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NO problem. I'd love to get in another game with ya, but I'm not sure when my time will free up...

Excellent stuff, your terrain skills are amazing and now with the new badger its going to quadruple!

@ Gits- I really like the case / carrier as well, because it is heavy. Gave me a surprise when I picked the box up at the PO.

@ Dave- I'll let you know how it sounds as soon as I set it up. Yes, I know... but read on, you'll see why not.

@ monkeytroll- Thanks for the compliments on the tank. I hope you like the finished product. The trash can didn't get the 'rotted out bottom' effect since I couldn't get the stuffing I out into it earlier. Kind of an 'after the fact' idea that I'll try on something else soon, Very soon. And I'm really looking to practicing w/ the airbrush.

@ Moltar- The trashwork on the fuel tank is a culmination of everything I've learned to date. See below for more awesomeness. And yes, the airbrush is going to change everything. Next level, here I come!

@ bama- Thanks for the compliments! As for the cat hair, no need to shave. He spontaneously donates every time he comes to visit me. So thoughtful. If you go through any of my threads you'll see plenty examples of this.

@ bigfish- The peeling paint was a different technique for me and it worked quite well, I'll be doing it more as new projects come to the fore.

@ Galorn- Whenever you guys can come up. It'll be a long winter and I'm not going anywhere.

@ Styrofoam- Thanks for the compliment! I'm really excited about the Badger and I'm looking forward to finally getting it going!



Ok, so in case you hadn't figured it out yet, I did NOT fire up the airbrush rig this weekend, but for good reason as you'll see below. I really wanted to finish my Fuel Depot piece and knew I wouldn't if I started in on the airbrush, so I left it alone and instead spent my modeling time finish up what I feel is my best piece to date.

Before I get started, PLEASE understand that it is NO WAY near as shiny IRL as it is in these pics. Very soon I am going to build a light box so I have more control over my pictures. I'll still use my 'dynamic background' setup for small pieces and miniatures, but the larger stuff I'm making / taking pics of deserve better exposure to show the true work and detail I've put into them.

That said, here's my finished piece. Yes, i know the base could have taken more detail and the platform is a bit bland. I think it's ok and it'll work overall. The base is a nice open space for other things to go on (barrels, crates, etc) and the fuel tank would overwhelm the minor detail I'd have put on the platform. My opinions. I am still open to discussion / recommendations. All I have to do is add stuff, I don't have to undo anything.

First pic is of a brilliant idea I had for something completely different. I had been thinking about rivets again on another piece I want to get started somewhere in Jan / Feb that is HEAVILY inspired by inmygravenimage's Sanctum Sororitas but again I found myself not looking forward to it because my rivets still seem a bit wonky so I found an AWESOME substitute in the form of Beading Closures from my FLCS (Friendly Local Craft Store). Rather clever of me I thought at the time, but I had no idea just how clever it would turn out to be..

As I was working on the final touches of the Fuel Depot I realized I needed something on the back of the platform, it was just too underwhelming. I was putting a lot of responsibility on the tank to be the focus point and knew someone would call me on it so I started to reach for my Pegasus Hobbies bitz tray (my recent 'go to' for all things filler and detail) and while I was reaching saw the remaining piece of chain I used on my LoER contest piece hanging from my lamp. It didn't take long to figure out what to do next.



I had to work the openings on each link where I was going to use a Bead Closure. Other than that it was a quick and easy process. Expect to see this again.

Ok, blah blah blah etc... on to the pics!






































... and saved the best for last. I'm getting better.



Now of course as I was posting this I saw GLARING oversights and avoidable mistakes. Aquila on end of tank is just slightly askew. I could have blended the edges of the decals better. I should have made little rusty drips / runs from my chain railing. I didn't use any of Dave's weathering powders on anything. Again. I really should have done / do something more w/ the base. I completely over-rusted the grates. I should have pushed myself for even a bit of OSL on the hatch lights. So many things I did wrong or could have done better. For all my advancement and learned skill, I'm still making mistakes and slacking off toward the end of every project.

BUT... all that said, I'm very happy with this piece and it finally has a place on my table as part of the story instead of just being a thing that breaks LOS. I put a lot of work into that piece and I'm as proud of the accomplishment as anything else I've done. I really like the tag on the valve wheel, I think it adds a lot (and for some reason seems really funny to me). I like the chain railing a lot, the wear on the decals is excellent, the hazard stripes are straight and add to the scale perspective instead of draw away from it, the stairs are decent, the rust on the tank is some of the best I have done... so yeah, I'm not running myself down at all. I see mistakes, but I also see success.

