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 MrMerlin wrote:
Glad to hear you like him!

How would you have done it?

More creepy-eyed night vision goggle covering his face... naturally

But that sneer on his face is perfect!

Oh right, shoulda known, you are after all the master of creepy red eyes, lol!

Would you like me to make him a pair of simple night vision googles? I'll try, and if it looks good together with that sneer, I'll add it

 MrMerlin wrote:
Oh right, shoulda known, you are after all the master of creepy red eyes, lol!

Would you like me to make him a pair of simple night vision googles? I'll try, and if it looks good together with that sneer, I'll add it

Sure if you like that but I like him the way he is As I said you've got the artistic license.

I fell Ill for the past week, and didn't get a chance to work on this, so I'm afraid I'm out. Perhaps next time

 dsteingass wrote:
I fell Ill for the past week, and didn't get a chance to work on this, so I'm afraid I'm out. Perhaps next time

Yeah I hope you're feeling better.

Well I'm probably going to extend it anyway, so it's still open just in case. Was looking forward to what you come up with though.

I'm getting better, thanks- don't extend it on my account, I've got gangers that I need to finish painting first.

 dsteingass wrote:
I'm getting better, thanks- don't extend it on my account, I've got gangers that I need to finish painting first.

I'm just extending it based on the other entant's input, so it's cool. I'll just count you as not having a vote one way or the other.

Of course, now I am thinking about vines and lichen bushes

I'm on the side for an extension, i can probly finish on the deadline still but would prefer to be able to give it more time

I wanna join! I just finished some forest terrain yesterday, so loads of trees, grass and shrubs. And a hill. Is it too late to enter?

Also, are there specifications on how the entry would be submitted?



Oh wait i just read that I need to post WIPs. But mine's already done. Darn it. I guess I can still post them here but I won't be a part of the contest proper. Mine was made from scratch except for some Woodland Scenic foliages and static grass.

I dunno if you can still enter (Meade is the judgde) but we'd all very much like to see your terrain!

I can still post pics even though I'm not entering! I'll just wait for daylight, since it's nighttime here and lighting's horrible.

Given the truly humbling levels of skill I've seen so far in this thread, there is no way in jibbly I have a chance given my mediocre painting skills, and attention span. But, the more the merrier yesno!

I'm working on an overgrown Imperial Cathedral, that needs to work as table-top terrain, with lots of open spaces for miniatures, while still channeling that jungle vibe. I've got a P&M thread about it here, but I shall cross-post into this thread.



The parts I'll be using are:

Loads of Cities of Death kits (I got an Imperial City some time back for cheap, so it will form the bulk of the Cathedral)

Textured Plastic Card (for stone floors in the Cathedral. I experimented with little squares of cardboard, but it drove me mad)

Aquarium plants for creepers

IKEA plastic plants for variation (cheap, and the branches sit on little nubs, making them easy to pluck off)

10mm foamboard for basing (lighter than wood, and resilient enough for my needs. Plus it doesn't warp)

Sand & gravel for basing

I decided on a modular approach, with a sizeable front piece, with a couple of balconies, a pair of side walls with firing points, and a smaller rear wall section.



Cutting the textured plastic card cost me more of my precious sanity, especially since I discovered that the edges don't have to be neat, as they'll be covered by sand. Still, the off-cuts gave me useful bits for scatter terrain.



Here are the two pieces of flooring for the cathedral nave. Once the walls are in around the squares, I plan to roughen the edges up with sand and gravel as necessary, and also add some pieces of broken debris to break up the even flooring.



Jumping ahead a bit, the nave walls are assembled, and in place. The pillar is there to give the sense of a vaulted space - but it eats a lot of the foot-print. I'm not sure if I will include it.



And here are both nave pieces, checking how the space feels with the pillars in place.



Once I'd done the first pass, I decided to raise the nave pieces, to make the sides of the cathedral into more playable pieces that can shelter more troops, as well as be flexible enough to serve as stand-alone pieces when not put together as a cathedral, per se.





I will be "jungling up" the pieces using a combination of aquarium plants, flock, and moss.

Nice to have you here. I'm very much looking forward to seeing it all jungled up!

btw here's an article with pics of and links to the previous competitions, in case you're interested....
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/The_-%3DL%3D-Terrain_Competitions

 heartserenade wrote:
I wanna join! I just finished some forest terrain yesterday, so loads of trees, grass and shrubs. And a hill. Is it too late to enter?

