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well, I'm still waiting for my bones to show, so, i've been amusing myself with creating terrain. It was an incredibly painful build, and we're still a long ways away from being finished.

I cut up a bunch of foamcore, wide enough for warjacks and dreadnoughts to walk on. I didn't crennelate it, because that's too much work. Once i assembled the structure, using extra foamcore splicings to add a bit of strength, I went and grabbed my kraft foam. I started by slicing out little squares, and then going at them with a pair of clippers to rough them up, and give them some texture. To get some more variance, i used some foam-core and did the same thing as well. Eventually I got lazy, and stopped thexturing the tiles, which was a disastrous mistake. Anyway, once i had everything done and glued on, i attacked it with an airbrush. That turned out to be an awesome exercise in practice: Once I got the colors on, I started going back and hitting it with other colors just on specific tiles, and it definitely improved my aim with the airbrush. What you see below is still a work in progress. The next stage involves hitting it with a brush and some paint to give the tiles some texture, and then going over it again with some green-tinted glue, different shades of flock (yes, FLOCK, because it actually makes awesome looking moss once it's dry and you apply different colors of inks) and just a bit of grass and..... this.... green foam crap that's supposed to make convincing looking underbrush. If I can find some bush/tree roots, then they are going to sit in a vat of green ink for a few days and will get added too. All told, I wouldn't consider just what you see here to be even half-finished.

I'm starting to really appreciate kraft foam-foamcore combo, though it's a fair deal of work to get it to work properly. This was definately a lazy job what you see here, that went even lazier, but I'm pleased with the results and the effort that went in so far. This has killed the past 3 weekends for me.... Although working on this, i realized the importance of using the correct color of kraft foam. Using red kraft foam was a terribad mistake. White would have been brilliant, as it soaks up color readily, Grey also works, since "it's a shaded white" and black would probably have worked for the same reason. It's obvious where the red foam was used once you click the images.

most of the colors came out fine at the end, except for the brown. on the lower settings, it absolutely refused to come out of the airbrush, add more liquid, and I'm spraying everything...

I had to starch a ridiculous shirt this weekend, and it killed my entire day. I spent the time in between starching and ironing and re-ironing building and painting up some terrain, and here's what I managed to get done. Still have a ways to go on the walls, there's more segments and coners that need to be built and tiled, then painted....
I'm also working on a kind of a cliff/ramp thing. Up next when I have time is a mausoleum or two or crypt, and a couple of grave-yards and patches of dense trees.

I'm also working on a city at the same time, so, I've got my hands full juggling terrain for 3 different kinds of boards. This ought to be interesting, assuming I can get the time to finish it all by year's end.

Looking good man!

I like this. Makes me want to start up some terrain asap. But I don't have the time anymore.

 SirSlaughter wrote:
I like this. Makes me want to start up some terrain asap. But I don't have the time anymore.

it doesn't take up that much time... well... that's a lie. What kills your time is all of the pre-work. Cutting tiles out of kraft foam, and then attacking them with a pair of clippers to bevel the edges (can only be seen on a few pices of wall i did there, never doing unbevelled tiles ever again). If you spend 10-20 minutes a day just stocking up on material, and letting ideas drift from the inside of one ear through to the other and back again, once you sit down to build, you can get a lot out in 30 minutes.

not much of an update. I snapped this pics midweek and intended to snap other ones today, but... mneh, didn't get around to snapping what i'd changed.

The only thing incorrect about this ramp is that I've added crackle paste everywhere you see blue, and left some of the protruding slabs which will be painted up as rock. If I were to do this again, I'd derfinaltey try to break up the shape a little more, it's obvious that this is a ramp, despite the fact that I was hoping for it to turn out more like a cliff. Who knows if i can hide the nature of it's being a ramp and make it look like a protruding bit of cliff face. I'm looking forward to working on this piece. It's going to contribute to the pain yard seen above (the yellow walls are not a part of it). Still not sure how to go about building the mausolea, the grave yards or what else to add to the "pain yard" terrain set.

Alright, a really quick update because I don't have time, but if I don't do this now, I won't do it for another month...

The cliff is JUST about done. There's some touch ups to do, but it's a quick job. Check for pics below. I've also started work on the grave-yard proper, some small crummy picket fence and grave markers... but I've run out of blue foam!!! Now i've worked with it, I really love extruded polystyrne as a base material. It's light enough to work with, and i can do work on it quickly, and don't need to spend an hour or more every time cleaning enough space in the garage just to find the tools and space for me to get some work done. I can keep to this inside my own room, so I'm thinking I have a wishlist item for my birth day.

Anyway, on the cliff yo use sand, chips of blue foam, and crackle paste. I love crackle paste! It can be a bit brittle i guess, but MAN does it add character and detail to terrain.

Also on the cliff, you see Picture Hanging Wire. I posted about this as cheap lazy man's barb wire, and here you see an example of it used. I think I'm sold, it's minimum effort, cheap, and looks good enough.


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oh gods, I should have moved that furniture polish can....