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I love the different colored houses, very fitting for the Thousand Sons planet where the different aspects of sorcery had different colleges. Why wouldn’t the population where they were drawn from not have that individuality as well .

The trees look good. I wouldn’t go darker as they would look dead imo.

The trees and houses and whole thing are just plain great. And i like the multiple colors as well, it helps bring all the other houses out.

If I may make a suggestion for the future:

Don't cover over the splashes and splotches of paint on the sides of the causeway and central plateau- use them to add more organic color-texture to it.

Syro_ wrote:Wow, this amazing piece really plays with your eyes and brain. It looks like such an enormous piece and physically heavy. Then in the second to last picture I noticed the chaos space marine in the upper right and am reminded all over again how small a scale you are working in. Simply amazing work. I think the number of colored buildings is a good choice, not too many but enough to stand out. I don't know what to say about the trees. I personally think darken them some more, but I don't know what kind of tree you're going for, so i could be way off.

Thanks! It's weird to think that I have built bigger dioramas than this for a squad of space marines so it is pretty tiny The trees are proving to be the trickiest part so far, still not 100% sold on them myself...

monkeytroll wrote:Fantastic work Cain. Coming together beautifully with the paint.

I think a few trees shaded a bit lighter will add the right amount of variety. If you used Agrax on those, then maybe sepia on a few just so there is a good spread of darker tones to complement the lighter greens and yellows.

Thanks MT! I tried your suggestion on the forest, it definitely adds some more variety to the area.

tzurk wrote:Lovely work as always CC. Love the angles on the 'art gallery', and the reflections look incredible en masse. Also think it's awesome that you're giving the districts each their own distinct architecture/colour scheme - really gives a lived-in, real-world sense to the piece.

I agree that a sepia wash or maybe even a flesh shade could work well to break up the brighter greens a bit more.

Cheers! I tried a couple of reflections out of curiosity and then got carried away and did it on most of the houses!

Theophony wrote:I love the different colored houses, very fitting for the Thousand Sons planet where the different aspects of sorcery had different colleges. Why wouldn’t the population where they were drawn from not have that individuality as well .

The trees look good. I wouldn’t go darker as they would look dead imo.

Yeah I chose this city in particular because it would let me splash a few different colours around. Grimdark is great but grey buildings can get a bit boring!

amazingturtles wrote:The trees and houses and whole thing are just plain great. And i like the multiple colors as well, it helps bring all the other houses out.

Thanks! Painting each house took a week longer than expected but I am happy I put the extra time in looking at it now

Anvildude wrote:If I may make a suggestion for the future:

Don't cover over the splashes and splotches of paint on the sides of the causeway and central plateau- use them to add more organic color-texture to it.

Well I was going to paint the majority of that section in an off-white but I will end up adding some textures to the base of it anyway to fill in some gaps that still exist. A worn appearance is a good idea though, something that large is bound to show some defects and weathering over it..


Thanks again for all the kind words and input everyone, keeps me motivated and stops me stashing the diorama away in a cupboard!


I went on a building painting spree today and have them all 90% finished. The Azure district now just needs the large structures painting and the roads and ground will get tidied up and some more trees added.



I also made the forest that hides just below the mountains, not very happy with the end result though. I think I might add some more scattered trees climbing up the side of the mountain so that it isn't just one big blob. Adding some darker patches to the farmland might also help to blend it in a little better. Looking at this image it is growing on me a bit more. (pun totally intended)



In a bid to get all the pesky little homes finished off before 2020 I decided to tackle them all in one big batch. Old Tizca is where the city was originally founded before Magnus (who designed the rest of the city) or the Thousand Sons, as such, nothing got the highlighting treatment but rather a healthy dose of weathering powders! You might notice the darker section near the factory to represent the black smoke that it has been belching out for decades. Still a long way to go before it is finished but it is a good start...



