll construct it - I want part of the tower wall to be collapsed, along with part of the flooring that has semi-collapsed, making an impromptu ramp from the broken wall to the tower. I think I'll have to build up the tower a bit with some foam bricks, then place the flooring. Gotta play with it and figure it out.



The corbel work I've done. The skeleton ones are holding up the stone balcony, and the ones on the left and right are the regular ones that hold up the tower top. I've been meaning to do weird skeletal architecture like this for a while so I'm pretty pleased with it. Figures are from the Wargames Factory Skeleton kit, which I don't think is in production anymore.

Hoping to get the construction done by the end of the month and painted in the following week or so. More updates soonish.

A small update:

Still plugging away at the Astrologer's Tower. Was feeling a little burnt out working on it so I whipped these up and painted em in a day: Warpstone objective markers.



The cobblestone bases are GW square bases with a custom resin cobblestone pattern bonded on top. The warpstones themselves are made from bits of sprue shaped by cutters into angular crystal shapes. I haven't painted in a while so the cobblestones came out a little dark for my liking, but they're good enough. The warpstones also came out a little dark, but I'm satisfied with em. I also tried my hand at OSL for the first time, which I think was okay for a first time - I figured out that subtlety, especially with the brightest glow colour, is key in selling the effect, a lesson that I picked up on by the end of my painting experiment. All in all pretty happy with em, beats using dice for objective markers!

More updates soonish.

The tower is looking excellent, great job at giving it a classic Warhammer feel.

The warpstone tokens are neat as well, nice OSL.

Love the tokens!

Good Lord! That towers is amazing, I always love the detail that you put in to the builds, like they could be made to your design if upscale and with outdoor materials . The Ork buggy looks immensely detailed too, nice one

Thanks everyone!

Fell way behind on the build, but I've still got skin in the game for the League of Extraordinary Riveters challenge.

Behold! The finished Astrologer's Tower build:



Started priming it before I remembered to take pics, apologies. I also have some extra pieces that will be easier to paint separately:



The crane will be on the makeshift balcony on the side with a chain extending to the ground as another path to the upper story.
The telescope will be placed in the wooden structure on the roof - what good is an astrologer with no telescope? I had originally planned to have just the lens poking out of the roof structure with a series of tubes connecting it to an eyepiece within the main tower room. I decided it was both too much work and would interfere with the gameplay accessibility of the tower, so instead the telescope will be in the small wooden structure and there's a small door on the roof for access, which is unfortunately not visible in the photos.
The ladders are for the scaffolding that wraps around the tower, and will allow access to the second story through the destroyed wall.

Painting will be a bit of a crunch, but I'm yet optimistic I can pull it off without asking for an extension - may be difficult as I have an odd job to do tomorrow and family in town over the weekend. Regardless, the challenge will be completed!

More updates soonish.

The tower, board, bridge, tunnel are all amazing and look great even before paint. The characters are all very well, characterful, impressive work.

Oh wow that looks lovely and full of character! I can't wait to see what it looks like painted

Very nice scratch-build Thumpingbear.

Cheers,

CB

The tower just keeps getting better. Hopefully you manage to squeeze in some painting and get it done. Good luck!

Brilliant work, nice to see the tower fully built. It's very eye catching and lots of little details which make it very impressive. Good luck with painting it up!

Beautiful work very inspiring .

@ph34r: Thanks! The board is unfortunately on hiatus - there are some major issues with it, down to the construction. I need to revamp the entire project, which I'll probably get to in a few months.
@makeitorky: Thanks man, the painting took longer than expected but I'm happy with it.
@Captain Brown: Thanks! I think I'm approaching my end game for base Mordheim terrain, so the scratchbuilds will be slowing down soon (until I make the rural board for the Mordheim "Empire In Flames" expansion!)
@gobert: Thanks, I took longer than I thought but it's done, and that's the important bit!
@Olthannon: Thank you kindly, I think this is the one I've put the most effort into (so far!).
@niel101: Thanks man, that's high praise - your Yggdrassilium board is one of the aspiration metrics I hold my terrain against.

Some updates:

Life got in the way of finishing the Astrologer's Tower in a timely manner for the League of Extraordinary Riveters challenge, but I managed to get it done a few days late:



When the good news of the twin-tailed comet appearing in the skies above Mordheim spread across the Empire, pilgrims seeking enlightenment and redemption were drawn to the city like a moth to flame. It wasn't just pilgrims though - along with them came merchants, tradesmen, and anyone with a keen nose for making coin. Chief amongst these new peddlers were the astrologers, a new industry of soothsayers who would tell one's fortune by reading the comet's trails - for a nominal fee, of course. The seer, the charlatan, and all those in-between slithered into Mordheim and set up shop, making fortunes in the fevered anticipation of Sigmar's blessed return.

Unsurprisingly, not one of these astrologers made the most important prediction of all.

I've talked about this before, but there's an old article (that I can't find anymore) all about how to craft narrative of your wargame setting through terrain. It had an impact on how I approach making terrain, so I always try to have at least a little narrative (in my head at least) as to what the structure was before the comet fell and destroyed Mordheim. For this one, I imagine this tower was the home of one of the many astrologers that moved into Mordheim to peddle his predictions, made some major moolah, and was in the process of constructing more additions to his tower - hence the scaffolding, crane, and ramshackle additions to the balcony.

