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Thanks for the kind words guys! I'm out and about now, but I'll have new photos of the behemoth up in a few hours. Coffee takes priority.


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Okay, first up are some WIP shots of another commissioned piece. This is the alien jungle world lake I posted up a few days? weeks? ago. I'm bad with time. I finished building the shoreline and am now in the process of applying a textured gel to it. I've placed a few "stumps" around it, including a bunch on the little island at the center. These will get some vibrantly colored plants in them when the lake is all painted and after I've applied the resin water effects.

An overview:


From the opposite angle:


The lake bed. I'm never sure if I should to use my original photos or the auto-adjusted ones:


My gap solution:


The island as it originally looked:

And now:


And from another angle:


Any place on this lake that you see a little green blip, it's a 1/4" length of straw I got from a coffee shop. It's covered in hot glue, but the top is open. I find these materials make for excellent receptacles for jungle trees. I got this idea from watching a husband and wife team work on a Tau display board at one of the Baltimore Games Days. I remember watching them for hours. They were good and I learned a lot from them. Anyone who is interested in building terrain or learning how to do it better I highly recommend researching how everyone else does it. Don't be afraid to copy. Don't be afraid to experiment. Try everything, let nothing hold you back. Any idea you might have to improve upon an old idea, just run with it. Experiment and learn from your mistakes, but don't EVER let anyone tell you it can't be done. When people tell me this I don't say anything to them. I just build exactly what they've told me I cannot. I don't build easy stuff, I build things that are difficult. I build them to challenge myself and to let people know that there is no such thing as impossible.

As always, thanks for looking. Comments, critiques, and questions always welcome!

Okay, here's a whole bunch of update photos for my giant building commission. I hope you like 'em!

exterior shots:










And some details of the sidewalk. I filled in the gaps with air-drying clay (just plain old crayola brand, nothing fancy) and put some "feet" around the side to act as bases for buttresses that will be on 3 corners of the "tower".



After these "feet" dried they came right off and I had to glue them back on with more elmers glue.


Buttress mock-ups:




Some interior shots as well:









Thanks for looking!

Not bad the walls could use a grime wash for my taste but looking very good overall.

The exterior walls are only base coated. I want to do them all at the same time to give them a more uniform look. That's my theory anyway.

Impressive stuff on the giant building front - I think I might be stea... *ahem* - borrowing some ideas for my Cathdral! Def keeping an eye on this one

You got a lot done. That swamp piece is starting to look all nice and creepy I am just wondering how easy it will be to paint.

Thanks for the feedback! @Nafarious: these pieces are super easy to paint. Base coat in black, then just straight dry brush. Once the texturing gel dries the painting takes very little time. The textured gel also gives the paint a ready surface to draw out the detail.

Here's some mock-up photos for the behemoth building's facade:





And now in its painted and glued on state:










One of my favorite views so far:


Comments, questions, critiques always welcome. Thanks for looking!

This thread has inspired a friend and I to create a full table asteroid board. Hopefully it ends up looking as good!

That's great, Bobaram! I can't wait to see your progress! If you guys have any questions or want some suggestions please don't hesitate to ask. I'm always happy to help.

For sure! We're slowly gather supplies and currently testing out the materials and paints we're going to use so we don't buy a bunch of the wrong thing!

Do you have a particular theme in mind, Bobaram? Like "asteroid base", "stray comet", or "spiky wonderland"? I find it really useful to have a general idea of what I want the end product to look like in my head before I get started. I also sketch a bunch to give myself an idea of scale and seek out reference photos from the interwebs to help me wrap my head around what things should look like when I'm done. Reference photos are great for building and for color pallette later on.

Throw some ideas out or if you have questions about how to make something, post them here. Will the board have static elements or do you intend to make it modular/scatter terrain? I think I have as much enthusiasm for your project as you do.

What an amazing terrain layout. love it.

Subbed to steal the tree techniques... BRILLIANT!

Here's a bunch of WIP shots of a bunch of jungle pieces (including some funky trees), small building ruins, and small Administratum ruins for the Shattered City commission I'm currently working on. The trees/jungle pieces and the small ruin (as well as some other similar ruins) will be available for purchase on my EBAY page (follow link in my signature) in a few days (go ahead and click the link to find a bunch of other terrain pieces I already have up there, too).








And the Administratum buildings:



Closeup on the debris. I like to incorporate chunks of the wall panels into the rubble. If there's one thing I've learned from researching the damage inflicted by explosives it's that there is neither rhyme nor reason for what survives and what does not. There's always going to be incongruously intact elements of the original structure within all the ruin and devastation. Also, when it comes to painting it, whatever the core building material was (concrete, brick, stone, or steel) will dictate what color the dust that covers EVERYTHING will be. If your building was constructed of concrete, then no matter what color the exterior has been painted, there will be a pall of grayish dust on everything for blocks in all directions. If your building's core was brick there will be a fine red dust on everything. If the core is steel, like on a sky-scraper, then the debris will be rusted, blackened, and a white corrosion. Interesting facts to keep in mind when painting.









