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.

I second Arakasi, the wood is excellent! I also want the recipe

Shack looks great Ezki.

Cheers,

CB

Great work on the shack!

Thank you very much guys!

Arakasi wrote:Wow! The tree and the wood grain on the shack came out very realistically - what was your paint recipe?

gobert wrote:I second Arakasi, the wood is excellent! I also want the recipe

Glad you like it!
When working on wood, the texture is really important and does half the job.
This is the reason I use balsa over any other kind when possible. It's easy to work with and fairly durable when painted and glued.
"Out of the box" the texture is decent, but a few wipes with a wire brush really brings it out. Without using a brush, the wood might look a bit dull.

As for the painting, I did not have "the perfect recipe" when I began (always forget to document the steps).
The usual process is: base coat with black, drybrush darkish brown (depends on the wood / age / shade you want to replicate), wash it with brown / black and drybrush lighter colors.
To really bring out the texture, I like to do the final drybrush with a really light grey / bone color (again, depending on the preferred result) using very gentle strokes.

For this particular shack, the process went something like this:

- Base coat with black acrylic (Gesso). Thin layers. This step was a pain, as the wood sucks paint like a sponge.
- Drybrush dark brown (mixed brown and black acrylics). The brown was close to Mournfang brown.
- Wash with Agrax Earthshade. Used plenty of this.
- Drybrush with Mournfang brown (this step might have been a bit irrelevant for this particular case)
- Drybrush with grey acrylic (close to Mechanicus standard grey)
- Drybrush with light grey acrylic (close to dawnstone)
- Wash a few areas with Nuln Oil a few times to darken the wood to replicate old rotting wood. This could have been done earlier I guess, but I got the idea at this point.
- Bring out the texture a bit more with a near white drybrysh. Very very gently. At this step, I avoid going with the grain: I try to paint it in 90 degree angle (perpendicularly? Googled that)

The tree(s) were done quite similarly, except for the Nuln Oil wash nor that many grey layers.

Works well for a document for myself as well.
The exact colors are not important, they depend on the look you want to achieve.
What matters most is the texture in my opinion.

Arakasi wrote:Novel idea for the rope - did you add it before or after painting the shack?

I added it after painting. Aaand after assembling, which was a mistake. But I usually get new ideas when it's already "too late" and when I do, I can't do anything else than complete that one new idea.
So I had to remove the top planks carefully with a knife, attach the ropes and glue it back together.



One last WIP shot. Getting real close.


There is a lot of extra grass in there, as I poured it on top of the glue quite liberally. Will be left to be seen that how much of it actually sticks.
I want some of the ground to be visible. I will also add some variation to the vegetation.

That terrain piece has a lot of atmosphere and the wood texture really looks amazing. And I love the idea for the rope, it's so cool what one can do with things you want to throw away.

Wow! Looks great! I was however hoping for a zombie or skeleton hand breaking through the dirt! Maybe when you shake the grass off it will reveal one

Thanks gobert and Viterbi!

 gobert wrote:
Wow! Looks great! I was however hoping for a zombie or skeleton hand breaking through the dirt! Maybe when you shake the grass off it will reveal one

That was actually on my TODO list for tonight. I decided to build the terrain and scenery first, and add all the smaller details as a last effort
Great minds think alike.

The short version of the story for this piece is somewhat of the following:
My Mordheim warband "The Lost and forgotten" use this graveyard to rise their army of the dead for the search of wyrdstone.

That looks really good. Has a ton of personality.

Thank you youwashock!


Woah, the board is finally done!
After a last spurt, I managed to finish it for halloween after all. At six in the morning after an allnighter

This was a really fun project, that taught me great many new things and techniques.
It was really cool to build something a little bigger for a change.

I originally imagined the graveyard being a little bit darker without so much vegetation. Somewhere during the project I started playing around with different ideas.
After a few suggestions from my girlfriend and a few dozen of inspiring pictures, I decided to go with a little more overgrown look instead.
When positioning the different elements, I did not think about realism very much. I went more with a liberal feeling and glued the articles where they "wanted to be".

During the last night of working with this, I added a few more small details:
I added a zombie hand reaching out of one of the graves (also thanks for Gobert for the suggestion!) and a bunch of random skulls.
As a final idea at four in the morning, I started playing around with hot glue. Decided to make a spider webbing for one of the trees, with a small spider model attached to it.
At first I was not sure if it looked out of the place, but after sleeping on it, I was happy with it and decided to leave it as is. The downside is, that it's not very durable.

There is one more "easter egg" in the board.
As a homage to my deceased father, I decided to add his initials to one of the stones (first picture, on the right).
It would have been fitting to add them to the largest stone, but I got the idea after making the engravings to the largest one.
But maybe it's better to leave it as a small detail in the end.