I'm still learning and I'm still working hard toward a goal. I know I'm not making diorama-quality terrain and I'm ok with that. My requirements are that anything I build has to be playable, durable, and look as good as I am capable of producing. Every new piece is another opportunity to apply known skills and to expand my 'comfort zone' each time I model. My 'comfort zone' is about to be shattered by that airbrush. Ha.

I don't know what my next project will be. I'm slowing down on the Imperial Sector stuff right now as I'm waiting for a couple things to happen before I dive into more work on them (specifically I need more 'themed rubble' and I need more hardboard for the bases). I'm starting to dig back through my old terrain so maybe I'll drag another piece of it out for an overhaul. Hard telling right now. All I know for sure is whatever I do next I'll put in a solid 90% effort on it.

That's it for this one. As always, thanks for looking, and C&C is openly welcomed.

Well my time has freed itself up quite nicely... I quit/was fired from one part time job, promoted to management at another... (I'll be writing the schedule...) I'll ping ya after Xmas about scheduling that game.

Magnificent piece of terrain Skalk! Love that storage tank to death.
Thats why it pains me to see the silvering under your decals... you can prevent this by coating your model in a thin layer of P+ before adding the decals. This will give a smooth polished layer with a little shine, so the brightness of the decal is cancelled out. Afterward the piece will be shiny as all hell though, so you would have to matte varnish it.

After that matte varnish your decal will have easily blended into the P+ coat, and you'll never ever get those shimmering clear decal edges again.

And as an added bonus... after the P+ layer decals are a lot easier to place right due to the smooth polish.

So really you should just do a new storage tank altogether... and send this one to me

Looks cool to me. The tank itself looks great, nice detailing and texture. The floor and metal areas look a bit plain - I would suggest maybe a dark ink wash and some rust pigments dabbed around floor edges and pipe and you would be sorted.

As the base is a lot larger than the object on it, I would take the opportunity to make the most of it. Paint a design on it or do something cool with rust, tile patterns etc. The missing tiles area good start. Giant industrial numbers stenciled with the airbrush would be pretty damn cool though!

That is truely amazing. Looks absoloutly amazing. Love the rust. The design just everything.

I inow youve pointed out faults, but honestly the only thing id of said is the glue stains under the stepladders... On the tiles. It really does look impressive man :-)

I love this tank it's so... tanky! My favourite details, aside from the astonishing weathering, are the little label and flooring, actually. And thanks very much for the shout-out, can't wait to see what you to with the glory that is VJ Turquoise.

Cool tank terrain, textures and rust effect came out nice.

I also picked up a badger for christmas... although I went for the renegade as I already have an Iwata HP CS.

And here's a cool vid on airbrush use if you want to check it out if you haven't already: the president of badger talking about cleaning and stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsW-vN0_lHw

Fantastic work on the tank skalk. A really good military modeler gave me a hint about how to make the decal edges disappear. Coat the decal (or at least the edges) in gloss coat first, when that's dry... hit it with dull coat. It really does a good job at making the decal edges disappear.

Man, I LOVE the peeling paint, the chain railing, and especially the lockout tag on the valve wheel!

The weathering on the tank Is incredible. Every new piece gets better and better. I esp. love the tag on the valve.

@ Galorn- That is excellent. Keep me posted and when you're available I'll make sure I'm freed up.

@ MauS- The decals are really bugging me. I really like the weathering on them, but they look like decals instead of stenciled numbers / symbols. I went back through my post before checking comments, and everyone is right about all the things they mentioned. I'm going to revisit my revisited Fuel Depot and try to fix the flaws. Do you think the P+ would still work now? And if I ever get rid of that tank you'll be the first to know. I'll let my kids know to not sell it as part of my estate sale.

@ Bruticus- I agree that the floor is much larger than the platform / tank. The intent was to have an open area where vehicles could pull in and refuel, but also presented a challenge that demanded more flat detail than I have worked with and I know I did not meet that challenge. I've been thinking about this and at minimum I'll be going back over the platform floor with dreadplate flooring (like what I did here except it'll be a larger area, and it will not be one massive hunk, it'll be cut into rectangle sheets w/ rivets and joints. I think that will make a significant improvement. As far as the base / flooring, I'm stumped. I don't want to go for a 'ruined' look, it's a beat up facility but it is still functional and in use. I just thought about what I could use as a real-world example, this sort of thing came to mind:



I don't know exactly what to do, but I do agree something needs to happen. Perhaps I can do that via coloring (airbrush) instead of physical construction.

@ Lordjig6- I agree. I'm thinking how to remove / improve that. It was a sloppy job and I should know better, that's a genuine n00b mistake.

@ graven- I always try to promote the work of those I am inspired by. It helps with the sense of community and gives everyone the opportunity to learn new techniques and gain inspiration. I'm going to wait on the Shrine until I have at least a moderate skill w/ the airbrush. I see a lot of applications for it on that Shrine.

