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I got some more work done at that store over this past weekend. First up is a "shanty" building that someone else at the store had built and I am attempting to "pretty up" as best I can (space marine scout for scale purposes):



Then this ugly thing that I smashed apart for parts:


It broke apart far too easily. Weak glue (I'm guessing whoever assembled it used krazy glue, which is terrible for long term rigidity). They also hadn't bothered to clean the edges of the pieces so everything was stuck together by the merest of joins. I filed each piece down and repurposed them for this work in progress:


First, I made the decision that I was not going to make or detail an interior for this piece (working on the other piece with the wood paneling interior taught me not to mess with buildings models can get into unless I'm charging a lot more). I traced the exterior outline of the windows and drew covers:


I used an exacto blade to cut them out and trim them to fit. Then applied some wood glue to the window frames like so:


And glued the covers into place. I decided I wanted to use the interiors for exteriors because it just looks different. Plus the doors look more industrial like that:


Of course then I realized I had assembled the first 2 walls a little crookedly and had to carve out a groove in the foam to make sure the walls would align properly:


Test fitting the walls in the groove:


And finishing it in place:


Then I test fit a potential roof or floor. This is as far as I got on this piece this time around:


I also did some work on another building. I could not for the life of me remember what I was trying to do with these foamcore pieces so I just made it up as I went along before finally settling on completing another section of wall. Here is a bunch of pictures showing my thinky process:


Here's the glued on wall. First, I cut a groove in one piece of the foamcore so the sheets would glue flush:


Then I cut a couple of right angle wedges to make sure the corners stayed square (or at least square-ish):


I used like a million (give or take several thousand) pins to hold the wall in place:


All the writing on the exterior shows that I have plans to detail the exterior. This new wall has no guidelines written, but that doesn't mean there won't be any details!


Anyway, thanks for looking. I'll post up more shortly. C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

A great bit of recycling there.

What's the big building going to be in the end? The doors halfway up are throwing me, otherwise I would have said an admin building.

if you want to save having to put in so many pins in, I found putting the pins in at 45 degree angles kept my joints really well with just a few pins.

 JoeRugby wrote:
A great bit of recycling there.

What's the big building going to be in the end? The doors halfway up are throwing me, otherwise I would have said an admin building.

I'm hoping to build a staircase up the back of the giant rock that leads to a balcony that reaches the upper story door. I thought the building would be administrative as well and because I'm not detailing the interior I wanted to make the exterior more than just a giant line of sight blocker. In other words balconies, walkways, and dynamic roofs.

Next up are what I'm calling "pom trees". I started with some wooden silhouette shapes, some packing styrofoam, some wooden beads, and some wooden drawer pegs. Except for the styrfoam, one can find all of these materials in a local craft store or online relatively easily.



After white gluing the styrofoam to the silhouette, i dug a few divots into the it and hot glued the drawer pegs into them:





Sometimes you have to hold them in place at the angle you want until the hot glue cools enough that it will stand on its own. Once in place, I reinforced the join with more hot glue and then created a loose stripey pattern on the "stems" of the drawer pegs and some roots across the foam and base:





Then I put a dollop of hot glue on the tops of the pegs and glued on the wooden beads:




Once everything was cool I coated the entire piece with a liberal coating of sand texture gel and white glued craft sand & some small stones to the base:



After the sand and gel texture dried, I went back and gave it a coat of watered down white glue to seal the sand and rocks in place. Then I painted them (as you can see, on some of the bases I also added some straw-holes for variety). These aren't at their final color highlight, but I'll save that for the end:




Next, I took 2 varieties of fake flower head and butchered them for parts:









Then combined them for effect:


Dry-fitted them:


And finally finished painting the Pom Trees and hotglued the fake plant bits into the beads' top holes:




Tada! Pom Trees:






Thanks for looking. Have an awesome day! C&C always welcome.

from the humble origins of where these pieces start off... the end result is truly believable! Really cool looking but truly alien...

You are single-handedly convincing me I need to get a hot-glue gun.

Good work. All looking great.

