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.

 dsteingass wrote:
Awesome! I think that box set has the best sprue to value ratio in the entire GW line. Usually, GW swiftly corrects that sort of customer-friendly thing by either increasing the price or discontinuing the set.

or both.

dsteingass wrote:Awesome! I think that box set has the best sprue to value ratio in the entire GW line. Usually, GW swiftly corrects that sort of customer-friendly thing by either increasing the price or discontinuing the set.

if it weren´t so sad and true i would laugh... moving on....

 Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:

More words

@ Galorn- Oh man that would be awesome! I'll swap you some stuff if you show me how you make those awesome molds. The technique I'm using right now is functional but it takes forever and is not what I would prefer.



Words

to start Legos for the box to hold the RTV sillycone.

@ Dave- I agree, it's a pretty awesome set. I'm not sure I'd pay $120 for it, but the $62 it cost me was pretty fair.

@ Vik- Hi.

@ Galorn- I am going to get some for sure.



Biggest update in a while, and another example of hobby ADD. First up is my Imperial Sector. It's a massive haul and I'm really excited about it.

Look at the size of that box!



Look at how much sprue comes in it!



Look at the incredible detail!



There's some amazing things coming w/ that set. Will take me a LONG time to do this so be patient, it's not going to happen overnight. But it will happen.


Next up is a series of my crater mold process. I think it came out really well overall.

Ready to peel off the master:



Mold and master. Came apart really easy, no problems at all.



Poured and drying. I used plaster for the first test. I learned today that resin is expensive.



First cast is done!









Last up is me messing around w/ my Pegasus Hobbies Gothic buildings. Building in first pic I'm going to keep and turn it into a watch tower or somethings.



Next pics I was just goofing off but I think it looks really cool. Not going to keep it like this but man I really did think about it.







That's it for now. More later when I have something to share.

those pegasus buildings are nice!

Love the crater dood! Soon, you will have millions! MUHAHAHA!

.>A word of advice tough..IF you do make a full building, 3 panels wide is still tight to get your hands in and move models around

wow...look at the size of that thing

and the casts cam out pretty well too!!!

That large tower-block would be great with some platforms, for joining to multi-level walkways

I like it but it becomes an expensive line of sight blocker. I think I'd rather see you make a building with a larger horizontal footprint.

Love Pegasus hobbies!

Lascannons would be very useful up that high though.

@ Everyone that posted- I AM NOT BUILDING A 6 STORY RUIN. It was a goof-off thing I did while waiting for glue to set on a different model.



Today the Terrain Project thread is a year and day old. I was going to put together a 'trip down memory lane' selection of my favorite projects and show how my skill has progressed in the last year, but I decided to get some real work done instead.

First up, a few links to some really cool stuff I found on eBay. If you're working on bringing up the standard of your table, this stuff looks like it could be great. if I hadn't scored so hardcore recently I'd be diving into this stuff.

Cool Chaos-looking ruins:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ruins-of-Baletemple-gothic-plastic-terrain-for-fantasy-gaming-/251160294764?pt=Games_US&hash=item3a7a51f56c

Decent ruined cuty wall sections:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scorched-city-28mm-modular-wargaming-terrain-set-Sci-fi-Historical-1-48-1-56-/251160294768?pt=Games_US&hash=item3a7a51f570

And the monster hookup pack- 60 city wall sections!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Scorched-city-FAT-PACK-28mm-modular-wargaming-terrain-SciFi-Historical-1-48-1-56-/251162126607?pt=Games_US&hash=item3a7a6de90f

So anyway, here's what I've been up to.

Prepping the floor for cutting:



Floor cut, kept the scraps for later:



Traced out the base of the crater and cut again:



Fits perfectly. This is the master crater, the cast is coming in a minute.



Another mockup to make sure I'm still on track. As you'll see later, I wasn't.



Trimming the excess off the cast crater:



Cast crater sealed w/ 3 coats of primer (for better durability) and glued the base:



Air-dry putty to fill in some gaps. It was also here that I realized I made a couple mistakes.



Putty dried and another layer of paint for durability. Mistakes I fixed were adding a missing treadplate (lower left) and moving the ruined wall (upper right) to the correct position (only a cutout in this pic)



And a final look at the corrected mockup. A lot more work is needed here but it's coming along and I'm really liking it a lot.



