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Today I managed to get some more buildings put down and also started work on some larger bits as well, for the industrial sector I built a desalination plant and a large (maybe a bit too large) refinery of some type. I also built the Valperine Bastion out of what I think used to be a weapons mount on a landspeeder. It's amazing what useless bit suddenly become the perfect thing for the job in this scale, I knew hoarding every little offcut of plastic for the last 5 years would come in handy one day!



The board is really starting to take shape now, very pleased with how it is going so far

It's looking great

Thanks Syro!


I feel like I will be making a good chunk of progress today, I have developed a new technique to place the buildings by sticking them to a sculpting tool and then placing them down directly where I want. Before I was sliding them around in a small pool of superglue and they had a habit of getting stuck in the wrong spot or flipping around. My new way allows me to get them placed much faster and with more accuracy, win win

The only notable building in this section is the broadcast station, a little bit of a melta pistol and some toothbrush bristles for antennae. If you want to watch the latest docu-series on the Custodian who cleans the Emperor's throne, tune into Tizca Today!



As an aside, toothbrush bristles might come in very handy later for me I think, they are surprisingly easy to manipulate and could come in handy when I get around to making the many bridges that span the river.

Thanks for stopping by! I should have some more progress by the end of the day if all goes as planned..

Had to go back a few pages to have a look at the progress of this project and I have to say it was worth it! I think these scaled down dioramas are really cool and I've never seen someone incorporate that idea into a warhammer universe!

Ooooooh,can't wait to see this finished!

Tyranid Horde wrote:Had to go back a few pages to have a look at the progress of this project and I have to say it was worth it! I think these scaled down dioramas are really cool and I've never seen someone incorporate that idea into a warhammer universe!

Thanks! I was very surprised to see that nothing like this had been done before in a 40K setting, I have a feeling that it won't be the only one of them I make either.. My mind is already racing on what else I could create at this scale, I would really like to try a kind of space Atlantis for some Eldar, I always envisioned their craftworlds would look something like a huge disk littered with towering buildings slowly floating through space. That's a job for another day though!

Malika2 wrote:Ooooooh,can't wait to see this finished!

Me too At the rate I am going I hope to have it all finished by the end of the month, progress is good!

The Azure district is nearing completion, I got another 200ish houses placed and have started working on some larger structures as well. The spot with all the lines will be painted to look like clay is being harvested from there but I may add some more little bits to it at some point.



Thoughts on the spaceport? I just put some good looking bits together but am not completely sold on it atm. Perhaps once I have painted some runways and details on it will match with my vision a little more.



I also roughed out a few parts for the civilian port, it is proving to be quite a tricky process but should look great once it is all finished! The real question is whether I should attempt to make some microscopic ships docked on it...




I think it is safe to say that I am now over halfway done with the construction of this beast, just a few more additions to the Azure district, Old Tizca, Central Tizca, and some fortifications scattered through the mountains left.

Finish by the end of the month? I would think that was an extremely unreasonable expectation if I hadn't already seen what you can accomplish in a month on your other blog
Good luck

Thanks Syro, you know better than most how I like to set myself some crazy goals!

I think I am going to call the first of the two ports complete. I forgot to take any wip pictures but it was the most fiddly thing I have created for the board yet. The whole thing is tiny, a 25mm base would cover the whole port! That being said I have continued to refine my plasticard skills and am getting better at creating some interesting shapes with a bit less effort.

I added a good amount of greebles (what a great word) to make the whole thing look interesting and will probably add more details when I get around to painting it.

Not sure how easy it is going to be to add some boats as they are going to be so incredibly tiny but I think I will be able to manage, maybe a plasticard deck and greenstuff underside? I am going to try and make a Warlord titan at this scale as one is mentioned as being located in the city so they will be good practice for when I try that impossible task!



Thanks for checking in,

Cain

I have to say this scale replica of Tizica is tremendous, reminds me of the scale models of Ancient Rome or Cairo I’ve seen in museaums. Great work!

Wow, this is such an awesome project! I love it! And the scale shot with the marine surprised me, as I actually thought the whole thing is a bit bigger. Though I really like the actual size. I will keep following this project, keep up the awesome work!

Excellent progress lately !
And definitely yay for ships !

agurus1 wrote:I have to say this scale replica of Tizca is tremendous, reminds me of the scale models of Ancient Rome or Cairo I’ve seen in museums. Great work!

Thanks agurus! I have actually been referring to museum models a lot during this project, I should really try and get a job making those things, they look like so much fun to do

LordMcAllister wrote:Wow, this is such an awesome project! I love it! And the scale shot with the marine surprised me, as I actually thought the whole thing is a bit bigger. Though I really like the actual size. I will keep following this project, keep up the awesome work!

