Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So after stripped i covered up details that I didnt want to re-primer and yeah, time to start painting:





and we got some stealers painted. Sans heads for now but I wanted to get the poses working to see how it'd work out and i think so far its looking good! I like that they're breaking through and sneaking around benefiting from the distraction of the broodlord.

So painting the VSG begins. This first one is for my friend who's board is more dark mechanicum/ad mechy and also on mars. So he may just want it straight dark metal or some sort of blue grey on top, either way I always jsut start with dark metal now so i get the option later for chipping.

Just chugging away, showed the first couple of panels to my friend and he was a fan, so now its just finishing it off.

Its certainly nice and contrasty without blowing out, exactly how the knight turned out as well. I still think tho I like it for actual robots/mechanicals more than for buildings, so ill probably still cover up mine and chip instead. Still its useful to see how it would look more raw. The trick for me is I still really like that tin bit + creamy look, but I want some of the texture and colors that i get out of the dark metal. So Ill have to see what i get starting with a redder dark metal and how that works out.





Also stripped the other one and am covering it up to prepare for primer

The stealers flanking around the side are done! overally im happy with them, really starting to reinforce the idea that the battle.. aint going so well, stuff is breaking through. Now the right side is basically done as well!

All tahts left is the UHU for my acid mine in the center (which just came in! time to experiment soon) and gaunts/warriors breaking into the left (ugh)

ZOMG, i uploaded but never actually made the post. Whoops. Here is the final result of the VSG! One week later....

SO I didnt do much painting over the holidays, but I had a free day yesterday and decided to get as far on the second VSG as i could. There are still some finishing touches. THe blue is a bit strong, the fuses need to be repainted..etc, but I figured id show the WIP.

One thing I did was blended my dark metal technique into something redder for the pillars. One of the things I struggled with with the oriogina tin bitz + cream scheme is how smooth the tin bitz was, but adding the vidris effect and just that got TOO dirty. Switching to red dark metal (tin bitz + micaeus iron oxide and then instead of pearl for highlights I used bronze) seems to work a lot better for getting that high detail but low contrast look.

Hello! This is unexpected. For reasons that are complicated I managed to snag a few weeks of free time to work on stuff. The one caveat being that the work space isnt my normal one and so not really good for painting fine details (bike khan) or building stuff.

So, given that, I decided to paint the remainder of my buildings in my fully developed tin-bitz dark metal method and creamy stone. I never, ever thought I'd get around to actually painting these things for YEARS, so this is super exciting! Technically all this happened a few weeks ago so this will be int he past tense, but lately with the blog i've found it easier to build up a few weeks of content (and pictures) and then do my updates that way.

Now I'll have a general tutorial but here is broadly how each building goes down painting wise:

they take about.. 10-15 hours to get to.. 85% done. Thats the level im painting these at because I just dont have time to do any more. My goal is to get every building painted rather than have 3 of them REALLY finalized.

So that means no lights (they take forever, and im still not fully happy with how they turn out) and definitely still areas that could be cleaned up, but thats okay.

Most of the reason why it takes so long is due to the number of GW panels, so the actual time to paint was fairly consistent. My smaller buildings had more panels so took about as long as the bigger stuff. The only excpetion were the towers but we'll get to those later

Anyhoo, first up was painting up the remaining hormagaunts on the sprue. Pretty straightfoward and boring, but I need them for my bursting out of the hole on the left side. One that i.. have not yet fully thought out (no good movie reference for that one I can think of, starship troopers hides it under other stuff).



Next up is my first building, one of my smaller ones. This is post dark red coat and working/worked on the base coat to my creamy stone.

Nice use of blue!

Thanks! It doesnt end up quite that bright in the end after the washes, but its a nice contrast to the cream/dark-bitz metal.

I also thought it was important to highlight all the walkable areas of the terrain. It's pretty detail rich so being able to see where models go seemed like a good idea.

The finished version

Looks great! I really like the little exhaust pipes on the balcony.

Thanks! next building!

Love it. Your skills continue to inspire

Thanks! Here's the done version. (barring the grey legos, Timing wise these pictures are off as I took them today instead of weeks ago when the paintjob was originally done. I did the lego bridgepoint redos after I finished painting it which is why they are still unpainted.)

