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One week away from winter break... eyeing a squad of Celestians as an immersion project and hoping to get this blog back on the rails.

If it catches your eye, make it happen. Anything to spark drive and motivation

You can never go wrong with a squad of sisters, so listen to the good word of Nike and "just do it"

Well, I got the Celestians built and based, but I didn't get far into paint before getting distracted. I'm pretty happy with the way the helmets are going. The robes are a little bit of a pain, but two of the models popped apart at the waist and have been much easier to paint... I'll probably do it again where I can. Trying to finish this squad before the Retributers I just ordered arrive!

Waist not want not.

--B

They look perfectly suited for painting as sub-assemblies, so a happy hobby accident!

Thanks for sharing

Good luck MacPhail.

The post always seems faster when you have set yourself a painting deadline.

Cheers,

CB

Celestians are coming along nice, hope you get them done before the Retributors!

Long overdue update, mostly a place to park my to-do list...

The Celestians are very close, but not quite done. I got them mostly painted, then assembled and based, just in time for a game last weekend. Now they need the finishing details: heat-stressed melta barrels, lens flares, purity seals, and a few highlights.

I bought a bunch of pre-wired LEDS for various projects, including a flickering blue one to simulate an arc-welder in a workshop and a bunch of flickering amber ones to build torches with (either for objective markers or Raise the Banners tokens).

I've got a cool idea for a wall-mounted diorama for the LoER Terrain Contest... a squad of Battle Sisters traversing a ledge on a sheer cliff.

I grabbed a mountain of XPS foam from a construction site and bought a new hotwire foam cutter to play with.

I bought my first squads of Retributers and Repentia to build and paint.

I have lots of Sisters left from the Army Box and a Celestians/Dominions box I bought... probably going to convert some extra Superiors and Simulacra from them if I can.

I just bought a second squad of Bullgryns and a second Chimera to accompany the first 3 Bullgryns (done), the first Chimera (half done), and the five Ork Nobz / Orgyns mashups I started a few pages back.

I need to plan and order some Battlefoam and start storing and carrying this army like a grownup... what am I, twelve years old? (Although I did buy some of the models when I WAS twelve, with a sweat sock full of loose change at Ralph's Comic Corner.)

These are the projects rattling around in my brain... more as I remember them!

Well, I went kind of huge in the hot wire foam cutting department. After a bit of market research, I shelled out for the Proxxon ThermoCut bench-top scroll table (115/E) and the handheld hot wire cutter (12/E), plus two laser cut MDF wooden guides for the scroll table from ShiftingLands and a couple of MDF and acrylic window templates as well.

Links to the items I purchased are below:

So now I'm putting together the wooden guides... they're a bit of a pain because the angles have to be pretty darn spot-on, but there's nothing to keep them that way while the glue dries. That means there's a fair bit of sitting with a carpenter's square waiting for some little component to set at a nice tight 90 degrees, then letting it cure for 30 minutes, then doing the next one, and so on. Last night I tried a clamp on the Guider Pro (basically a higher fence to slide blocks of foam along), but the two pieces of MDF skated on the wet glue, leaving me with a crooked guide and a bit of a sanding job ahead. Now I'm doing the Angle Cutter and taking my sweet time with it, not taking any chances.

That said, these are very cool designs that will work well once I get them dialed in. The manufacturer of the MDF accessories is Gerard of Shifting Lands who lives and ships from the Netherlands, but has a US fulfillment service (Paladin Woodworking, who also make insanely detailed game tables with embedded LED lighting). I also leaned heavily on the guidance of Jeremy of Black Magic Craft, a really remarkable builder with an awesome YouTube channel.

I did fire up the scroll table last night just for fun, and it makes beautiful, clean cuts at whatever depth I choose. I'll be able to cut slim panels of uniform thickness for walls, floors, pillars, and trim. I'll also have a nice wide tables for freehand scrolling to cut iconography and other detailed forms.

My first two projects will be my entry for the current LoER Terrain Contest and a Sororitas Battle Sanctum. Not sure how long those will take, and I'm sure there will be lots of little experiments along the way. So stay tuned for a new trend in Mac's foamworks!

That's awesome Mac, I hope you have fun with your Hotwire cutters. Sorry to hear that the guides are a pain to put together. I'm a fan of Black Magic Craft too.

congratz mate, you´ll never regret these purchases... well... they´ll drive you nuts eventually due to the sheer free amount of what you can do with all that... but it will be a happy crazy time^^

I find these help, for clamping:

https://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Proses-by-Bachmann-39010-PR-SS-03-Right-Angle-Hold-and-Glue-Set/

--Brian

Nice! My little hot wire hand tool is looking weaker and weaker. Sounds like it will be quite the setup, and soon the terrain will start rolling out!

MacPhail is going industrial...