Thank you kindly, the scale is really hard to portray sometimes! I think if I made another one of these dioramas I would give myself a little more space to work with as some bits are needlessly fiddly. That being said I am really enjoying the challenge so far..

KernelTerror wrote:Excellent progress lately !
And definitely yay for ships !

Thanks! Surprisingly there is not artwork out there of what ships look like in 40K. I have to assume that the general shape remains the same but I think that could be another project for the future, a giant Imperial Guard battleship of some kind!


Only a little update for now, I wanted to try out making a few bridges to span the river flowing through Old Tizca and this is what I have come up with.

I took a handle which I think came from a baneblade and based it on some plasticard, so far pretty simple..



I then decided that a suspension bridge would look cool so out came the handy toothbrush again. After a bit of trial and error I got the bristles to stick to the bridge and proceeded to cut them down to size. I wish the bristles were white rather than transparent as I kept mistaking loose bits of cat fur for support beams





After I got the other side done I realised that it is still a bit too large to have lots of them spanning the river but I think it will look pretty good when it is painted up.



Next up I think I am going to work on the refinery which should be good fun, I already have some good bits set aside for it and a good selection of tubes should help give the illusion of a busy factory!

Nice work on the bridge

The bridge looks really cool, I think if that was me attaching brush bristles to a tiny bit of plastic I've have torn my hair out in frustration, I can barely stick together Dark Eldar without at least a few curses.

The bridge looks cool. At first when I saw those tooth brush bristles I thought your were crafting with fiber optics

monkeytroll wrote:Nice work on the bridge

Thanks! It was worth all the frustration in the end haha

Tyranid Horde wrote:The bridge looks really cool, I think if that was me attaching brush bristles to a tiny bit of plastic I've have torn my hair out in frustration, I can barely stick together Dark Eldar without at least a few curses.

Ooh you should be saving the torn out hair, it would be the perfect scale for the bridges!

Syro_ wrote:The bridge looks cool. At first when I saw those tooth brush bristles I thought your were crafting with fiber optics

Don't tempt me Syro, I have enough on my plate without wanting to make my city light up at night!


I have been working on the refinery today, it took a lot of trial and error as many layouts just looked kinda boring or lazy. The trick seems to be cramming as many bits in the area as possible so I salvaged some tubes from an assortment of areas and got to work sticking 'em down. I also had to base the whole thing on a plasticard base as the ground was too uneven and nothing sat flat without a lot of very frustrating carving. I think it turned out for the best though as it has a bit more presence on the board now.

My favourite bit are the three barrels joined together, unfortunately I don't know where that particular bit came from so I can't source any more! I might add some more stuff to the top area as it is looking a little lonely but I am happy with how it turned out. While it is not that accurate to the map I am basing this city off it is close enough that it does not bother me!





Not sure if I will work on the military port yet or the houses in Old Tizca, considering I have the whole day ahead of me maybe I will manage to get both done, wish me luck!

Some lovely details, keep at it!

Thanks Khaine!

I put in a good four hours of modelling on the city today and managed to get the entirety of Old Tizca finished in one. The houses are a lot more compact in this section as I figured that is how most cities begin, with a concentrated town near a source of water. I managed to squeeze over 600 buildings in this section!



I also took the time to fill in some sections that I had been a little lazy with earlier in the build and added some extra houses there, as you can see from the birds eye view the while thing is really taking shape now I have no more houses to place save for a few in Central Tizca so the most fiddly section of the build is now over. I can now get to work on the large structures that I sketched so long ago...

Wow what a lot of work!

That three tower bit from the factory looks like some of the fuel cells from the Skitarri plasma weapon.

@Syro, yeah I really got a lot done in one sitting! I find wearing headphones and blasting music really helps me stay focused and stay away from that pesky Netflix...

@agurus, good eyes! That's the exact bit I used, I'm gonna have to find some more of them because they make great storage barrels. Time to dive into the sprue cupboard of forgotten minis


More good progress today, I got the military port all done, it is a lot more chunky and armoured than the civilian side and will eventually be host to some nice big warships when I get round to making them.



I also realized that I forgot to make a little fortified section of the coastline so quickly finished that as well, the curtain walls were so incredibly fiddly to place in the right spot but I managed it eventually!




I think next I am going to treat myself to making the first of many pyramids and also teach myself how to go about doing it. As I have already found a perfect hexagonal pyramid I might also try to cast that as it will be much trickier to make than the square ones. I think I will take a stab at the Great Library first as its stepped design should be fairly easy to replicate compared to the rest and will also give me a good height from which to base the rest off of.