Next up is the generator bldg! This one is tricky because there is no real "floor", so nothing to clearly deliminate as being blue. Painting the narrow areas around circular depression blue seemed like it would look wierd. But the circle being blue just looks like I'm trying to do some wierd water thing, so I think i'll just make it dark and scratch having blue floors anywhere on this piece, it just doesnt really work.

The final version:














Painting the "glass" was interesting. Originally I just thought I'd throw on a coat of yellow tamiya clear, as they dont really require primer to stick. But as soon as it would dry it would cloud up in the center and ruin the effect. So for the center of each glass i ended up doing it with multiple washes of yellow ink. Very odd but looks fine now.



The electronics turned out fun:

So, now I've covered all the small/buildings in paint, its time to move onto the big boys that needed more work, the water tower complex and the bridge towers. Remember these guys? And that whole bridge system I was working on? lets finish it.





First up is the towers and their walkways. Basically the walkways suck, it was was made of this plastic mesh which didnt stick and was a total mess. Now that I've built metal mesh walkways for the garage..



its time to do that instead. First up is removing the old mesh, which pretty much just meant pull gently




Key to the bridge system was having legos sticking out with the pin attach point all-ready to go. The idea being id drill a hole in the mesh and run the pin through it. There was 1 i did as a test but now i need 3 more for each tower. So time to cut up a lot of these to length:



And glue them down. Now since these plastics dont react as well to superglue I decided to try out plastizap, theoretically zap-a-gaps superglue version more meant for plastics. It seems to work.. better? Im trying not to accelerate it so typically what I did was have the plastic-zap for the broad connection and then "spot weld" normal superglue with accelerator to hold it together while it drys. They are sturdy on there at least so something worked...

You used needle point mesh i assume? They sell it mostly in squares at craft stores and it has a waxy feel to it, right? If you soak those in warm, soapy water overnight, it helps to cut down on the waxiness that prevents it from sticking to things. What you've got going on now looks promising and less complicated or time-consuming, though.

Hmm, i didnt realize that about the needlepoint (I think I was using that), so thanks for the tip! I might use it for building gratings later on for other projects.

However the speaker mesh remains superior for walkways mostly because it looks better (circular holes) and is metal and this sturdier/stiffer. It's still very time consuming, mostly to get the ibeam edge all around it. You'll see soon!

These are the walkways I'm referring to:

Do be do, work continues. One thing to note is that I didnt make these walkways QUITE as big as the ones for the garage, because I didnt need to have railings on both sides. Even still they end up at like 1.5 inches all the way around, these towers are getting a size upgrade!




I always use tape now. Helps keep my cuts straighter and, more importantly, cuts down on metal shards from the shears as they get caught int he tape.




Putting in the posts. Its key to have the wire the same thickness as the perforation, makes the posts much more rigid. I also loop it back around through a second hole to really tie it down tot he mesh. It's visually messier but the sturdiness is worth it.

Yay my walkways are done! they look great, fit my 30mm+ base sizes for my dudes and so I'm very happy. Except...






The first level of platforms, which were ALSO supposed to be bridge-points now look.. really small.



Which is confirmed when i try to squeeze dudes on it, for it to get blocked by the pin and not really look good or remotely be stable for game use:





How on earth would I secure those pins? there is no angle for me to drill in a hole in the plastic to really secure the pin down, so it would just pop off at the first sign of a struggle. Ugh.. Im going to need more platforms somehow...

So, with the unfortunate revelation that the lower levels of my towers needs work its.. time to figure it out.

I cant just make another walkway level, that would make this thing WAY too big and also (more importantly), too difficult to hold and move around. It cant be anything with a railing because that would just make it even more difficult to shove models down there.

So the solution is a small platform that juts out to be flush with the platform above. I figure if I make it trapezoidal then it'll naturally lend itself to off-angle bridge attachments which look good

(as in: bridges will probably only really attach to the walkway points either dead on or 90 degrees to it. Thus having trapezoidal platorms below means Ill have bridges attaching to those at 45 degrees instead, which should add some variety)


First up was extended out so I could test out the platforms at all:





Then chopping up yet more mesh (IM RUNNING OUT?!?!??! HOW?!?!?!). I need 8, 4 per tower.