The effect is better viewed from a distance at the moment, I will also end up crafting some big smoke clouds out of the same material I am making the trees. Turns out that if it is soaked in enough paint it goes nice and crispy and a bit easier to sculpt!



Next up I will be picking up the old magnifying glass and working on some of the large structures

I've got a possible texture solution for the farmland- an impasto application of thicker acrylic paint- you could use the brushstrokes to create the classic 'waves' of grain, or possible do some brush stippling for a rougher surface for potatoes or leafier greens. In a similar vein- variance is going to be king here, for the plants. Not just a single type of staining for the flock/farms, but upwards of 5 to 10 different washes and stains and paints should be used, applied relatively randomly, for this sort of scale, I'd say. And I'd figure out what, exactly, you want to have in the farmlands, because I can't think of any crop that has that sort of light green coloration- crops tend to be either more yellow-gold, or a darker or more primary green, if they're not straight up colorful like tulips, lavender or the like.

All very good suggestions! I could use the same paint medium that I am planning on using for the water as it is designed to add thickness to paint. I quite like the colours as they are though, my camera tends to make everything look too bright so I might just stick with the Green space potatoes for now

I have been hard at work on the special buildings, turns out there are quite a few in this district!

First up are a blurry but nicely finished pair of skyscrapers (made from grenades!)



And then is the radio tower



Very happy with how the brass piggy turned out!



I then set to work on the spaceport





In the end I decided that the red was a little too vibrant so it got dulled down and I then added some guidelines for the shuttles to come and go from the planet..



And finally I just finished off the two buildings in the refinery area. Think I might add some different patches of soil as it all looks a little uniform at the moment but I am happy with how it is shaping up!



Just the bastion left to paint now and then the azure district is nearly done

Wow the brass pig turned out really great, you should be proud of it. Also I think toning down the red of the spaceport was a good choice, really like the look.

Spaceport is great . If you still have space somewhere on the board you should pull a GW and do the layout of your street. (In case you didn’t know the new genestealer cult tactician guy has a holographic display board which has a tiny size model of the GW main studio/manufacturing facility on it with little rhinos in the parking lot )

Ah, i love the brass pig.

Gonna do some slag piles and spill fields in the refinery zone?

Syro_ wrote:Wow the brass pig turned out really great, you should be proud of it. Also I think toning down the red of the spaceport was a good choice, really like the look.

Cheers! I'm so used to painting thousand sons that I can get a bit carried away with the red paint sometimes

Theophony wrote:Spaceport is great . If you still have space somewhere on the board you should pull a GW and do the layout of your street. (In case you didn’t know the new genestealer cult tactician guy has a holographic display board which has a tiny size model of the GW main studio/manufacturing facility on it with little rhinos in the parking lot )

Ooh yeah I love that genestealer model, shame it didn't come out a little earlier as I could have incorporated that piece into the diorama! My street is literally just my house alone on a cliff but I am sure I can sneak it in there somewhere...

amazingturtles wrote:Ah, i love the brass pig.

Thanks! Once I found the little guy in a bits box I just knew it had to have a place on the board

Anvildude wrote:Gonna do some slag piles and spill fields in the refinery zone?

Done! I mixed a bit of black ink with acrylic medium so it has a nice chunky look to it. Shame it is a nightmare to take a picture of though, the whole area is only 2cm across...

Oil stains look good. Really an impressive project overall.

Smashing work. Bringing it all together well.

Thanks guys!

Just a quick update for today, I painted up the bastion and sprinkled some more trees around. I found that adding some more stark browns and greens helped to fit the trees in a lot better than before.

I think I might need to add some more colours to the bastion though as it is a bit boring at the moment, maybe some red patches will liven it up a bit!

Loving the new tree mix CC! Looks really natural and provides a nice contrast to the buildings.

I see what you mean about adding extra colour, but I also really like the blue/red palette - it looks good and is super fitting as well. Maybe another shade of each colour in small amounts? I am always a big fan of turquoise....