I got bored working on the Imperial Sector building so I started working on the Pegasus Hobbies tower. Not going to complain a lot here, but let me tell you this was a LOT harder than it looks and it took a lot more time that I could possibly have expected. Really tested my modeling skills.

These walls will be the interior top of the tower. I'm cutting out where the rooftop will sit.



Shot of after and before. I know, it's backwards.



Checking things out to make sure they fit properly. These Gothic plates are really cool but they don't match up all that well w/o cutting and filing.



Gluing first sections. Did another one just like it to make overall gluing easier once I got the rooftop done.



Rooftop. This was not easy to figure out as the inside is larger than the outside and it took a long time to get right. But I did and here it is.



Putting something awesome to good use. Thanks again, Dave. This stuff is excellent. Gluing tread plate to the rooftop piece.



Ta-da! Instant rooftop.



Gluing the walls and rooftop together.



More gluing and clamping. I wish I had 4 clamps. These pieces do not like staying together and need to be crushed into submission w/ a healthy amount of polystyrene glue.



Added a hatch to the rooftop because eventually someone (hi Daichallar ) would ask how the models get to the rooftop.



Primed. I see a couple joints that didn't fit right. I'll be filling them later.



This building will not be a 'ruin'. It's simply abandoned and lacks aesthetic maintenance, but still fully functional tower. My wife bought this spray paint the other day for a crafty project she is doing, and I tried it on my regular 'spray test' piece.



Hrrm. Not sure I like it. What do you guys think?



And just for some fun.

Decided to see if I could get a squad of Havocs on the rooftop. No problem at all.



In fact, I can 9 20mm bases up top. If this tower ever winds up in my deployment zone I am so doing this.



... or, maybe not.



That's it for this one. Thanks for checking it out. C&C welcomed. I'll be back when I have more to share.

That's similar to the rust-oleum I use (aged iron). The colour doesn't matter so much as you can paint over it, but the texture is awesome. I would like to try all the different rust-oleums personally, spray on texture - what's not to love?

Very cool stuff here. Look forward to seeing more.

Wow, great tower. I just wanted to say thank you for the 25 pages of inspriation and that this is one of my favorite blogs on this site. tons of good stuff and great ideas I will be borrowing for my own terrain.

Cool as, bud. Did lol at nurgle-pie though. Quite like the Hammered spray. And as for the crater, damn nice. Just be sure to add some dents to the otherwise undamaged flooring.

Very cool! Remember, the pile left from the explosion would have covered some of the plating with debris, especially where you are trying to make it fit exactly.

how to comment on so much good looing work of yours?...

well firstly the last pic with the blast template made me LOL so hard!!!

the treadplate for the roof looks excellent! and might i ask where the trap door is coming from? looks very neat up there!

also... the hammered spray is too bright... if this could later on be fixed by washes... i dunno... further tests are needed i guess...

as for the crater work...the whole process... thanks for all those in detail pics... it is rather a step by step tut... very handy and entertaining!

many thanks mate!

Oh, it's raining so the nurgly marines put up an umbrella so they didn't get inadvertently washed?

Looking good bud, the ruin and the abandoned building. I'd say the rustoleum should be fine unless it's thick enough to hide detail - and I'd guess from Bruticus' comment that it's not.

@ Bruticus- I'll try a few different things w/ it to see how it works out for me. Your 'endorsement' carries some weight, I'll have a decent go at it.

@ ENOZONE- Hey, thanks for checking this out. Lots more coming. I'll be doing this for the next few years at this rate.

@ UMGuy- Wow, thank you for the high compliments! There's a lot of really great Terrain blogs on Dakka, and a lot of the authors post here. I've taken a lot of ideas from them, and I hope I've offered some inspiration in return. Keep checking back, there's more and more and more coming.

@ graven- Thanks as always. And be assure that the crater and surrounding building will look appropriately blown up.

@ Dave- Yup. Been doing some research to that end. See below.

@ Vik- The hatch is from a haul I picked up from Horde O Bitz, it's made by Pegasus Hobbies.

@ Everyone- check this link out!!! I found it while doing online research for 'bomb crater'. The entire site is amazing and I want to spend my next 4 paychecks there.