Also, regarding rubble and debris, put everything in it. Most the devastation is going to be random, meaningless bits. Use large and small pieces of stuff. Structural bits, doors, sticks, etc. But if you're using sprue,remember to chop it down to pebble sized and never use the bits that have writing on them. These bits will ruin the illusion and make your terrain look like you used sprue on it. This just generally looks amateurish and sloppy. I use a wide variety of ballast - medium, fine, coarse - plus Talus, chopped up sprue, shavings from my masonite (MDF) and styrofoam, match sticks, broken coffee sticks, fine sand, model bricks, pulverized walnut shell, distressed pieces of wall panels, and random discards from things I've used before (like model kits, plasticard pipes and girders, failed attempts from other projects). The more variety the better. I also typically put 2 or 3 layers of debris or I embed my first layer in air-dry clay and then glue down a second layer over that.

As always, questions, comments, or critiques welcome. Thanks for looking!

Starting to get real paint on these pieces. The first of my Administratum small ruins has a (mostly) finished interior and steps 1 & 2 of paint (basecoat and first 2 layers of detail color) on its exterior. It still needs white and ivory veins on the purple panels, more red on the large wall exterior, a black wash on the purple panels, a red-brown wash on the skulls and red details, metal on the vents, verdigris on the exterior and more weathering. I don't like to paint things half-assed. Also this piece is acting as my paint-scheme test for all my other pieces. Whatever doesn't work on this one, I'll adjust for the others.

First, some exterior shots:



Barry stalks the ruins (and gives us a sense of scale):



And some interior shots. The inner walls, first and second floors, were both base coated in the same color (a dark grey from a company called My Studio; the color is called "Feather Gray") and then were drybrushed and stippled with lighter grays for the first floor and ivory/whites for the second floor. Then they were given about a dozen washes starting with a muted pink-grey, then light grey, then rust, then white, then black, then more rust.







Close ups of the debris on the base. I went just as crazy with these details as with all the others.



And, finally, a shot of one of my new objective markers, made by chopping up a model of the MIR space Station and gluing it to a base...and the painting the sh!t out of it. Enjoy! (more pics iof this marker in my "Terrain I've Made" thread).


As always, comments, critiques, and questions welcome! Thanks for looking.


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Stippling effect on the other piece, before weathering:




The two pieces side by side:


And one of my "blob trees" fully painted.



Now I have a dilemma and I am hoping the Dakkadakka community can weigh in to help me. My original idea was to use thin lengths of grasses that I have an abundance of for this tree's foliage. Maybe something like this or denser:


But now I can't decide if I like that idea or this other idea to use these blue fronds:




Which version do you prefer? Comment and let me know. A.) green "strings" or B.) blue "hair". Thanks for looking and taking the time with this!

The blue Frondy things, for sure!

Thanks for the input, Bobaram. Staring at these pictures is making me lean toward the frondy things, too. I still would like to hear from other members of the community their opinions of the foliage types. I'll go with whichever gets more votes.

Whelp, considering I got one response and I totally agree with it, I went with Bobaram's advice and used the frondy things. Pics up of what that looks like shortly, but first I wanted to post some Paint in Progress shots of one of my smaller administratum ruins. I wanted to create a black marble effect on the exterior walls, but feel like I failed at the task miserably. I still need to touch up the large wall with red highlights and a brick-colored wash over that, but I feel kind of finished with the other walls, inside and out. I mostly started painting this piece rather than finishing the "behemoth" so I could test my weathering techniques and paint schemes before I committed them to the much larger building. So here's what it looks like (my lap, by the way, sheds so much light that I actually have trouble seeing with it. I never thought I would be plagued by too MUCH light, but it also kills the color in photographs. I used the auto-adjusted images because they were actually closer to the real colors. I'll have to get a new bulb for the thing soon):


Bad marble is bad:


I think I need a thinner brush...(this picture also faintly shows the application of sand-textured gel to the spots on the wall where the outer layer has been broken away. I wanted to try to create a realistic rust texture for when I weather those spots):


Trying to bleed the rust into the surrounding debris:





Comments, critiques, and questions always welcome. Thanks for looking!

Here are the finished "Siren Trees" (formerly "blob trees"), so named because their frond-like leaves make them resemble air raid siren towers.

Barry hides in their shadow:








These are all for sale on my EBAY store. Link below in my signature. More photos in my Terrain I've Made thread. Thanks for looking!

Hey mate loving the ideas you have here, and I will be ....borrowing them.

Blocka wrote:
Hey mate loving the ideas you have here, and I will be ....borrowing them.

Thanks, Blocka! I'm committed to improving the look of terrain throughout the community, so please by all means, Borrow away! With luck I'll have some updates after the holiday. I intend to eat myself stupid tomorrow.

Hey Waaazg I am working on a new display board for my orks speed freaks army, I am thinking of one a 2x2 board 2 roads that come together. Thinking of this sort of image, 2 roads with a few buildings and then 2 trucks chugging their way along on these roads with some enemies up in the buildings.

------------------------------
|-------\ xx
|--------\ xx
| x \--------------------
| x /-------------------
|---------/
|--------/
--------------------------------

In hindsight that image thing didn't work too well.

