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Yeah, sound advice. I've always been a better dirty painter than clean anyway. Blerk rain outs and working Saturday are killing my hobby progress. Gonna have to do spoke housekeeping tomorrow, as well as sorting out my gencon events list so I can get into the popular ones when they open on Sunday. And Sunday is also my daughter's birthday so even less likely to get anything done..

Speaking of gencon, tentatively planning on visiting on Friday/Saturday so I'll be a day late for breaking news, but I should still manage some 'live coverage' if my phone isn't too spazzy by then.

That warning sign is so full of win I can't find words to describe my amusement with it adequitely.



The whole project is pretty awesome

Stix are better than sex... he's either not doing right, or those stix are pretty amazing

I found that while I was searching for signs and sets of signs to print out and spice up the terrain. Needless to say, I've printed quite a few of them and you will see several popping up moving forward.

A LOT of engineering went into nicstix, and Sorak Steve is paid well to say what he says. If he even exists!

Not a whole lot of progress, but here are some pictures for you to peruse anyway!


Both WIP, but you can get the general idea. Changed my mind on the suit a little bit as I got to putting paint down, went with more red.


Little rough on the cutting, how do you guys like the warning signs added to the deadzone terrain? I want to design a set of somewhat more future/scifi related signs, but that takes time.


This one cracks me up, was a great find whilst googling for signs. I plan to use it frequently as it works just as well for the plague as it does zombies


These break things up and add spot color, but are they too much or too out of place? I think something a little more futuristic may be in order. Maybe I can come up with a font that looks good and turn a few of my own out... Maybe scan some things from the DZ rulebook too.


More of the same.





I like the irony of this last one, the sign clearly states that the area must be kept clear. Sure the plague are overrunning the planet... but you're going to die anyway, at least do your jobs right!

How do you guys like the warning labels on the barrels? They definitely needed some color added in... was this the right approach? Something a bit more futuristic maybe? How about the paper weight? Those are glossy fairly thick photo paper, I could get them a lot thinner on regular paper but they wouldn't be as well defined. That may not be a complete deficit though, as they should be somewhat weathered anyway. I may do the other two sets of barrels with the plain paper and post them up side by side. Still considering dipping the barrels to help hold the paint down and give them a little more definition.

After Oadie suggested the 1/2" hardware cloth in my container tank post on the painting/modeling section I've been scheming up new uses for it. It makes great railings and ladders, and now it looks like it makes a pretty decent industrial walkway too. Just count out 7 grids and bend at 2 and 5, and try to do it straighter than I have... I need to find a tool or method to make these angles a little stronger. I then found a good (and cheap) floor material in the form of the aluminum (or whichever metal it is...) screen door mesh. I found a much too large roll of the stuff at walmart and came up with the following walkways. I think they're pretty solid and they're both really cheap and fairly quick to make, just need to spray and see how they look with paint and rust








Finally, I wanted to ask you guys a question. I think I'm gonna put my actual space marines on hold, but I may tentatively continue the project using enforcers as space marine stand ins. I'm willing to paint the vehicles even if I don't end up using them for 40k because I can always throw some extra chipping, dust/dirt/grime, and rust (always room for rust!) and turn them into scenery if things don't pan out for 40k 7th ed. So, if I'm gonna paint my enforcers army-style... I don't think the grey I did for my first six is enough. And I'd like them to match my corporation marines even though they're potentially separate forces so I'm planning on assembling some more enforcers and matching up the following schemes:


The dark grey on the enforcer will go to white, the light grey to more or less black. The dark grey between the more armored parts between the bottom of the feet and the knee will be red, as will the wrist forward of the hands. Possibly a bit of spot color on the shoulder still, either a squad color or a single color with a different shape or number to denote squad. Think it will look stupid? I'm eager to try it out in any case. For the vehicles, I'm thinking to paint them like Big Steve who has helpfully included himself in the picture. Black with light grey drybrushed highlights, some red spot color. Maybe a little white here and there as well. It should paint up very quickly, if I can find a big enough drybrush and get the technique down so that it doesn't make the tanks too bad or anything. Thoughts?

More in the future, but probably not tonight!

A good dark wash in the recessed areas will help the storage tanks, along with a drybrush of silvery metal, and then a brown wash on those with a tin bitz edge

Hmm just 'cause they're painted doesn't mean they wouldn't rust! Unless they're plastic. Hmm rusty barrels would go well with the way I've been doing other stuff. I might have to give it a try.

Love the signs. Really adds that extra element to the terrain. Did you just print them off or are they laminated somehow?

Wow, I think adding that walkway will really blend in that big storage tank and the walkway with the slightly more 'clean' deadzone terrain. Adding the barrels was also good, and I really like the feel from the first picture of the walkway, seems some really sweet terrain to be playing on

Cool stuff in here it seems, I'll be checking the rest of your blog out aswell

The enforcers should work, hard to go wrong with black-white scale imo. I think the red is a bit out of place, perhaps a bit too bright or needs to be broken up more than just the metal rivets it looks like you've done.