@ Meade- Thanks for the compliment and the link. I'll be checking that out for sure.

@ Gits- As for the gloos before matte, now that I think of it... Dave told me the same thing a while back. Maybe I need to take notes instead of trying to remember everything.

@ Dave- I knew you would have appreciation for that tag. It's specifically why I made it. You did not disappoint.

@ Styrofoam- I'm really psyched to be improving the way that I am. Glad you liked the tag. It was really easy once I figured it out, but stupidly difficult the first way I tried it. The first was to cut out the shape, make the hole, and then thread it. Ugh. The it occurred to me to drill the hole in the paper, thread the ...uh... thread, and THEN cut shape out. Worked WAY better.



I want to say 'thank you' for the compliments, it always means a lot to me. You all have incredible skills that I respect. What I also respect is your honesty about the errors I made and the the recommendations for improvement. The things you share make me a better modeler.

I have a few days off coming up, I'm hoping to spend a decent portion of them doing modeling. My goal is to re-work the Fuel Depot w/ ideas above and maybe get some work done on my Manufactorum.

As you can see, work has been getting back to a manageable load and I'm able to sneak over to Dakka a lot more than I have been for the last few weeks. Looking forward to *finally* getting the chance to catch up w/ your work as well as post my own.

I'll be back.

Your tank came out awesome! The inspection tag on the valve is great!! I love seeing the little details like that on a piece. It really makes them seem more realistic. Have to agree that some sort of stenciling on the open space of the deck or weathering the tiles will really make that pop. Maybe some crates/barrels/trash if you're going for a abandoned look? Looks really good though.

@ rustbucket- Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment. I'm glad you are liking what I've done so far and hope you like what is coming next. I was wrong when I said the model was 'finished'. Apparently I just got started.



This is what I did tonight. I blame all of you:



and let me tell you, this was NOT easy to do w/o destroying the model:



But it needed to be done. Once again, a huge thanks to Dave for hooking me up w/ the treadplate. I used a 40mm WFB base for sizing and it came out really well I think. I cut them so they would look believable to scale and made sure they had the slightest gaps / imperfections to show texture and delineation from one plate to the next:







Figured while I was tearing things up I'd fix the Aquila and the end of the tank. The Aquila sadly did not survive the sanding process but I have another one for later:



All nice and smooth:



Flat black base and rusted seams for effect once I start painting the deck:



Also used some Tamiya Clear to help hide the edges of the decal:





Treadplate getting some color and weathering:





And decided to change the base of the platform from steel to concrete:







Final shots for the night:





This piece is officially back in WIP status, there's a lot of work to be done still. Need to clean some things up, need to weather the concrete and add some imperfections and bullet impacts, maybe even some rebar rust seeping out of the form joints (which I need to make more obvious instead of having one massive wall of concrete). The platform deck needs a lot of work as well with light rusting and weathering, plus a lot of 'little things' like wind-blown debris, etc. And I have to replace the stairs as well.

I still have no idea what to do w/ the base. I'll think on it some more. Likely I'm going to rip it off and use something less checkered (a.k.a lame) and go w/ a more solid look w/ 3 or 4 sections w/ connection seams instead.

Thanks for looking, more coming soon.

Excellent work.

Love that obsession to details! Glorious crusty work. I really like the tiled floor, but maybe some cracked/loose tiles and grates perhaps?

MUCH improved Sir!!! I have to agree with inmygraveimage that you shouldn't necessarily scrap the tiled floor, I would recommend as said "cracking/chipping"; some tiles, dry brush a lighter gray over, highlight with a really light dusting of white and wash it down with a thinned out muddy color ( I use Asphaltum by Americana from Micheal's > alot like Devlin Mud but you get soooo much more at a fraction of the price) You can also use some clear gloss to make small pools of standing water/ dripping down from an above source? Doing stuff like that would bring the flooring more in line with the corrosion/ neglect seen on the tank and chains. Just some ideas

yay for the airbrush! I have one on my Christmas list...

'Atta boy! Get back at it! Love the dedication.

@ Gits- Thank you. More to come soon.

@ graven & rust- I think the tiled base was doomed from the beginning, I didn't like it in the first place and now that I'm this deep into the project I'm genuinely regretting it. Tiles are for floors, not industrial park loading areas. I knew I should have gone w/ something different when I first put it on but I hoped I'd find somehting to make it work and now I'm dealing w/ this mess. It's going to be removed / replaced, AND I finally know how to do it. You've seen that 'crackle' paint stuff you can get a craft stores. I'm going to try that, and I'm hoping it will have the effect I'm looking for. I'm thinking that I'll tear the current tiles off, leave the base intact 'as is' (plain plywood), use the crackle paints, base it black, give it grey / etc highlights, add some traffic markings / grit / etc to force the scale perspective, and it'll be done. I'll test this idea on a couple test pieces before I slap it direct to the model I am working on.