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Still cruising along with the city today. I have been hard at work on the Great Library, the one pyramid that will not be the classic triangular shape but rather based off a mastaba to represent its age.

The design process was pretty straight forward, I started with some little plasticard squares starting at 6mm to 4mm. I did want to add a small slope on each part to match my sketch but it was too small to get the desired effect without looking like I just did a bad job of cutting them out!



The tricky part (aside from slicing many fingers apart with my new knife) was stacking them together to fit perfectly inside each other. After many attempts I finally managed it, there is a slight tilt to it but nothing that anyone but me would notice!



I then carved the top section into a pyramid to cap it off. Initially I tried cutting out four triangles and sticking them together but no amount of math can compensate for making the perfect shape at this scale! I also added the four entrances at the base which give it a more interesting shape.



Here it is in its spot on the board with a coin for scale, it's tiny!



As you can see by my markings, I do have two pyramids that are 1mm smaller than this one but the rest are either going to be larger or made from plastic bits that fit the bill already.



And here is my sketch of the library again for comparison, I think I did a pretty decent job of replicating it. I decided to give it a bit more height to compensate for the scale creep that happened once I started on the build and I think it looks much better because of it. The tricky one is going to be the Pyramid of Photep with its mini pyramids inside it...




Now I just have to dust off my Pythagoras Theorem and get to work on the real pyramids!

Maaaaan, that is an impressive piece of work! The detail is incredible, and the creative use of bits is really inspiring.

Thank you sir! And might I just say that you have an excellent username


I started the large pyramids last night and thought I would show off my first attempt at it.

I started by cutting out a 12mm square and then making an X shape out of two more bits of plasticard. This then got cut to shape in a rough pyramid form.



Then I proceeded to cut out the triangles that would slot into the skeleton of the pyramid and form the actual model.



The end result minus detail and fixing up the top worked pretty well. It will only be used as a mock up for now though as adding detail will be very tricky now it is all cut out and as the second largest structure on the board I want it to be bristling with details!



Hopefully the real thing will be able to hold a lot of interesting bits such as a stepped pattern on the edges and a concentric triangle pattern on the insides. Time to get out the old ruler and get crafting


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Take two on the pyramids is yielding more successful results, I sketched the skeleton out again but added some outcrops which will have details added on later.



Once cut out they looked a lot more like the shape I was going for



The whole thing got stuck together and I put the triangles up against it to see what it would look like. I don't think I will add too much detail to the triangles as any tests I did which had extra bits looked a little odd. I think they will just get some details on the bottom and not much else.



I think I will also chop the very top off and change it for a cap similar to what I did for the Great Library as that turned out really well. Any more input would be very appreciated as I still feel it is missing something


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Final update on the pyramids I hope! I added a nice interesting cap to the top, I might try and find a nice selection of different ones so all the pyramids have a unique look about them. I also gave it the little antennae things that show up in a lot of the artwork for Tizcan pyramids which I think add a lot to the shape of the build.

Still not sure if the flat sections need any details added to them or not, I quite like the flatness of them and may just paint some tiny details in later.

I think paint will be the way to go with a lot of the detailing. At that scale, it'll probably look better, and shadow and lighting isn't going to be as big a help, either.

Great progress on getting the housing districts finished! It really looks the part from a plan view! The pyramids look great and I'm keen on seeing the rest of them!

I reckon your best bet is painting the details, although you're going to need a very small brush.

 Commander Cain wrote:
Thank you sir! And might I just say that you have an excellent username

Thank you

And I think I agree with what others have said here, that the flat sides won't look so boring with a bit of paint. If you want to do anything, some little entryway arches on the bottom, like you did with this one (https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/977338-.html) would be plenty, imho.

Keep up the stellar work

Thanks for the input everyone! Definitely going to stick with just adding the details in paint now. I might have a go at painting one of the plastic ones just to see what kind of detail I can achieve with a tiny paintbrush

Now that I actually know how to go about making the pyramids and have all the measurements done up, the second large one only took me 30 minutes to make. Essentially it is the same as the last to keep the symmetry but I did give it an interesting top that I salvaged from the Skitarii kit (which is full of very useful bits it seems)

The different tops help to give the impression that a different school of magic and a different cult is housed in each pyramid, the trick will be finding another 10 things to stick on the rest of them!

This is absolutely amazing. Can't believe I hadn't seen it before!

Good work on those pyramids

And with the color, if you paint them in different 'materials', that'll further differentiate them, even with similar designs.