Also, are there specifications on how the entry would be submitted?



Oh wait i just read that I need to post WIPs. But mine's already done. Darn it. I guess I can still post them here but I won't be a part of the contest proper. Mine was made from scratch except for some Woodland Scenic foliages and static grass.

Great! I will extend the contest, there doesn't seem to be anyone having a problem with the extension. How would everyone feel if i extended it to the New Year? I figure I might as well, since I think most riveters have many distractions and busy lives, it seems like it might be better to have these contests run two months... unless anyone thinks otherwise.

Just post as much WIP's as you can, it's not a big deal as long as there is some difference between that and the final product.

@Cataphractii

Looks impressive to me! My personal advice is if you're going jungle, check out some pics of Angkor Wat... all over the internet. Gives you a good idea of how jungles overtake temple ruins, very inspiring. Also the techniques here bending wire and using glue-gun or paper mache could be used to make those funky overgrown roots fairly easily Just keep in mind, you will be judged mostly on the vegetation not the building itself, and that includes painting but doesn't hinge on it.. in other words if you create something spectacular without much painting skill you could win the contest.

Crossposted update on the jungly Cathedral:

And here is a quick update! I got my jungle on, and worked out some new ways to use the jungle plants that I had. I have a couple of pictures for now, and will upload some more tomorrow. Basically, I found that being a little smart about how I cut the reedy grass pieces off their pegs and bases, I could make them fit up against the walls, so they looked as if they'd grown up that way.

But here we go with pictures! First of all the four cathedral pieces pushed together, and seen from the front. I've not jungled the front up as much as I plan to - I'll see if I can crack the wire/creeper thing first! But the basic idea is to use clumps of greenery to link the corners. I've tried to keep as much of the shrubbery as possible on the edges, so that it doesn't eat the space to place miniatures, while still giving a sense of an overgrown building.



Now, from the other side. I went slightly overboard with the plants on the rear section of the cathedral. I may take some of it out again, because I think it will hard to transport without damage.



And from above, showing how the greenery is outside the floorspace, except for little bits that stick up around the debris. This is where cutting the little circular bases of reedy grass really paid off, as I could shove them into gaps in the debris, almost as if I'd planned it that way. I rather like the greenery/debris contst, so if I do a central piece of the cathedral (which will also double as an overgrown city plaza) then I think I might put a ruddy great tree in the middle, and break up the floor around it.



More pics tomorrow, hopefully showing the pieces in some more detail, and also the raw materials!

@Meade Thanks for the hints! I have no illusions of winning the competition, though. I'm in because I happened to be working on an overgrown jungle terrain piece, and your esteemed colleague MrMerlin suggested I have a go. That said, I'll definitely have a look at some of the creeper/root techniques, and see if I can work some of them in, though.

On the extended deadline, I have no preference one way or the other. But with the arrival of the festive season, I could imagine that priorities will shift a little, so a delay is probably a good thing

That looks really good, all the better for being a gigantic bit of terrain, bigger is always better. And I especially like the overgrown Canon printer, very realistic.

I am still working on my scenery but really it is so near finished that I could make any deadline.

 Cataphractii wrote:


@Meade Thanks for the hints! I have no illusions of winning the competition, though. I'm in because I happened to be working on an overgrown jungle terrain piece, and your esteemed colleague MrMerlin suggested I have a go. That said, I'll definitely have a look at some of the creeper/root techniques, and see if I can work some of them in, though.

It's all good, hopefully this thread can help. That's kind of the whole point about it. It's still worth it entering the contest, even if you don't think you have a shot at the main prize you could win the secondary (spider servo skull), or get some pics of your terrain up if we get an article written eventually that condenses everything (if that's okay with you). Seeing your terrain definitely gets me excited about using that fish tank scenery if I ever do jungle... but seeing as I have no jungle-based army that might be awhile




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bruticus wrote:
That looks really good, all the better for being a gigantic bit of terrain, bigger is always better. And I especially like the overgrown Canon printer, very realistic.

I am still working on my scenery but really it is so near finished that I could make any deadline.

as long as you don't mind us extending it Bruticus

Thanks Meade. Last few weeks have been extremely hectic, and I have had to put this contest on the back burner. This gives me some more time to actually do something!

