Insaniak's workbench - now working on the Backlog of Doom!

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**insaniak**

And now for something completely different... In my spare time, I'm working on 'updating' my 'Iron Wolves' Space Wolf army to be 2nd Edition compliant. They were originally put together in 5th edition, where Space Wolves had variable squad sizes, amongst other differences collected over the editions.

One of the other big differences is that back in 2nd edition, Space Marine armies of any flavour needed to include a Techmarine (or equivalent) in order to field most of their support options, including Dreadnoughts and any vehicles not bought as unit transports. In 5th edition, taking an Iron Priest had never been a particularly exciting option in my already character-heavy list, so I never bothered building one.

As not taking my Dreadnought was just not an option, and with 2nd edition also offering all sorts of other fun stuff like Rapiers and Tarantulas, I went for a rummage in the bits box and turned up an old, metal Iron Warriors Warpsmith that I bought way back in the day to do something clever with it. I promptly hacked off his head and shaved down the Iron Warriors-ish skull on his chest, added some Space Wolfy bits and voila! Iron Priest ready for painting:

...although I may wind up puttying on a bionic eye or something, as I just realised as I was uploading the pic to Dakka that I used that same head for one of my two Rune Priests. Or maybe they're twins...

**Sgt. Oddball**

Looks:
A. Cool
B. Like you don't want to drop him

**insaniak**

Building ALL the terrain...

**LavuranGuard**

Given the great work you did on that last building, looking forward to see the paint job on these.

**insaniak**

Finished firepoint:

Walkthrough here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/779725.page#10555045

**Not Online!!!**

Question, have you worked with clay for terrain building?
(especially in regards to fortifications?)

**Gitsplitta**

The garden plot is very cool and the new building is spot on.

**insaniak**

New building painted up for a painting tutorial, which you can find here:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Question, have you worked with clay for terrain building?
(especially in regards to fortifications?)

I've played with clay a little, mostly for craters and ruins, but it's a bit of a hassle unless you can find one that doesn't shrink as it dries. And it's heavy, which can be a pain if you want your terrain to be portable.

**Theophony**

looks like a great little dive to grab a beer in

**The Turnip Master**

Very nice. The rust streaks over the plaster walls turned out really great.

**insaniak**

This week, I rocked out...

There's a tutorial up here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/780225.page#10569078

**Sgt. Oddball**

I need to do a couple of those, very handy and they look neat.

**insaniak**

Getting some paint on the Iron Priest...

**JohnnyHell**

That firepoint is beautiful, and the classic rock stacks are mint. Loving this stuff!

**Gitsplitta**

That Iron Priest is looking great Insaniak. Nice work on the blond beard... I've always found a convincing blond difficult to make.

**insaniak**

On the workbench... These two things may be unrelated.

**Gitsplitta**

LOL! Well played.

**insaniak**

Finished Tactical Response Vehicle - which I'm calling an 'Ironhide' transport vehicle, for my Maelstrom's Edge SecDef force.

This is an awesome kit, and it's really easy to overlook that it's MDF once it has paint on... More pics here.

**Yorkright**

Very nice vehicle, would have never guessed it was MDF. Does it soak up the paint?

**insaniak**

Surprisingly not. I did give it a very light spray with matte sealer before the basecoat of Army Painter Army Green spray, but I'm not sure it was actually necessary.

**Gitsplitta**

Would have never guessed that was MDF... wow.

**insaniak**

So, now that I'm starting to get to grips with the new camera, I thought it was time to sort out some better pics of this fellow:

**Briancj**

Now that's nice. Both the mini and the photo work!

**Yorkright**

Looks good!

**inmygravenimage**

Glorious. Lovely splash.

**Gitsplitta**

Very nice photos... though the white is a bit blinding.

**insaniak**

An experiment in making rocky outcrops out of layers of foamed PVC, distressed with a wire brush...

Not 100% successful, but something worth exploring further, I think. Here's how it was done:

Spoiler:

From the Comm Guild blog -

- by Iain Wilson

I came across a tutorial online a little while ago for making eroded rocky outcrops using stacks of corrugated cardboard coated in filling plaster, and then distressed with a wire brush. It was really effective, but I'm not a huge fan of using plaster on gaming terrain as it tends to chip easily. So I thought I'd have a go at making something similar, using foamed PVC.

From putting together buildings, I tend to wind up with a lot of small off-cuts of foamed PVC sheet. This would potentially work with any thickness of sheet, but the thicker the better. Here, I'm using 3mm sheet as that's what I had to hand.

I cut a series of roughly oval shapes from the sheet, slowly decreasing in size so that they would stack up to form the shape of the outcrop.

Using superglue, I glued the layers together, trying to not get glue right out to the edges of the PVC pieces as this would interfere with the texturing later on.

Next, I used a hobby knife to smooth down the layers, more or less. These didn't have to be perfectly blended, but enough to disguise the separate layers of PVC once the texturing was applied.

To apply the rock texture, I scraped horizontally around the edge of the outcrop with a wire brush. The aim here was to vary the depth and length of the scrapes to give a random, rock texture, without cutting in too deep and making it all too flimsy.

With a spray coat of black, and a drybrush of a mix of brown and grey paints, the outcrop was ready for the table.

It's not perfect - it could use some more defined layers running around the circumference, level with the flat areas. This would give it more of a stacked-rock effect and look less like a single lump. But it was an interesting experiment, and a fun way to use up some scraps. I'll have to tinker with the idea a little more and see where I can take it!

Do you have terrain creations you'd like to share? You can get feedback on your work, or ask any Maelstrom's Edge- or hobby-related questions on the Comm Guild Facebook page!

You can pick up the entire Maelstrom's Edge model range, including our plastic urban terrain detail sprue in the webstore here.

For other Maelstrom's Edge modeling articles, including tutorials and walkthroughs of a wide range of different building and miniature projects, check out the Hobby section of the Maelstrom's Edge website here.

**Briancj**

Why do you feel it isn't successful?

**insaniak**

A little too 'lumpish' - needs some more defined layers. My first prototype (at the back in the pic) had more layering, but the edges were a little too sharp, so it looked to artificial. I think something in between the two, with more defined layers but without the sharp top edges of the first one would be the way to go.

**Briancj**

Makes sense. Here in the us, those kind of wind-carved striations show up mostly in the Southwest. You could also search for 'hoodoo' which are a form of wind-carved spires, large and small.