Refinery is looking great. With all their mystical knowledge why couldn’t they figure out a safer power source?

Talking about sprinkling trees... Maybe sticking tiny chunks of flock in some of the empty lots? Not sure how Tizca is meant to be in terms of cityscapes.

Looking better and better, congrats on keeping up steady progress on all these tiny buildings !
Anvildude makes a good point, now that you have finished painting some building areas, could a good time to add some little trees in these areas for smaller parks, garden or such.

I kind of like how the bastion contrasts with the surrounding more colored building. More color patches could work, but I'd say not too many of them.

Keep it up !

tzurk wrote:Loving the new tree mix CC! Looks really natural and provides a nice contrast to the buildings.

I see what you mean about adding extra colour, but I also really like the blue/red palette - it looks good and is super fitting as well. Maybe another shade of each colour in small amounts? I am always a big fan of turquoise....

Thanks tzurk! I added a very subtle wash of turquoise on a little bit of the bastion, not sure why I hadn't added any of that colour on the board yet considering it is my favourite shade!

Theophony wrote:Refinery is looking great. With all their mystical knowledge why couldn’t they figure out a safer power source?

Honestly that patch might not even have been meant to be a refinery at all, the area is not defined on the map so I just had to guess at what it was! I get the impression from the books that the Thousand Sons were quite separate from the average citizens of Tizca so while they can take advantage of magical portals (which I just realized I forgot to add to the diorama, oops!) and impossible architecture, they still have to rely on good old 40K grimdark tech for day-to-day operations.

Anvildude wrote:Talking about sprinkling trees... Maybe sticking tiny chunks of flock in some of the empty lots? Not sure how Tizca is meant to be in terms of cityscapes.

Your wish is my command! I knew the blank spots needed something extra and some trees filling them out fit in perfectly.

KernelTerror wrote:Looking better and better, congrats on keeping up steady progress on all these tiny buildings !
Anvildude makes a good point, now that you have finished painting some building areas, could a good time to add some little trees in these areas for smaller parks, garden or such.

I kind of like how the bastion contrasts with the surrounding more colored building. More color patches could work, but I'd say not too many of them.

Keep it up !

Thanks KT! There are actually going to be a lot of garden areas in Central Tizca when I finally get around to it. I imagine they are going to be insanely tricky to make as so far I have been placing the trees randomly so making nice patterns will be an all new challenge



It took a very long time but the Azure District is now all finished! I just had to paint up the civilian port (and did the military one while I was at it) and sprinkle some more trees around.

Fear not, the red covered thumb tack in the background is covered in paint, not blood







I also discovered that everything looks really cool if I take pictures from a very low angle, gives everything a nice sense of scale that a birdseye view tends to miss...






I am currently experimenting with the best way to make water effects with the materials I have on hand. I think a base of pva glue would be a good start to get a nice flat area around the enclosed bay and far out to sea. I can then top it off with the acrylic medium to sculpt some nice waves around the coastline. Getting the colour right will be the hardest thing. I am thinking a dark grey with just a hint of blue will be the way to go with some white crests. Fortunately the view out of my window features not only the Atlantic Ocean but also a little lake so I have lots of inspiration!

I have also started highlighting all the houses in Old Tizca despite saying I was not going to do so, seems I like to punish myself!

Just some happy little trees. An another one here, 'cause everybody needs a friend...

Trees are looking great Commander Cain. I also agree with how nice looking the low angle shots are.

All looking very awesome indeed!

Trees look very natural, and the low angle shots work a treat.

Scale is going to be tricky when you get onto the water, Tosca doesn't strike me as being under constant pressure from huge stormy waves, so less is definitely going to be more there. Breakers would probably best be defined with tiny flicks of white paint rather than trying to get clever with various water effects for instance.

Yeah, at this scale, even person-high breakers would be... about the thickness of a brush bristle? And closer together than you'd think, as well. Which is why I think 'thick paint' brush textures would be the way to go.