Sadly I don't have room to store this in our house for very long (nor does it fit in my display cabinet), so I'm thinking of taking it to a miniature game room we rented a couple of months ago with a bunch of friends.
There it'll serve as a display board / gaming terrain. I tried to make it as durable as possible with the materials I used. And it's surprisingly sturdy, except for the trees and the webbing.


The idea behind this board and the placement of the stones came from my Undead Mordheim warband.
The Necromancer, Laurentius, uses this graveyard to rise new henchmen for their quest to seek the wyrdstone shards in Mordheim.
The graveyard belonged to Valerie's (the vampire) family, before she was given the blood kiss.
I figured that the family members were buried next to the house, in neat formation.
The rest, for example the servants and other "close but not that important" people, were buried on the other side of the road in a bit more scattered fashion.

To the pictures:



I wanted to take a few shots with some of the warband members. This is approximately half of the warband, as I did not want to cover the whole board with zombies
Might do that one day.

It has been a long night. A thick fog is forming in the Valerie's family grave.
The remaining undead slowly march towards the graves, accompanied by their human servants.
The Lost and Forgotten have been beaten to shreds by a group of chaotic possessed mutants.
Heralds of Filth they called themselves.
Any living leader would mourn their lost companions and abandon their quest, but not Valerie.
With a gentle smile, she firmly commands Laurentius the Necromancer, who in his turn murmurs a few words.
A dim green light emerges from his staff.
After a brief moment, the silence is disturbed as a rotting hand emerges from one of the graves. Then another. And yet another.
Vague growls fill the night accompanied by Valerie's wicked laughter, as the corpses rise from their rest.
'Our legions are endless. They are only delaying the inevitable'.







Cascoigne readying his shovel in case some the recently risen fellows get stuck in the dirt. Or are missing hands of their own.


Thank you for looking!
I did not post as many step-by-step explanations as I originally though, but I can provide information from different techniques if someone is interested.

Until next time!

Great work Ezki,

Exalted.

Cheers,

CB

It's a lovely piece of work - very well done

All the little touches make it even better. Love the spider web.

Congratulations on finishing it in time for Halloween! Sounds like it was quite a push to get it done. It's a beautiful piece that you made, that game room is lucky to be getting it as a display board. I think it's a nice homage to your father about the initials.

I echo the sentiments expressed.

RIP JT

Exalted.

Amazing work, this looks so great. Glad you took some shots with the warband, really brings the board to life... well in a sense
All the little details are so cool, the spiderwebs are a perfect addition to the tree, it looks so spooky.

Amazing board, I love it!

Great job finishing the board... an all nighter is some commitment! It paid off in spades though as it looks fantastic, I love all of the neat little details, the engravings, the spider and web, the zombie hand! It’s a shame you have nowhere to store it, but hopefully it’ll see some play at your local game club. Thanks for the bonus shots with the Mordheim band, very seasonal!

Thank you very much for the comments everyone!
Appreciate it as always.


Syro_: Yeah, it was a bit of a push in the end. But an enjoyable one at that, did not feel like a struggle.


I've kept doing a bit of this and that, instead of focusing to a single project.
Had to lower the tempo for a bit though, as the house needs cleaning, car(s) need fixing other hobbies need attention after almost solely focusing on the board for the last two and a half weeks

But something has been done:

I finished the Dire Avengers finally.
The total time spent on these, was somewhere between eight to ten hours (a little under an hour per mini I'd say), but they were in the works for three or so weeks.
In my defense, I mostly painted them during the remote meetings and between Age of Empires games

Nothing too fancy (and the pic is far from fancy), but just wanted to get them done to a reasonable standard for the games in the future:


I also visited the garage once this week, and did some more work on the house with the shingle roof.
I attached the roof and cut a base for it from foamcore.


You can see a glimpse of one of our projects in the pic above.
It has nothing to do with miniatures nor terrain, but it's still remotely hobby related.
The gaming room we rented does not have any audio equipment, nor does anyone actually have any to bring there.
I had an old car radio and some speakers from my old long gone Volvo project, which I decided to put into a good use once more and donate to the gaming room.

Spoilered, as it's not hobby related per se.



In other news, my collection of old minis I once painted keeps growing.
I was helping my parents when they moved to another flat, and found my old Warhammer Fantasy Orks & Goblins collection.


There were 10 or so Black orks, 10 wolf riders, a bunch of spider riders and ~20 or so night goblins plus some random stuff like a single bolt thrower.

Here's a couple of shots from a few minis out of the collection.


Very extensive use of brown ink on the night goblin fanatic. And one of my firs 'scatter terrain' pieces.



I don't particularly have any use for them or the space to properly store them for that matter, but it's nice to have them around if I can come up with something.
Maybe I can find a small corner from the storage to put them in.

