@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!