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Hello again! I'm painting up my newest piece of Cities of Death Terrain (pics to come). I'm noticing my rubble piles are looking a little bland. On this particular piece the rubble is made from cut chunks of sprue, I have a spring and a gear from some random train set I think, a muzzle from a plasma cannon, some pipeing, and some wiring. My problem is that the building is so big, and there are so many piles of rubble everywhere. What are some more pieces of everyday junk I can throw into random rubble piles to give them more diversity? Oh, and I did glue sand to random places on the floor and in the rubble. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

Have any dollhouse furniture lying around? Even if it isn't the right scale, you can break it up and have the occasional piece of a chair, table leg, desk drawer, etc. poking out of the dirt and rocks.

It adds a lot to the sense that this was an actual building where people lived and worked, not just an empty space for people to fight in.

Great idea! I never thought of that.

More Please.

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

I notice in some of the GW tutorials that they use broken up polystyrene pieces to simulate fallen and crumbled masonry as well as textured paint and sand. You don't necessarily need to cram loads in - I presume you have based the building on a base so that it has a 'footprint'? You can then add in some small piles here and there just to give the illusion of ruin, if that makes sense.

Vinyl floor tiles work as scale slabs of concrete. The tiles are easy to cut, score or carve, and fracture with a very granular finish. Perfect for floors or general rubble.

For the floor areas, I've had great success using the Warhammer Movement trays (pre-gridded).

As far as misc basing / rubble detail ? Train your eye to look for anything IRL that may add some interest. My lattest "recycling" is using the packaging plastic strip that toys are held in place with from the manufacturer (behind the cardboard insert and that keeps the item-holding twist ties from ripping it). Hard to explain - sorry.

Ribbed vegetable cans and some tim-snips yield great results.

Plastic parts of dried out ball-point pens. Marker caps, glue caps, medicine bottle caps ... break them, snip them, melt them ...

It's amazing how mundane RL items, placed out of context into terrain, can really add some dimension and interest to "sand and sprue" rubble.

Good luck and share some pics when you get a chance.

My basecoat is finished. I'm hoping to have pics up by tonight, but I have a busy afternoon so, tomorrow at the latest. Thanks for all the advice guys! Will be trying all of it out. Could I get a link for the floor tiles ranthecid was talking about? I'm not sure I know what he's talking about.

This is not cheap, but you might consider getting some GW Skeleton models and have them in the rubble. An arm here, leg there could really add effect.

I wish I could get skeletons wearing Guard uniforms. That would be awesome.

Check sites like EMA Modelling for a variety of pipework, gears, wheels and the like which can be mixed into rubble to spice it.

You could also use chunks of embossed plasticard -- it comes in many varieties such as brick or granite setts -- cement bits to chunks or small sheets to simulate half broken walls.

Oil drums, jerry cans, wooden crates and concrete roadblocks of various types are all available and can add to rubble or general war terrain.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/260250.page

For sources.

dingholio wrote:I wish I could get skeletons wearing Guard uniforms. That would be awesome.

You could kit-bash Cadians with the Warhammer skeletons (Tomb Kings and/or Vampire Counts). Hey, maybe use some of the Zombies for some "fresher" dead ??

Myrthe wrote:My lattest "recycling" is using the packaging plastic strip that toys are held in place with from the manufacturer (behind the cardboard insert and that keeps the item-holding twist ties from ripping it). Hard to explain - sorry.

I know exactly the thing you mean. Rounded rectangle, black plastic, 3mm hole every 5mm or so. I have about a dozen of these throughout my urban scenery!
They're a great rescource for someone like me who buys lots of toys!!

I chuck anything in my rubble. My girlfriend has gotten used to this and saves me literally everything. She'll come home from work with printer parts, broken pens, beads; literally anything. She'll jsut say "I saw thins and thought you'd want it for scenery."

I've collected broken milk crates from the beach, found bits of mesh in the road. Just get in the habit of thinking "that'd make good rubble!" and you'll soon find anything will work.

Exactly, Tek, that's what I was trying to describe.

I look at everything and assess it's "TV" (Terrain Value) before I throw it away. I've even managed to brainwash my wife into doing the same thing ... and she doesn't even play

Tek wrote:

Myrthe wrote:My lattest "recycling" is using the packaging plastic strip that toys are held in place with from the manufacturer (behind the cardboard insert and that keeps the item-holding twist ties from ripping it). Hard to explain - sorry.

I know exactly the thing you mean. Rounded rectangle, black plastic, 3mm hole every 5mm or so. I have about a dozen of these throughout my urban scenery!
They're a great rescource for someone like me who buys lots of toys!!

I chuck anything in my rubble. My girlfriend has gotten used to this and saves me literally everything. She'll come home from work with printer parts, broken pens, beads; literally anything. She'll jsut say "I saw thins and thought you'd want it for scenery."

I've collected broken milk crates from the beach, found bits of mesh in the road. Just get in the habit of thinking "that'd make good rubble!" and you'll soon find anything will work.

That sounds like how I make Ork vehicles My wife does the same thing. If she sees an interesting bit of junk, she puts it on my desk in the study. It's kinda like Christmas every day.

Keep on rockin'!

One technique I use for the bulk concrete rubble:

When i'm casting Hirst Arts molds in dental plaster, i place them in simple $1 plastic "lunch trays" with lips to catch the squeegee run-off from the top.

After the molds have set, i'm left with a sort of cookie sheet of plaster. when smashed with a hammer or pliers, these sheets of plaster make EXCELLENT concrete rubble for terrain and figure basing. you should give it a try- real easy to do and you can generate a LOT of it very fast!

I don't know how to cast, no one's ever showed me before. Is it easy?

Search the forum, there's some great articles on creating moulds with Lego.

I do the same thing sometimes f00k; mix up some plaster of paris, bung in a load if black paint so it's grey, then I pour it all over a sheet of cling film (saran wrap?).

Come back an hour or so later to a big ol' sheet of concrete!
Once it's all smashed up you're golden...

ah Ding, you dont need to do really do anything other than get an old cookie sheet, water and plaster of paris (youre not actually "casting" anything, more like pouring a puddle).

You want something, shallow, flexible, and has a lip around the edge. pour a thin layer of plaster or hydrocal along the bottom, let it set up, the flex the sheet to pop it off- if the sheet is metal, you might want some sort of mold release, like the aforementioned saranwrap, but a plastic "lunch tray" is the easiest to use and clean up. just a sheet of plaster that you bust up into rubble.

Tek's point of adding black will save you time if you get the color right. Give it a try, it's easy!

dingholio wrote:Hello again! I'm painting up my newest piece of Cities of Death Terrain (pics to come). I'm noticing my rubble piles are looking a little bland. On this particular piece the rubble is made from cut chunks of sprue, I have a spring and a gear from some random train set I think, a muzzle from a plasma cannon, some pipeing, and some wiring. My problem is that the building is so big, and there are so many piles of rubble everywhere. What are some more pieces of everyday junk I can throw into random rubble piles to give them more diversity? Oh, and I did glue sand to random places on the floor and in the rubble. Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

Plastic pipe of variosu sizes sticking up and painted in metallics/rust adds some visual variety. Also you can get cheap barrels and so forth from various sources. The GW ones for example can be placed whole and half buried or use half pushed intot he ground to get double mileage, etc.

Also if you have any old toys,clocks or VCR players about smash them open and remove all the doo dads, gears, etc. to use.