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/pls/pls91695.htm



Just a text update tonight. Been doing research for bomb craters and have an idea of what I want to do. As I was doing research on 'real world' examples so I can make 'realistic' model buildings for my toy soldiers to fight pretend battles on, the pictures became more than inspiration for wargame terrain. These are pictures of real craters made by real explosives and real people died. Maybe it's where my head is at these days, but that really hit me. For all the various excuses and justification, man's inhumanity toward man will be our ultimate legacy, but no one will be left to engrave our pathetic epitaph.

Anyway, here's what I found as examples:

















I have a much better idea how to create directional scree, how to incorporate the chopped bitz I kept from the floor plates into the debris, and how to blend the crater in with a convincing effect.

One of the challenges (and the reason why I cut the crater into the floor) is because the crater is higher than the level of the surrounding building. I do not have the ability to go 'deeper' so I'm going to have to work with the lack of depth to create the 'huge gaping hole in the ground' look I'm going for. I'm thinking about a water effect, but even then it's going to be noticeably higher than the floor around it. Still thinking about that one, but I'll find a manageable way to do it.

The crater (and surrounding blown up stuff) is going to be textured with a fine gritty sand that will simulate the look of dirt scattered from the impact and explosion. The floor will be strewn with debris, and it's likely I'll melt and peel back some of the plates to simulate the concussive shock the building received when the shell hit it. I'll probably leave some Imperial equipment around as well, like broken ammo boxes, abandoned weapons, etc.

I'm trying to decide still if the table will be a ruined and long abandoned Imperial outpost, ruined and recently abandoned Imperial outpost, or if it will be an entrenched battlefield still held by whatever force is currently occupying it, enduring the ravages of constant war.

That's it for tonight. Thanks for checking this out, thanks for posting, C&C welcomed, and I'll be back as soon as I have something to share.



*edited because I keep screwing up the hyperlinks*

This is gonna be cool!!

With a bit of thought you can probably arrange all three of those options Skalk - most of the terrain is ruined/abandoned, then one or two specific pieces to be used for whatever mood you're in for that game. Multi-purpose terrain is the way forward - I'm now wondering how to create some of my 'silo terrain' in a mega-city one stylee, to go with the 40k /inquisimunda feel I have been going for (Yep, now I'm making terrain for three systems I don't actually play Although there's a part of me wondering wheteher a huge bunch of Dredd minis will get me and my mate back into gaming).

Good crater references you got there - fine sand and dry filler powder sprinkled on a wet base makes great texture for churned/exploded scree.

I'm ignoring your link to goodies as my willpower is very low at the moment and I'd just binge-buy a whole bunch of plastic crack to go with the stashes I've been organising to reach me over the coming months

hey skalk... yeah, hord of bitz is a cool site... they have an ebay shop and an own shop now too...!!! trusty and quick if i may add too

and well i keep my eyes peeled how you translate those referrence pics to your terrain then... the broken street pavement is particular something i look forward too!!!

@ Dave- Yes, it is.

@ monkeytroll- Point taken and applied. See below.

@ Vik- HOB has been my #1 resource for bitz. It's rare that I cannot find what I am looking for there, even when I wasn't aware of exactly what it was I needed. Regarding the broken pavement etc, it hasn't happened yet but is on the list of things to be done before I sign off on this one as 'finished'.



Small update today. I've been doing some work on the 2nd piece I started (no idea where the motivation for #1 has gone) and on the Pegasus Hobbies tower.

I didn't take a pic of the first stage (repainting the crater) but here's the next step- flocking:



Don't worry, it's for texture, not color. All of this is stuff I swept off the table after a different project. Remember this?



That's where it came from. I'm not wasting anything on this project.

Anyway, here's what it looked like once the flock had dried:



I added another layer of paint to give it the right color and make it more durable:



I couldn't get past the fact that the middle of the crater was noticeably higher than the surrounding 'flat' areas. I thought about it a lot, like fill w/ water effect, ramp up the rim of the crater more to minimize the height issue, etc. Then inspiration hit me. Wasn't sure I had the skill or the stones to do it, but it occurred to me that if I hollowed out the center of the crater it would be lower than the surrounding 'flat' areas, even if only by 1/16th of an inch. I figured if I really messed up I'd find a way to fix it, and if it came out the way I wanted it would be awesome. I grabbed a small chisel and chipped out the bottom of the crater. Here's the result:





Base painted blue in these pics because the contrast was really low and I wanted you guys to be able to see what I did.