Anvildude wrote:Just some happy little trees. An another one here, 'cause everybody needs a friend...

All it needs now is a massive cabin that ruins the whole of the diorama

Syro_ wrote:Trees are looking great Commander Cain. I also agree with how nice looking the low angle shots are.

Thanks! Trying my best to get artsy with the photos hehe

monkeytroll wrote:All looking very awesome indeed!

Trees look very natural, and the low angle shots work a treat.

Scale is going to be tricky when you get onto the water, Tosca doesn't strike me as being under constant pressure from huge stormy waves, so less is definitely going to be more there. Breakers would probably best be defined with tiny flicks of white paint rather than trying to get clever with various water effects for instance.

Cheers Yeah the water is going to be even harder than I thought, turns out that pva dries a little too opaque for my tastes and also has lots of air bubbles. Fortunately my League project is going to be a good test for how well I can sculpt water!

Anvildude wrote:Yeah, at this scale, even person-high breakers would be... about the thickness of a brush bristle? And closer together than you'd think, as well. Which is why I think 'thick paint' brush textures would be the way to go.

It is times like this I feel crazy trying to make something realistic at this scale! I am hoping that random paint strokes will help me out a lot and give a good impression of waves that I would not normally be able to replicate..


Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays! I didn't get a huge amount of painting done over the last few days but I have made some good progress on old Tizca, the houses are now highlighted and I painted up the bridge and factory. I even added some smoke billowing out of the chimneys which I am quite fond of.



I also started on the river running through the city. The water effects have worked nicely but I think the base colour underneath is a little grey for my tastes I could just be being a little nitpicky though!



Still need to give the factory some more love I think, for such a large part of the city it could do with some more detail adding on.





In other news I now have a reaver and warlord to add to the little collection of titans. I got the reaver built in record time but I am not allowing myself to start on the warlord until I have finished painting the ice cream stand

My mini terrain project for the League of Extraodinary Riveters is now complete! Turns out I work a lot faster when I have a time limit...

Our task for the competition was to build a terrain piece and include an item related to candy or sweets so I went to my nearest dollar store and found a nice little candy dispenser in the shape of an ice cream cone. A bit of chopping and some extra bits later and I had an ice cream stand perched on a crumbling pier.

This was also my first time using water effects which I have wanted to tackle for some time now and I am really happy with the end result, sculpting waves was tricky but really fun to see them dry and take shape. It was also nice building something at a normal scale for a change



I decided to add a monster lurking in the water as well and gave him a nice shiny coat with some yellow spots.







I went for a Fallout type scheme as you may be able to tell, lots of rust and the appearance of no one having visited this area for quite some time.



In addition to the ice cream container, I also used candy wrappers for the covered up window and building itself, it's amazing what you can find lurking around in a trash can!





The water was really fun to do, I decided not to add any colour to the acrylic medium itself and just painted the base with a mix of greens, blues, and greys and it all combined to make the exact shade I was looking for.


Overall I am really happy with how it turned out, I enjoyed making something very different from what I normally work on and it was nice to experiment with some new materials!

Nice work on the contest piece there Cain! Love the palette as always and nice to see the water effects coming together - river looks great on Tizca as well.

I want to wave hello back to the little monster guy...reminds me of those bears that wave for treats in national parks

Wow! the water effect turned out beautifully. Great piece in total, you should be proud of it. I like the weathering and rust

Gorgeous, that is some properly done water and rust !

G'day Cain,

I was building some some of the ruins that come in the Kill Team box yesterday and I came across this piece - labelled B6 on the sprue - that immediately made me think of this project. Not sure if it's too detailed for this scale (it's about 11mm across) or how you would get your hands on one - if I had a spare I'd send it, but I somehow managed to lose one of the two that come standard in the box - but thought I'd share just in case. Thought it might make a good temple or sorcerer's college or something.