Cheers,

CB

Until reading your post I had no idea how much professional-for-the-hobbyist foam-cutting equipment there was, and how empty my life is without it...

(Must NOT get into another aspect of the hobby, must NOT get into another aspect...)

I have a small hand foam cutter- REALLY looking forward to see what all you get up into with this set up! Congratulations!

I have a small hand foam cutter

that´s for starters... a true beginners drug ...

Just say no! Friends don't let friends hot foam cut!

Thanks for the enthusiasm, everyone! I'll be sure and post my various experiments and missteps. Tonight I fired up the scroll table and took it out for a spin... I'm overdue to get started on the LoER Terrain Contest for this spring. I work in my garage with limited ventilation, so I decided to go for a respirator... I've been hard on my brain cells in the past and I figured they'd appreciate it.


The result was a variety of thicknesses of XPS foam sheets (cut down from 2" thick), all beveled to roughly 30 degrees. These will be the jutting rock bands that hold a cliffside trail from below and frame it from above. The angled cut will allow them all the mount flush to the backing, which will probably be foamed PVC to reduce the profile and make it sturdy. The two reverse cuts will sit inside the hollow behind the lip to provide the surface for the models to "walk" on.


I did a quick proof-of-concept by pinching a stack in my hand after I'd made a few experimental scroll cuts. I think the basic idea holds up. I'll actually stagger the layers so the trail can rise and fall over the length of the piece, and I may try to add an arch or two. I'll cut more deeply into the individual rock bands with the hot cutter and a blade and shape and texture them pre-assembly. Once they're together I'll paint the bands subtly different colors as if they were different rock strata, and there should be lots of little nooks and crannies to stick rubble, grass tufts, and maybe some flowers I've seen others using.

 Captain Brown wrote:
MacPhail is going industrial...

I did call it.

You know, you could check some old White Dwarf articles with photos of hills made that way in the mid-nighties that could provide additional ideas for these.

Cheers,

CB

Okay, the first round of assembly is underway. I chose a 16"x9" sheet of foamed PVC for the backing to give the project some stability and a pleasing visual ratio. I roughed out the lower edges in Sharpie and then textured the sheet... with a rock. Tool using ape, indeed.

Speaking of tools, the Proxxon got some good use as I started scroll cutting the various rock bands for my cliff trail. I started with the main band running all the way across and two supporting bands that I cut down into smaller shapes.




I took a blade to them-- the hot cutter would have been faster but I was working inside instead of in the garage by that point-- and roughed in the rock shapes. Then I textured them with another precision tool: a wadded up ball of aluminum foil.


I had already beveled the backs of the rock bands to 30 degree, so I quickly cut a matching 30 degree brace and started gluing. This should set up nicely overnight and give me a solid platform to do some of the more complex steps and arches.

something i recently found out... use a piece
of pumice instead of the tin foil.... everlasting weathering fun guaranteed!!!

When I was doing a lot of HOT FOAM, I found a handheld foam knife was a very useful companion to the table cutter.

Things are looking great!

--Brian

I remember the old hot wire etched hills...while they have sentimental value, your weathering with tinfoil makes them more natural.

My two cents,

CB

Pumice I will have to try at some point... and I did buy a handheld cutter, but I haven't quite worked out the voltage yet and it doesn't cut as well as I'd like. Indeed, those classic foam hills are near and dear.

Okay, here's an update as I near the end of the build phase. I'm pretty happy with both the shape of the rocks and the curve of the pillar on one side. There's a model for scale... Sisters and bigger than I'd realized and I may need to excavate some foam for clearance. All that's left is the roof and a few adjustments, then I'll switch to the detail work.

That rock face is looking so good. I like the pillars. The pathway sitting at an angle to the rock face is a nice touch. That’s some fine foam cutting!

Very cool seeing this terrain progressing, excited for the next steps!

Thanks, all! I'm done with the basic assembly, so I'll add a few more details and try to turn the corner to paint this weekend. I'm pretty pleased with how the skylight effect turned out. That will be fun to photograph when the time comes. I also realized I could stash another storage ledge up to behind the lip to add a little more utility to the piece... not as dynamic as the enclosed one, but still useful.

This goes beyond playable terrain and enters diorama territory- so many innovations! I like the built in 'pathway' ledge amongst the strata, the skylight is fething brilliant and the overall effect is very labyrinthine.

I can hear selections from Peer Gynt even as we speak....

Rock on!

Thanks MeerCat! There's a handful of things I wish I'd done differently, and designing around the skylight concept is one of them. But now I know.

I made good use of a tip from Mothsniper: heating a dental tool in a candle and using it to carve cracks in the stone. My knife work have left a lot of straight lines and hard edges, so I think a few organic curves really helped. I got the texture glued down tonight and will try to give it a protective and anti-pink layer of black paint with a shot of ModPodge tomorrow.