@Archer they're just printed out on glossy photo paper. Gonna experiment with standard paper too, I think they'll blend in better but it's only worth it if I can keep most of the quality intact.

@Soulcow thanks I had fun setting up all of the terrain for shots, when I get a whole board full or more... it's probably all I'm gonna do. Set up, take pictures, repeat Maybe some mock battle reports or the occasional Meme/comic. Stick around, I update reasonably often and usually pull something wacky from the archives if I haven't done anything new

@Yonan, are you talking about the boots/gloves on the marine? The parts the enforcer is going to have will be smaller and more subdued, and I might consider reducing them further if necessary. The marine basically just has red everywhere there's leather, the enforcer is pretty much all armor so it'll just be a stylized reproduction of the marine scheme.

Thanks for the comments folks

Man... I can't believe that the new Strider mantic is producing is more like double that enforcer's height. Like, the bottom of the cockpit is around his head level. Rude joke in there somewhere probably... I'm quite excited to have six coming

I hope to keep chipping away at the marauders, but don't be surprised if I zig instead of zag and try recreating Big Steve's scheme on tank Or putting some enforcers together to try out that scheme...

Until next time, Happy Hobbying!

Ahh nice, yeah that should sort the one minor issue I might have had with that scheme, go hard!

Yeah looking forward to them thar striders ; p

They're going to be so big and stompy!

Grim, where did you get the signs? You might have already said, but if you did I missed it.

Google! Various combinations of sign, SciFi sign, sign PDF, warning sign, warning sign collection, stuff like that. I think I did snag one from a topic in the CB infinity subforum, but it may have been on the infinity forums instead.


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A couple of PDFs I found were already sized for s standard 8.5x11, for others I just set the size of a ms paint project to that size in pixels and filled it up. There was a bit of trial and error to get some of the signs to the right size.

Printed on paper or decal paper? Ruddy good idea ol' chap.

My first attempts, what you've seen so far, are all from the same reasonably thick glossy photo paper. I'm gonna try some signs and especially posters with regular printer paper soon. They'll have a slighter profile and will contour to shapes better, but I'm not sure if the quality will be sufficient. Meh, probably though.

I'm also going to try to work them in before I dip, moving forward, to get some extra weathering and help to blend them in.


Oh yeah on another note I'll soon be doing a small diorama for a gift, using infinity minis to portray a samurai/ninja showdown for my sister's boyfriend. Models are ordered and should be here soon. I'm bad with dates but I think I've got into October door November to get it done, but I wanna start sooner than later. Its a surprise gift for his birthday, he likes samurai, so I'll make a separate thread to track its progress, on the off chance it might be spotted here.

Memorial day on Monday so maybe I'll get some painting done over the long weekend!

Looking forward to that mate. Did you end up getting the same ones we spoke about?

(Since you seem worried about it being spotted didnt want to mention the names themselves.)

Yeah I got the merc samurai an oniwaban and a ninja I'll post shots when they arrive.

I like the bottlecap storage containers. I've thought about doing it myself, but decided against it. Seeing your with some paint and signage on them, has changed my mind.

^They're kind of fiddly depending on how you glue them, what with being kind of flexible and all. They're a good size and effectively free if you drink soda from bottles (or have access to people who do).


So I got those infinity minis for the aforementioned diorama so things are set to start there... however... I've just realized that I have until like November or something to finish that one, and I was planning to make a different diorama around august. Whoops! Oh well, it's not like the models were liable to get any cheaper or more in stock

It's just now I've got to look into ordering a bunch of stuff for the other one so I can get started on it too/instead. Sheesh

Gonna go make another P&M thread for this Deadly Diorama Duo (ooh, and now it's even got a title ), I'll post a link forthwith.


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http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/596240.page#6855943 <--Here you can find the other blog. No pictures yet, probably in a few hours when Madame Toddlerington is asleeping.

 GrimDork wrote:
Oh yeah on another note I'll soon be doing a small diorama for a gift, using infinity minis to portray a samurai/ninja showdown for my sister's boyfriend.

That's a pretty awesome gift. Nothing rivals the personal touch of making something yourself, especially a labour intensive ones like that seems to be. I hope they appreciate it.

They'll be fun to make and I think well appreciated. Something more thoughtful than steam/amazon cards . One of them let's me paint more infinity minis too so that's a plus.

Minimal pictures added to the other blog.

Grimdork, who's your source for those clear bases ?

 GrimDork wrote:
They'll be fun to make and I think well appreciated. Something more thoughtful than steam/amazon cards . One of them let's me paint more infinity minis too so that's a plus.

Minimal pictures added to the other blog.

Should you be advertising it here if they know about this one?

@Azazelx I'm pretty sure neither of them really read this blog, it's my sister and her boyfriend and they stick to PC games. The secrecy is just on the off-chance I ever showed them Dakka to show something they got me and I painted etc. If they did show up and ruin their own surprise, I tried!

@Adamsouza http://www.litko.net/ They've got 1.5/3mm clear acrylic in various sizes, lots of other bases including wooden ones with magnets to match etc blah blah. They've also got cool stuff like counters and so on, plus glue which was handy since I wasn't sure which kind to use for the acrylics (super glue is said to frost them).