Looking cool! And I totally thought I'd replied Yay fronds! Sorry about that.

 Nafarious wrote:
Hey Waaazg I am working on a new display board for my orks speed freaks army, I am thinking of one a 2x2 board 2 roads that come together. Thinking of this sort of image, 2 roads with a few buildings and then 2 trucks chugging their way along on these roads with some enemies up in the buildings.

------------------------------
|-------\ xx
|--------\ xx
| x \--------------------
| x /-------------------
|---------/
|--------/
--------------------------------

In hindsight that image thing didn't work too well.

That's great, Nafarious! I can't wait to see what you do with that!. And I agree, the picture doesn't seem to convey what you are trying to do. I have some totally unsolicited advice if you're interested. First, my recommendation is to shy away from roads that turn your board into noticeable quadrants. Don't form a T and don't form an X, but rather have your roads come on at odd angles. Real roads (except maybe ones in modern cities) don't form up perfectly. I recommend looking at google maps satellite images of cities or towns in the American midwest or anywhere in Europe. These will give you an idea of how roads run together. Also I shy away from having crossroads meet at the dead center of the board. If they meet slightly to one side it adds dynamism to your layout and really makes it interesting to look at. Also, from a gamer's perspective, moving away from grid-like streets means your enemies don't have direct lines of fire on you from turn 1 and doing something as simple as angling your streets on a cityfight board will vastly increase the realism of the engagement.

inmygravenimage wrote:Looking cool! And I totally thought I'd replied Yay fronds! Sorry about that.

No problem, my friend, it all worked out in the end. The trees look great and I'm on to new and greater things. Next project is a series of jungle bases and then I'm not entirely sure. Probably some buildings and finishing up my Shattered City.

My future projects include creating resin panels compatible with GW's city stuff to represent the architecture of individual worlds, iceworld-themed terrain, and a couple of Hive interiors (one that's a vast interior farmland and one that's a sprawl on the bottom of a planet-covering glacier). Oh, and some immense cylindrical towers. The projects never stop.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while folks. Holidays and all. I started work on wall ssection prototypes and I'll have pics up of my progress in the next few days. Now I'm off to a friend's place to take a "giant resin castle" off his hands. I have no idea what that means, but free always grabs and holds my attention.

So, I've been doing some research for my next/concurrent project. Two projects, actually. One is a 40k urban ruins "hill" and the other is an emulation of a real world ruin from the Second Chechen War. Below are some of my reference photos. However, these are images of war and devastation. While not graphic per se, some folk might find them disturbing so I put them in spoilers. If you are traumatized by viewing such images, I urge you not to look.

First up are my "Hill" references:



And the ruin I want to copy:



Along with some general reference photos:

I can't wait to see what you do with this. Surely it will be pretty awesome.

Thanks, Nafarious! I'm looking forward to building these for sure.

Okay, update time. First, here are some pictures of the free castle I picked up last weekend. It was so dusty I was tempted to plant a tree on it. It seriously sucks that I have a dust allergy. Seriously seriously.

Look at this. This is absurd. I'm getting itchy just looking at it.


The castle proper. It was only 3 walls, because the previous owner misplaced one, but as I've already said, I can't argue with free. Besides he said if he finds wall 4, he'd give me a ring. I guess the missing wall must be the gatehouse, because there's no place to put the doors.














It came with two stand alone doors of inconceivable thickness:



And no, this isn't sandwich bread. This is what the back of each door looks like:


I have no idea what I'm going to do with this monster. For the moment it's going into storage. I put it up here just as a reminder to myself that I still have it. It's also made out of a kind of resin that feels kind of brittle. I might wind up chopping it apart and making a bunch of smaller pieces out of it. Who knows.



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And of course these are my attempts at custom wall sections. I dubbed them "fat" and "skinny".



I intentionally made them slightly different in size (height and width) to GW's pieces. Here are some shots illustrating that exact aspect.
Side by side with "skinny":

Skinny's width:

Fat's width:

Fat and Skinny are also the same height. And because I live in the States (one of the last bastions of Imperial measurement) I used inches to portion out my pieces. Skinny is 2" wide by 6" tall. Fat is 4" wide by 6" tall.

So I decided to start with Skinny in the detailing department. Now I have a whole lot of ambition, but not much direction with this so I just decided to do whatever and let the design happen as I glued stuff to the piece. This is working out only okay, but I feel like I need to get this done or I will wallow in a kind of "what if I do it wrong?" funk. Basically, I accept that this first piece will be horrible and completely "wrong" and that I'll do it anyway. Just so I can't have "never tried" hanging over my head. Because I can always use the insight I gain from doing it wrong this time to make next time look even better. I can't learn by wishing I did something. I can only learn by making mistakes.

That said, this makes my OCD go crazy:


And this is as far as I've gotten so far:


Here's some detail on the bottom part. I'm not really big on patience and tend to barrel forward making and breaking, adding layers and ideas as I go.


Let me know what you think so far. My end goal is to make a cast of this and reproduce it in resin (for which I have next to no experience with either). Thanks for looking!

If you don't have plans for one of those wall pieces I am in serious need of one for my Khador display board.