Cataphractii dude thats pretty rad! Very catachan =)

Also cheers for making the project 2 months, I think that's more reasonable, and i will be able to finish. Its getting hot here making me work really slow

More updates!

So, here are some detail pictures of the individual parts of the Cathedral. Still work in progress, of course. I need to blend the aquarium plants into their bases, which our good friend flock will help us with.

















Also, I took some pictures of the individual pieces of plants that I've been using. These first come partly from IKEA, and partly from a pet-store, so it was quite lucky that they match so nicely in their style, while still having enough colour difference to add variety.



As you can see, I generally "grew" the longer pieces out of smaller reedy/grassy pieces that I placed along walls, around debris, or in clumps.



These pieces come in round bases that make them fairly easy to glue down, and with some clipping into smaller pieces, they can also be worked into corners and debris. I will need to blend them by gluing some flock to the base, and around it, to merge it into the terrain piece, though.



So far, so good! All that remains now, is to look a bit more at the front of the piece, to add in some more greenery, and creepers! (Assuming the pipe-cleaner + flock idea works)

Wow that looks great!!
Id love to play on a table with that!

@cataphractii: That vegetation is really useful. Definitely use the static grass to blend it in to the landscape, but also just painting it will make it blend in more... you might not have an airbrush which is super easy, but even just drybrushing might do the trick (if the ruins are also drybrushed). Everything blends together more if it has the same paintjob. Also i recommend if you can find some green feathers (they usually have colored feathers in the art store for arts and crafts) they make really great fine ferns and plants. Also green pipe cleaners might work for vines (u bend them around the ruins), but they can use work, or keep them in the background as they are a bit too symmetrical to look like vegetation in unaltered form.

@meade Thanks for the advice! Slapping a drybush job on the plants (especially the larger leaves) is a good idea, as it will matt them down, and give them a less uniform colour. The chief problem with aquarium plants is that they are made from the same sort of plastic.

Agreed on the static grass!

On the pipe cleaners, my idea was to give them a good washing and drybrushing, and also use some PVC glue to add clumps of various "weed" flock, to thicken them up, and make them less uniform in colour. I'll see how it goes, and post more pics here!

The aquariumplants are best painted with oil paints... very thin layers, working like washes. Some sepia on all of them will give them a more lifelike appearance

at Cataphractii :

Given the truly humbling levels of skill I've seen so far in this thread, there is no way in jibbly I have a chance given my mediocre painting skills, and attention span.

yeah right... that ruin is breath taking.... who is your therapist? he is doing the wrong profession... a little more self confidence is in order here! and good to see the competition is still drawing enough attention... !


at meade...cool...extension was a good decision... the spirit of christmas is really growing and keeps ruining my hobby time too so more time is always good i think!


cheers, vik

 Viktor von Domm wrote:


at meade...cool...extension was a good decision... the spirit of christmas is really growing and keeps ruining my hobby time too so more time is always good i think!

cheers, vik

Glad you think so, I am distracted at the moment but I'm finding plenty of time to work on the hobby... as I am unemployed at the moment But my progress is blunted by a bit of bad health, and camera malfunctions, so right now I'm celebrating Nurglemas.

Merry Nurglemas!

lol... nurglemas is no special season related celebration...is it?... a good cough and spit is always apropriate regardless the weather or the time of the year^^

well sad news.... being uneployed sure has it´s merits when it comes to hobby work in terms of time and so on.... but unless you are so damn used to cardstock to make your stuff out of... then the amount of no money sure wrecks the hobby ideas... hopefully you will fix this as soon as possible... i cross my fingers for you!

the real bugger is now the broken cam though... no eyecandy for us...*shakes fists*

 Viktor von Domm wrote:

but unless you are so damn used to cardstock to make your stuff out of... then the amount of no money sure wrecks the hobby ideas... hopefully you will fix this as soon as possible... i cross my fingers for you!

the real bugger is now the broken cam though... no eyecandy for us...*shakes fists*

no eyecandy until I get a card reader... camera works but the damn thing says "one moment" and is not on speaking terms with my laptop. As for job... don't worry I'm cool.

well...then enjoy this however long timespan you choose to be^^