@ hdbbstephen- Thanks for stopping by! Checked out your stuff, the Word Bearers are decent! And congrats on the airbrush. I've heard they are really cool, but do not have any first-hand experience myself...

@ Moltar- My best work always comes after I post a 'finished' piece on Dakka.



So like I posted above, that's what I'm going to do for the base of the terrain piece I'm working on. I'm going to scrap the 'hatch' idea altogether but add more debris / junk / etc.

On call this weekend so I'll have some time to get more work done.

Good luck with crackle medium, I've never had any joy with it! PVA can be used to achieve similar effects to what it purports to do. If you manage to succeed, though, I really want to know how!

Dude!..It's tits! It even has the little red grommet so the string doesn't tear the paper! That rocks!

 Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:
@ Gits- Thank you. More to come soon.

@ graven & rust- I think the tiled base was doomed from the beginning, I didn't like it in the first place and now that I'm this deep into the project I'm genuinely regretting it. Tiles are for floors, not industrial park loading areas. I knew I should have gone w/ something different when I first put it on but I hoped I'd find somehting to make it work and now I'm dealing w/ this mess. It's going to be removed / replaced, AND I finally know how to do it. You've seen that 'crackle' paint stuff you can get a craft stores. I'm going to try that, and I'm hoping it will have the effect I'm looking for. I'm thinking that I'll tear the current tiles off, leave the base intact 'as is' (plain plywood), use the crackle paints, base it black, give it grey / etc highlights, add some traffic markings / grit / etc to force the scale perspective, and it'll be done. I'll test this idea on a couple test pieces before I slap it direct to the model I am working on.

@ hdbbstephen- Thanks for stopping by! Checked out your stuff, the Word Bearers are decent! And congrats on the airbrush. I've heard they are really cool, but do not have any first-hand experience myself...

@ Moltar- My best work always comes after I post a 'finished' piece on Dakka.



So like I posted above, that's what I'm going to do for the base of the terrain piece I'm working on. I'm going to scrap the 'hatch' idea altogether but add more debris / junk / etc.

On call this weekend so I'll have some time to get more work done.

ah but skalk this is the imperium.... that may have once been someones foyer... you could easily break up the sameness of the tiled floor by adding discarded crap here and there (old newspapers, takeout containers, beverage cups, and other general crud.) you can also chip up some tiles by hacking at em with a small chisel to show crush wear and tear. also with the application of minute amounts of GS to the seams between tiles make "patches" where broken tiles were replaced with tarmac, concrete or what have you. also you can add a hatch or "vent cap" (like at the gas station across the street from ya) to the floor to imply sublevel access.

That is genius Galorn!

@ graven- Hmm. My heart just sank a bit reading your post. If you couldn't get it to work, chances are it isn't going to work. But maybe you were using it in a different application? Maybe I'm heading for a huge mess? I'll let you know in any case.

@ Dave- Thank you. My efforts feel rewarded. Hopefully I'll manage that again soon. I have another idea.

@ Galorn- Uhm...



This is what I did tonight.








Also, fresh blood on Dakka. Check this guy out. It's his first post and I'm wicked impressed by his ingenuity. Drop by and show some Dakka love.


http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/495614.page


Also, good news! My daughter has turned into an FM station w/ a fever of 102.7! You all know what that means- day off to model tomorrow! Whoo!

Hoping to get some modeling done between catering to her every whim and cleaning up whatever horrid Nurglesque functions she suffers through.

crackle medium is used for modelling flaking paint, and as it would be unusual to paint the floor I am not sure it would be suitable. It's also not especially durable and might even chip off if you move models around on it a lot. I actually liked the tiles you had I just thought they were a bit plain in a uniform grey colour, whatever you put on this base I would say you should just try and add extra detail - think along the lines of 'what is the point of this base compared to having no base and just placing my scenery straight on the board' and you will be OK - either have extra visual details, added bits of cover for gameplay, hiding places etc, mounting points for more scenery, etc.

I've tried the really thick crackle medium in the craft paint line with little success. It's too thick to work right or I'm not doing it right..

I was sorry to see the tiled floor go to be honest, there were so many possiblities there for breaking up the vacant spaces and adding in character

[quote=Bruticus 403974 5095129 2563d92dde9f071d8dffe46c0da80a5e.jpg... as it would be unusual to paint the floor I am not sure it would be suitable.

Thanks, I've been away from the hobby for a while and I am so inspired by the creativity that I see here. Looking forward to upping my game.