I used a few different things here until I found what I was looking for w/ a 'depth' effect. Tamiya Smoke. I like this stuff.



I'll be using this stuff for the water effect. I got it for free so if I screw this up I'll only be out the time it took me to get this far, and to fix it.



Annnnnndddd... slam on the brakes for this piece, nothing else has been done. Looking forward to having the time to work on it more.

I've got more work done on the Gothic tower. Note that it is stone grey. That happened on purpose and it will not be receiving the 'rustification' effect as a result becasue ... well, it's stone. HOWEVER, that does not mean that it will remain unblemished by the ravages of alien weather and passage of time. I'm going to be trying a new weathering effect for stone. It will look cool, I promise. And not all of it will be stone. I'm going to have gilded arches, iron hinges / door stuff, etc. I'm not taking the easy way out just becasue it's a stone building.



Also note the base. It's been a new issue on the table recently- what is 'difficult terrain', and what is not? I base everything the same way for aesthetic effect. While it makes for a better-looking table, it does create some confusion. Solution? Shape of the base. If it is symmetrical with a building on it (square, rectangle, round) it's normal terrain. If it is asymmetrical base with a building on it it is considered Difficult Terrain from the edge of the base inward. Small bases like this:



...are just terrain.

So another issue solved. Give me another 30 years of this and I'll have it just about right.

That's it for this one. I'll leave you with a glimpse into the far future, and I'll be back when I can. Don't expect much coming from me for the next couple weeks, tomorrow is 'cut day' for the conversion at work. I'll be pulling 12-14 hr days minimum and might be working the next couple weekends. Depends how it goes. Bottom line is my life is chaos and I'm trying to duck and cover as best I can.

Enjoy.

I like where both the crater and the stone tower are going. Quite interested to see how the water effect turns out in the end. Good luck with work over the next few weeks.

You work in IT, so your hard work and dedication will go unnoticed and unappreciated, but we will always appreciate your terrain work

^that!

and the texturizing of that crater looks very good!

Looking good skalk. next trip to the Home Despot you might want to get some "playground" sand as it has a nice mix of grades of sand in it. gives a very nice "dirt" look.

despot

LMAO....sorry galorn

 Viktor von Domm wrote:

despot

LMAO....sorry galorn

the alternatives in the NE USA is "BLowes"

@ Moltar- Water effect will likely be the last thing I do on this before gluing the building to the base, so it'll be a while. I'm hoping it turns out well because I really want to do more of this (water / slime / sludge effect).

@ Dave- True, but I'm HPP instead of salary, so I'm making $$$bank$$$ right now. 6 hrs OT yesterday, 2 on Tuesday, 1 on Monday. Probably 3 today, 3-5 tomorrow, and possibly working this weekend depending on how tomorrow goes. I'm going to pay off a bunch of stuff that been riding me for a while. Nothing like a clean slate.

@ Vik- Thank you! More greatness coming. Trying to figure out the 'destroyed / disturbed floor tile' look. It's not asphalt or concrete, it's metal, so I'm still trying to figure how to make it look realistic. Thinking about peeling it back and rolling the edges over, and then having the bits that were blown off or buried in the crater sticking up in other places.

@ Galorn- Hmm. I have a sand pit up behind the house. I'll check that out. Free is my favorite price.



Nothing new to report. All work and no play makes Skalk a dull boy



This weekend is looking rainy but warm. If the weather isn't too bad I'm going to saddle up and take the 48 out for a putt. If it's all hurricaney like they are shock and aweing about I'll stay home and do some modeling. If I'm not working.

Gah. I need a break and I need some genuine modeling time. So many achievable goals, so much raw material to work with, no time to do anything w/ them.

'Excusez-moi, garçon. Could I please have some cheese and crackers with my whine? '

Ha.

I'll be back with something soon. I'm highly motivated, incredibly well stocked, and have some great ideas. All I need is time.

Thanks for looking (at nothing this time). I'll be back.