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I have a fair amount of scenery for my 40K and Post Apocalypse games already, but no-where near enough to provide the variety I need to keep my games at home fresh and interesting. I've started this blog both as a means of motivating myself to build terrain, but also as a way to record (and share) what I learn along the way.

Despite the fact most of my existing scenery is home made, I'm still very much a novice. I don't have the aptitude, the imagination or the skill to make much in the way of jaw-dropping terrain. Veteran terrain builders won't get much out of this blog. But I'm hoping that novice terrain builders might get something out of it.

First up, inspired by a Champagne truffle box, I'm putting together a nice storage silo. I already have a good few of these in my collection, but most were originally designed for 15mm gaming, rather than 28mm. So they're a bit small for your typical game of 40K.



Materials Used: Sturdy round box, Old CD, GW Ink Pot Lid, Bottle Top, Old Sprus, Staples (staples not pictured)


I first cut the sprus to length then glued them together, using the round "spacer" on the sprue as a spacer between the two "pipes".


Like this.


I super-glued the pipes to the side of the box, then glued the box to the CD. I also removed the bit of sticky tape I hadn't noticed until now.


I then super-glued the bottle top and ink pot lids in place to make a hatch. I made sure that the spru-pipes were flush with the bottle lid.


I used groups of three staples to make ladder rungs and super-flued them place. I used milli-put to make "spot weld" marks. The flock was glued to the base with PVA glue.


After spraying with a black undercoat, I lightly sprayed over the top with Army Painter Plate Mail Spray-Paint.

By this point it was getting too dark to paint, so I called a halt for the night. More photographs tomorrow.

Excellent, always good to see a terrain blog. I really like how you've started (Though I can't approve of the abuse of the CoX CD!).

Nooo, not City of Heroes!!

Really cool still

It's okay guys. Calm down.

I have another


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Part II of the SIlo Build: Painting



Taking a very old, stiff-bristled brush I half-stipled, half painted long streaks of Model Air Rust paint down the sides of the Silo and around the spot wields. If you don't have Model Air Rust, any dark brown/umber paint mixed with a metallic paint will do.



I did the same on the upper surface of the silo and around the rim, careful to make sure I applied the rust coloured paint anywhere moisture might collect in pools.



Taking Mig Light Rust Effects and using the same stiff brush I painted orange streaks over the rust-brown, being careful to leave the rust brown showing a the edges. If you don't have Mig Light Rust, then any bright orange paint will do the same trick. Just make sure to water it down to the consistency of ink first.




And again on the upper-surfaces of the silo.


At this point I did something stupid: I forgot to take a photo of the next stage. All I did was take some Games Workshop Armageddon Dust and, using my fingers, smudged it all the "clean", silver bits of the silo to represent years of dust storms and the like.



After adding the Armaggeddon dust, I overloaded my stiff-bristled, old brush with dark brown ink and, painting down from the top of the silo to the bottom, applied it all over the silo. I was careful to make sure the coverage was as streaky and uneven as possible.



With the Silo now looking like a rusty, abandoned piece of junk, I painted the base to match my 40K/Post-Apoc board. Base coat was Vallejo Model Colour English Uniform and drybrushed with Vallejo Model Colour Green Ochre.



Finished!

Splendid! You've just given me some inspiration!
More please!

Thank's Squid-bot. I'll be doing some industrial fencing in a few days. Nothing spectacular, just something nice and easy that looks good on the table.

Nice! love seeing creative uses of random things readily available. Thanks for sharing

My pleasure.

As promised, a quick and easy guide to making Industrial Fences. This terrain requires a bit more specialised materials than the last batch, which relied on household and painting rubbish. You'll need to find some fine wire mesh for your fences. Fortunately, it's commonly available in art stores and car supply shops like Halfords.

You will need:
* Superglue
* Wirecutters, spru-clippers or aGood Pair of Scissors
* Sand
* Milli-put
* Fine Metal Mesh (I got my mine from the paper mache section of an art store. Car body mesh also works well).
*Small, thin wooden sticks - toothpicks, coffee stirrers, anything like that.
*Something thin but reasonably solid for the base - I like to use cake trays, because they're good and sturdy, not too thick and the foil-treated surface helps prevent the cardboard from warping after being exposed to PVA glue and paint.



Step One: Eat the cake. Yum Yum. Now cut the basing material into long thin strips about an inch wide. I've cut mine into 8 inch long strips because my mesh comes in an eight inch wide roll. Once you've done that, place three blobs of milliput on the strip. One at each end and one in the middle. If you're using the cake tray, you'll need to super-glue the milliput blobs down. Otherwise the milliput won't bond with the base. Then cut you're wooden sticks to size (I like 75mm) and stick them into the milliput. Build up more milliput around the stick to help secure it in place. The sticks don't all have to be exactly the right length (or even straight) because individual fence posts would subside or sag more than others over time.



Next, cut the wire-mesh. You want each strip to be as long as the base and as tall as the fence posts. In my case, that mean's 8inches long by 75mm high. Yes I'm mixing my measures here. I'm a child of the metric-changeover period. I work with both systems. Place more milli-put lobs between the posts (remember that if you're using the cake tray you will need to glue them in place. Push the mesh down into all five blobs and use super-glue to stick the mesh to the posts. You may find you need to use more milli-put or blue tac to keep the wire stuck to the sticks long enough for the glue to dry.



Now you need to frame the mesh in place between the original posts and a second set of three posts. Again, secure them to the base using milli-put (and super-glue if using the cake tray). You'll often find the posts don't want to stay together and will branch out to form a V shape. Use milli-put and superglue to fix the top's of the two posts together. It's important not to skip this stage, as a twin-post fence is stronger and will survive play (and storage) considerably longer than a single post fence.


Stick these two together will milli-put and superglue. Green Stuff works better and dries faster than the milli-put but it's a LOT more expensive.

Remember to make a set of gates using two sets of four fence posts. I tend to make one gate base for every two or three bases of normal fencing.



Once you've assembled your fences, let the milli-put set over night before doing anything else.

One additional feature you might want to consider is adding barbed wire to the top of the fence. I've chosen not to do so in this case, but it's very easy. Simply take some fuse wire (or other thin wire) and wrap it round a pencil. Then glue one end of the coil to one set of twin fence posts and the other end of the coil to the next set of twin-fence posts in line. It looks very effective, but has a tendency to be damaged easily if (like me) you store your terrain in boxes rather than on shelves.