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Now THAT'S a hammerer!

OK, just to prove that I can finish something that I started: Here are some shots of the finished Hammersmith and Squire.(they still need to have their bases finished though, static grass and maybe a log or something, etc.) Oh and an extended spear on a centurion. I will probably hit the figs with a light dull coat as well to tone down the super shiny look. I think that the gloss coat gives you much better protection, and on figures you intend to play with it helps reduce the maintenance on the figs.



Comments and critique welcome, and thanks for the earlier feedback!

I have had two trench terrain piece ideas in the works for a while, kind of on the back shelf but occasionally doing something like cut out some foam, etc. After joining here and seeing all of Johns terrain, and visiting terrain thralls I decided it's time to do some more work on these.

Project #1: is a single raised set of trenches (not individual pieces, just one large piece with a trench system in it). I have already made a major mistake in this project. I have very little patience when I get excited for something and I often rush into a project knowing that I'm not doing it the best way. In this case the bug struck again and I decided to move forward using foamboard as the base. My jigsaw got lost in my last move somewhere and I didn't want to wait to buy hardboard and a new saw. BIG MISTAKE. And sadly I knew that ahead of time and did it anyway :( It not only warped at the edges, but it bowes up in the middle as well. So now I need to rebase it on hardboard, which will entail a fair amount of work, but now that I am a bit calmer that's ok. I think I can lift the foam and the wall works without trouble and will just have to redo the mud on the ground. And who knows, maybe it will all just come right up and plop right back down onto the less likely to warp hardboard.

The overall goal or this is to look like it is wet mud, so the trenches and crates will have water effects applied to simulate pooled water and runoff. I also started to make a raised flooring(you can see the fat posts on the ground I laid to begin that. I changed my mind however when this exposed too much of the figure and would mean painting would have to be done on the board separately since I want to paint the bottom of the trench and apply the water effects. I decided to cut the difficulty back and instead I added a few places with boards sitting directly on the floor. No point in showing how nasty the mud filled trenches were if everyone is walking on nice elevated boards.

So, steps so far:
Cut basic shape from 1" insulation foam.
used celluclay to add mud to the bottom and sides
used cut up skewers for posts and a set of wood picks and sticks for posts and boards, as well as some balsa wood for larger boards.

Steps to go
Done! rebase on hardboard once I get a new jigsaw It was a pretty easy transition and I only lost about 20% of my previous work.
Finish boarding up the walls, including snipping any of the posts that stick up too high after sandbags and other debris is added.
Re mud the floors and add spills where the dirt is breaking through the trench walls.
texture the surface and parts of the trench floor.
Add sandbags and other details
paint and apply small amounts of a glaze waterlike effect to create the wet mud look.











Project #2 Is a fortified hill. Also large (about two foot by one foot), the hill has a fortified dugout and a raised gun emplacement with a trench running between the two. The gun emplacement is big enough for a 40k tank, but is also designed to fit war machine artillery like the trencher chain gun. So far all I have done on this project is cut out the foam and glue it together.



Project #3 Base and paint a muddy war torn set of 2'x4' hardboard panels to be a base for them. I bought 4 panels with the intent of basing both sides to have interchangeable terrain. Has anyone tried this before and if so were there any issues with paint chipping/wear and tear? They will get a coat of spray on sealer, so I'm hoping this won't be too much of an issue. Since I plan to use these at my FLGS having them on the carpeted tables there makes me think the wear and tear would be minimal. It does mean the boards will need to stay flat with mostly just texture and color though.


Any critique or comments are welcome.

Mike

Man those trench works look awesome! What did you use to cut the foam? And where did you get the foam? I am having a hard time finding any, apparantly the people at my local Lowes and Home Depot are stupid and dont know what I'm talking about.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ContentView?pn=KH_BS_Owens_Corning_Brand&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053
Hope that helps.

Thanks! The first one was hand carved with a large box cutter because I was between hot wire cutters.
THe second one is cut with a hot wire cutter, in this case the electric one. I actually prefer the battery powered cheapo one better, but after shelling out for so many sets of D batteries I finally bought the electric one.

Here is a shot of the rebased piece. Much better. Also some PIP shots of my cygnar gun mages.

WOW! I have only read the first two pages but from what I have seen I am utterly in awe! The idea of chaos sisters is great and I remember reading about it in the newest Ciaphus Cain novel; I was thinking you might have got the idea from there. Anywho they are astonishing and well amazing!