And a cardboard test of my trapezoid.

Time to make a lot of little platforms. You can see the build proess below but basically its similar to the other walkways just more contained. The flat "glue surface helper" beams are only on the edges to secure the edge plastic, and the rest will just glue to those anchors.










Muuchh better:

Seperately from the slog of making platforms



I started working on painting the tops of the towers. These being high detail density GW stuff I figure I work on them seperately while they are still unglued from the tower to make painting easier.

First up is the base layer:









And the first "big picture" shot of it all together with the new platforms and walkways! Muh happier and all my models fit on it very nicely.

Finally work on the body of the tower! First up is the Basecoating. Getting down the tinbitz+micaceous iron oxide dark metal mix and then adding in my patches of rust/green/etc




I also started early on the stone, as I knew that it would take a while because these towers have large patches of stone. Early as in: it would take many layers, so accidentally grazing it with alternate colors helps add random within those layers.







And then the drybrushing of brighter metals

Nice paint job! It's great and grungy so far. Awesome.

Thanks! Now some more work added and after a wash.

Note: I realize these pictures arnt neessarily contiguous between the towers, so dont be confused, these are pictures of my "stages" of painting on EITHER of the 2 towers. Sorry about that but I dont always remember to take the picture immediatly.

Here's a fun one, a painting slideshow showing how i get the platforms done.

Pre-Blue, rust undercoat.


Heavy chipping fluid, then layering on blue.




I wash it and while its damp chip the paint

you know, I'm a little sad you covered up all that beautiful weathering work you did on the catwalk. The blue definitely ties the outside walkway together with the interior floor, but my personal preference would've been to only paint the catwalk in small patches of blue here and there. I feel like you lose that sense of weathering when you cover it in blue, even after the wash and chipping.

It's certainly your project and I don't mean to try to dictate what you "should" do, because frankly it's none of my business and ultimately not my call. I just really like your weathering techniques on the walkways and would love to see them take center stage. Maybe a wash to blend your weathering? Just to see how it looks on another piece before you cover it in another color.

Also, this is a really inspiring build and I'm likely to borrow the lego block idea on some upcoming projects. I'll add a link to your blog here when I do because I strongly believe in giving credit to an originator and cross-promoting.

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Its a fair point, and one I've struggled with, but, in the end I think the blue is worth it. Maybe i'll take a closeup just to show you but you see chips and flecks and things in it where it scrapped away, revealing the rust underneath.

I guess what ive learned over time is the level of contrast and detail needs to adapt to how far away you are looking at the piece. Remember the initial painting of the VSGs. Very rusty but.. kind of a blob when you looked at it from far away. So far away you see the blue vs the dark red metal, and up close you see within the blue oranges and rust and yellows. Remember that these weathering techniques ARE still on all the railings, i-beams, and any other exposed surface. Those will remain weathered rusty greeny bronze, just the walkways remain.. blue like all other walking surfaces. Easy to play on and spot. .


Yeah copy away! Everything I've built is totally copyable, I have no problem with that. Frankly of all my designs the towers, I think, are among the more functional pieces of terrain I've seen. One thing to remember is that I intend to use these pieces outside of 40k for shadowrun/dnd campaigns. So they need to be highly reusable for any situation.

As a result they are: Multi-Level, LOS blocking, Small footprint, hold a LOT of models (20+ pretty easily), and have 8 (!) total bridge points from where bridges can be attached. I have yet to think of any other terrain piece that I'll be able to use in more situations, so I hope the idea of it is copied so we all get such flexibility.

Compare them, for example, to the bastion. The bastion is roughly the same footprint and yet holds what, max 5 models? Realistically more like 4 with gun? The classic ruined building typically is a right angled shape (something which I actively tried to avoid but still have it for my small building with the curved roof) and pretty much can only ever go in the 4 corners of the table to be "fairly placed". So yes, please steal lego blocks! make your own towers! lets all shake up terrain and make it more modular and playable for a variety of game systems. These games really come alive when you have guys on different levels shooting across bridges and things and when models have to actually take a path to get from point A to B instead of a straight line.