All in all, I'm happy with how it turned out. There were some issues in painting the stone - my usual method is basecoat in a variety of greys, successive drybrush highlights, hit it with a custom wash of brown, black, green, flow improver, and paint retarder, then top it off with a final drybrush highlight. My paint retarder was, for some reason, dried out and goopy, so I thought I could throw a little water in to thin it out and it'd be fine. It didn't work, it darkened the stone significantly and pooled on the surfaces. I had to drybrush basically from scratch again, and the result is the stone is darker and has quite a bit more contrast than usual. It still ties into the table just fine though, so no big deal.

I'll start from the bottom and work my way up:



The doorway and the scaffolding. The riveted lining around each door is supposed to be metal, unfortunately there's not quite enough contrast between the metal and the wood. I may revisit it and throw a black wash over it to get a blackened metal look. Other than that, I really didn't need to put the handles on it, but it looks cool. To be honest, I'm not very keen on having doors there at all - I needed a visual to show the doors were unusable, and having a doorway with planks achieves that goal. I wanted to have the door blown out with rubble pouring out from the interior, but decided it would've been too much work. That being said, it's good enough.

The scaffolding was difficult, but fun to make. I love making ramshackle wood stuff, it gives off such a chaotic vibe, especially when contrasted against orderly buildings. I forsee that this scaffolding will be an annoying sniper spot, as the stepped construction allows placement of bodyguards for ranged attackers. The small ladders are each 1 1/2", meaning it takes 3 inches of movement to climb both, and the large one to the tower interior is 6".



Moving up from the scaffolding ladders, we see the tower top interior and roof. The rubble beneath the collapsed portion of the floor was prepainted before placing all the planking, in retrospect I could've just painted it black, but it looks great when viewed up close. I forgot that I need to make a small stair leading up to the turret tower as it's over 1" to access it, so that'll be done later. The turret tower itself has a second story with enough room for 2 models and a sniper window - unfortunately I couldn't figure out a way to attach a rope or ladder that wouldn't interfere with the floor below, so it'll have to be accessible only through climbing.

The second shot is just to show off the painted rafters, decking, and roof door to the telescope room inside the tower. Is this a portion of the tower that will be totally unviewable to the player and was waaaaaayyyy to much work? Yes. Am I happy I did it? Also yes.



Moving out from the tower, we arrive at the balcony. I wanted the balcony to have a little more visual interest, so I painted the stones in a Warhammer checkerboard. The railing was some plastic ladder thing I had received from a fellow hobbyist (at the time, I had no idea how I'd use it - such is the life of a scratchbuilder), with some cocktail spears glued and resined in for extra detail. Part of the railing was destroyed for the additions to the balcony, which the previous inhabitant had hastily installed with wood planks.

Below the balcony, the skeleton corbels hold it up. Also a bit of a view at the haphazard construction of the balcony extension.

On the makeshift balcony, we have the crane. I wanted to have this as another access point to the balcony. It's a 6" movement to the top of the tower, so even Dwarfs will be able to get to the top in one movement (if they're up against it, of course). Again, the metal is mostly lost against the wood, but whatever.



Finally we reach the telescope room and the roof. The telescope was made from shields (for the lenses), tubes of different dimensions (for the entire small telescope body and the thick portion of the large one), a bomb taken from a model aircraft (for the smaller tapered portion of the large telescope), and a small gear from a toy I deconstructed for Ork scratchbuild parts. Overall I like it and love the how it breaks up the silhouette of the tower, but I'm not terribly pleased with my paintwork on the lenses - it looks good at the angle I took the photo at, but from other angles it looks off. I'll be revisiting it in the future.

On the roof, we have a lil' comet adornment with a flag. I tried to do a hammered metal look on the tower cap by greenstuffing it and embossing it with a rounded thingy, I like the way it turned out. I also wanted this picture to show off the shingle paintwork and texture - the lightbox I'm using doesn't diffuse it's light very well so the detail wasn't captured well in the profile shots.



Finally, an obligatory shot with Mr. Scale. I also wanted to compare the build against my original concept. I think I did pretty well, but had to make some adjustments to the silhouette to allow for better gameplay. I'm happy with the final result, and I'm happier that it's finished.

Terrain projects are being shelved once again, as the field season for archaeology is starting up pretty soon here in Canada (that is, when the rampant wildfires currently ripping through my province are contained). I'm thinking I'll bring my Orc warband out to the field and work on it during my downtime, try to do an hour or so daily.

More updates soonish!

Thumpingbear,
So sorry to hear about life. It certainly has a way of piling up. But, I'm super glad you were able to finish the tower. Hopefully it didn't come at too much of a life-cost. It is such an incredible piece and I think the coolest in show at the League.
I haven't been by in a while, turns out, because I hadn't seen the dwarves. They are fantastic. I did some tartan recently-ish and I agree it was surprisingly easy compared to what I expected.
Keggy is a fantastic model. Really well done.
So much character in those models.

Fantastic tower!

That tower is incredible, incredible attention to detail; doesn't look scratchbuild at all!! I would buy that if that was a kit!

Stunning! So many details to discover, no square-inch of the building seems half-assed! And not only is the build excellent, the paintwork complements it beautifully.

That's a beautiful build mate, definitely something to be proud of - concept to execution. Things like all the internals and the rust from the metal cap on the roof bleeding down into the tiles, the details are just amazing.

A real labour of love. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Absolutely stunning work again Thumpingbear! The narrative certainly gives it a special feel and must’ve helped you identify what cool little details to add. Most Excellent!

Absolutely brilliant work, you must be chuffed to have completed it all. I particularly love the telescope lenses, they are terrific.

I know I’m a bit late but the finished tower looks absolutely beautiful Thumpingbear! And I’ll second muette, if that was a kit I’d buy it in a heatbeat. Looking forward to seeing your next update

This one slipped through my fingers.

Exalted Thumpingbear

Cheers,

CB