When I was looking at the minis, particularly the banner base, I remembered that my first ever terrain piece was a wall made out of cardboard for the Lord of the Rings miniature game.
The actual wall terrain piece costed a ton, so I decided to make my own. It was used in a dozen or so games, but then disappeared. I think it was broken and got tossed away, not sure.
This was approximately 17 years ago, so I did not have a camera back then. Hopefully some of my friends got a picture of it somewhere, which I will surely share with you if I can find it.

Just a small trip down the memory lane once again


Currently working with the canopies for the Eldar vehicles. They have been soaking in Fairy power spray for a few days, so it's time to start scrubbing!

Thanks for looking!

The Avengers and Hut are looking good Ezki. I know I’m biased when it comes to purple, but it works really well on them! I’m liking how you keep being reunited with your old minis, maybe someday they’ll get brought up to current standards?

That beer box stereo is a genius idea, does it have USB or Bluetooth to connect your phone to. Are you running it off a battery or did you wire it up to a plug for mains power?

Gems a-poppin' on the Avengers. They look good. Congrats on finding more old minis.

Thanks gobert and youwashock!

 gobert wrote:

That beer box stereo is a genius idea, does it have USB or Bluetooth to connect your phone to. Are you running it off a battery or did you wire it up to a plug for mains power?

Sadly no Bluetooth, but it has a 3,5mm input connector for an audio cable and USB.

The power comes from an old 12 volt charger (no idea which device it belonged to), which plugs to the wall inlet.
The cable after the transformer was stripped and soldered to the input cables of the radio.
(Doing a little test run with temporary jumper cables here)


The internal structure was also made out of cardboard in a way, that the case is replacable.


The extra speakers were built using a lot of hot glue and cardboard. The wires are attached to a terminal strip, so that they can be removed when necessary.



Sorry for the off topic message

Gotta love some duct tape and hot glue! I’d say it’s hobby enabling, so not too far off topic, but then again I’m not a mod!

Huzzah!
Finished repainting the second Wraithlord. Or actually finally finishing it.
This guy had spent a little over a decade without a completed paintjob. Just some thick base colors.

Sadly I don't seem to have a good before image.
It was painted mostly black, purple in the kneepads and a blue sword. There was a crying eye on the other side of the head, kind of like the eye of Ulthwe.
In addition to the sword, it had a scatter laser on one of the shoulders, which had actually broken off.

I decided to swap the single scatter laser to two Starcannons. For one, it seems to be good in 9th, and the second reason is that it looks kinda cool and I don't have any Starcannons on my models yet.
I also wanted to make it look a bit more anti infantry, so it would complement the other Wraithlord (bright lance, eldar missile launched) better.

After stripping the old paint, I thought this would be a two or three night job at the most.
Well, I managed to spend a lot more time on it, even though I decided to ditch most of the galzing on the black bits and went with layering. I don't mind though.

I wanted to do something a bit different for the head this time around.
I kinda liked the eye thing it used to have, so I decided to replicate the design to it.
At first, I tried making a space tear kind of thingy, so that the eye would be in the middle of it. It did not turn out very good, so I ditched that idea.
Then I kind of just started making random patterns with different colors to the middle (well, almost in the middle...), and decided to go with that.
I should have either been more random, or make it a little more uniform. Now it kinda looks like a failed attempt of creating a DNA looking pattern


Anyway, here ya go!



Sort of a broken record with the star pattern look, but I want to make the army look uniform.
Also the sword might have needed more contrast. Darker dark tones and lighter light tones.

Still have the third Wraithlord, which came from a friend a few years back.
It does not have any conversions done to it and it's unpainted. I'm not in a hurry to paint that, as I want to figure out how to convert it a bit first.


Currently I'm still working with the canopies and fixing some mistakes on the grav tanks.
Started doing that over the weekend, and will hopefully finish them early next week.

Thanks for looking!

Edit: fixing typos.

The new lord looks aces! I like the pattern on its head, it puts me in mind of the webway; a calm, protected space cutting through the immaterium and space.

That's awesome. Sword blade looks really good. Design on the head works rather well. I like plasma, so dual starcannons gets two thumbs up over here.

Beautiful paint job on that Wraithlord. I really love the star patterns you paint on your Eldar.

Absolutely love that wraithlord, especially that contrast between his sword and body colours.

I really like the star cannons.

What recipe did you use on the top bit (gold coils?)

Cool work on the lord and I like your dedication to do the star pattern on all your models. And with the extra work on the special pattern on his head, he looks unique enough. Sword looks cool too, contrasts nicely with the purple and blue tones.

Bonus points awarded for doing all the gems as gems! I can never be bothers to do that many! lol Kudos!