Look forward to seeing the progress.

Not much progress there yet, but feel free to check it out! Link was in there somewhere.

I swear I'm so wishy washy guys... I keep reading about the new 40k book and I want to get it, then I think that's ridiculous. I think maybe I'll paint my tanks first, then I realize none of them are quite 100% ready to start spraying and it seems like too much work to get them ready. Plus with wanting to get the dioramas done... Just really in the mood to play some wargames lol

Oh well, moving on. I had an idea while eating lunch at work yesterday. I realized I had a bunch of those Lays Stackers plastic containers from chips, they're like a dollar. Anyway I had this idea:


Raised highway/skyway! It's just over 9" tall.




It would instantly add a bunch of height, but I'd have to have some buildings at least 3 high to help include it, otherwise it would be hard for models on/off it to interact (or to close with pesky snipers!). I just thought the chip cans were a lot more visually interesting than pringles cans or paper towel tubes, and sturdy. Thoughts?


Another thing that may be useful... I figured the recessed/raised sides could be painted like they were hot or plasma-glowing, and I could get a few of them to use as some kind of power station or the like.

Hoping to get some slight hobby action in today. The wife wants to do some shopping or something, which should put me relatively close to a Hobby Lobby. I'll see about getting some materials for certain...other projects. Not sure I'll bother stopping by the gamestore. I think its mostly a 40k/Mtg style crowd there. Maybe there is war machine, but I can't stand the aesthetic of that game so it's moot. Just a nice trip to hobby lobby, and maybe a check of some retailers to see if there are any heavily clearanced jeans to snag


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Did end up going by Hobby Lobby today, the only thing I got that really needs mentioning here is a

Nifty little hole punch. Should be good for making large rivets. Probably too big for even tanks, but might work for scratchbuilt terrain.

I got some plaster cloth and plaster stuff too, for various terrain purposes. Didn't bother going by the game store or anything, putting any purchases like that off for a while.

Alrighty guys, I've got a few hours to play around today so I'm gonna try to get some things done. I did some really brief airbrushing last night, working on one of my buildings:



Do you think the top needs to have a checkered pattern with black in between the yellow? If the blue tape were black tiles?


Can't decide easily. The other buildings are plain mono-color minus the little bits of spot color, but since I did it here with the door and that one panel, it almost seems like I need to do something with the other roof tiles.

I'm gonna go experiment with that, and then maybe add some to the sides as well.

I've also picked up some plastic pill planner thingies that should make decent dumpsters. For the sake of getting stuff done, I think I'll just clean them up a bit and prime them right away. I may make some contents later but I'll just add it after the fact.

Here's a question you guys can help me with...
You've seen and commented on my chemical storage tank. You've probably seen the two cubes and short tower I've made from battlezone tiles as well. They're the same base color. I think the rust looks nice on the tank. I'm trying to decide if I want my buildings to be metal on the outside (and therefore a viable place to put small to large patches of rust), or if they should be more like future-concrete over a frame. I know the ruined battlezones stuff coming out soonish has some kind of re-bar like material sticking out of it. Basically it's a question of would more rust make the scenery look cooler? Thoughts?

Alright enough blabbing, off to work before I run out of time!

Dirt and grime and rust. The more the merrier.

And definately black and yellow checks, that way you can always play chess!

Checks done. Bit more black then metal and black highlights. Dip to follow. Dumpsters primed too.


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Decided to continue spraying black on other buildings, have a watchtower ready for metal, highlights, and dip now too. Also have my mediplex ready for red, then the same as the others. My dumpsters are color coded for waste/recycle/hazard and just need a bit of grey touchup before they're ready for dipping. Think I'll go do those now.


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Mediplex has it's red, three buildings now queued up for metal then dipping. Dumpsters are finished to a "good enough" level and are also ready for dipping. Focusing on the outside of those, eventually I may make inserts for the curious, for now they're just fine closed. They'll need some labels and possibly graffiti, but that can come later.


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Gah... my back and seat are starting to go out on me, seems like it's easier painting in the easy chair than it is perched on the stool out in the garage.

Baby still gone with parents though, so I must forge on! Doing the metal by hand. The airbrush lays it down smoother, but whereas tiny flecks of over spray from virtually any other color may be ignored easily, the metallic silver/gunmetal flecks show up very well so I've given up trying to hand mask and I don't want to waste the time to tape things up... so yeah by hand. It's not as pretty either, but it'll do. Watchtower done, need to do the mediplex and the industrial whatever. And then dip something if there's time.


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Gah. Tired now. Just now finishing up, baby back. May do some more after she's asleep though.

Got the mediplex and the two multidumpsters dipped. Just have to edge highlight the black on the industrial whatsit building and the watchtower and they can be dipped. That might happen tonight yet. I also got that electrical whatsit and 1/2" pvc pipes primed grey as well, those may get attention soon. I'm glad to be including some battlezones in with all of my junk/improvised terrain, feels funny making the cheap stuff when I've still got piles of hard plastic waiting for paint

I'll put up a few pictures in a minute, updating the title as well.