Do you make much profit on selling these (if you don't mind me asking)? I'm seeing something similar in scale in my future.

Liking the enclosed industrial building too. Good idea to use the inside.

 Dr H wrote:
You are single-handedly convincing me I need to get a hot-glue gun.

Good work. All looking great.

Thanks! [Also, I own 4 hot glue guns]

Do you make much profit on selling these (if you don't mind me asking)? I'm seeing something similar in scale in my future.

They don't sell often, but when someone does buy them they turn out quite a handsome profit. The materials per base cost me about $2 or $3, although when I buy materials I buy in bulk and when I build terrain, I build in bulk. I sell them in lots of three bases for around $30, so I make about $20 profit for every 3 I sell. I'm starting to make rubber molds and plastic casts, which will reduce the time it takes to make pieces, if not the cost. It can be a slim margin of gain if you aren't mass producing product.


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 MagosBiff90 wrote:
from the humble origins of where these pieces start off... the end result is truly believable! Really cool looking but truly alien...

Thanks very much, MagosBiff90!

Amazing trees!!!

 nflagey wrote:
Amazing trees!!!

Thanks kindly, nflagey!

Here is the finished craggy spire, with some chaos models for scale in some shots and on another piece of terrain to show the versatility of the board.










Think you guys could vote on these in the galleries? Show both me and the community some support? Thanks a bunch. Thanks for looking. C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

Are those all done with foam?
Look really great ... and since I have a square foot of such foam lying around, I may steal your idea

 nflagey wrote:
Are those all done with foam?
Look really great ... and since I have a square foot of such foam lying around, I may steal your idea

Pink insulation foam, yes.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
...Also, I own 4 hot glue guns]

I'll start with one and work up from there.

Do you make much profit on selling these (if you don't mind me asking)? I'm seeing something similar in scale in my future.

They don't sell often, but when someone does buy them they turn out quite a handsome profit. The materials per base cost me about $2 or $3, although when I buy materials I buy in bulk and when I build terrain, I build in bulk. I sell them in lots of three bases for around $30, so I make about $20 profit for every 3 I sell. I'm starting to make rubber molds and plastic casts, which will reduce the time it takes to make pieces, if not the cost. It can be a slim margin of gain if you aren't mass producing product.

That's not a bad turn around on material. Time is the silent killer of profit, but on the side of the hobby that's not so much of a problem.

Yeah, casting can be good. A large outlay of money to start with, but it does pay for itself and then some. So long as the moulds last, and there's minimal losses to mis-casts or other problems.

Large rock looks good. Like the blue-ness of the rock.

I've always wondered who buys those heart shaped flat pieces of wood and what they use them for. Your use is much cooler than what I always imagined. Great stuff, although I'm really interested to see more of that giant building you've started a few comments up. Casting isn't bad at all once you get quick with the mix...it's the resin. The fumes man they will melt your face off. Either way keep it coming we are all learning a thing or two from you out here.

Still incredible terrain work!

 Dr.Muchachos wrote:
I've always wondered who buys those heart shaped flat pieces of wood and what they use them for. Your use is much cooler than what I always imagined. Great stuff, although I'm really interested to see more of that giant building you've started a few comments up. Casting isn't bad at all once you get quick with the mix...it's the resin. The fumes man they will melt your face off. Either way keep it coming we are all learning a thing or two from you out here.

I'm very glad to be positively affecting the community! Thanks for the feedback, Dr.Muchachos! I'm going back to the site where the giant building is tomorrow, so I should have an update in a few days.


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 shasolenzabi wrote:
Still incredible terrain work!

Cheers, shasolenzabi!


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 Dr H wrote:
I'll start with one and work up from there.

I buy the miniglueguns. They usually cost about $3-$4 USA, use smaller glue sticks, and are easier to handle. However, they take longer to heat up so I use 4 at a time so I never notice the slack.

Large rock looks good. Like the blue-ness of the rock.

Thanks!

And here's a pile of photos I haven't posted yet, but will bring me up to date on my so far progress:

























Thanks for looking! C&C always welcome.Have an awesome day!

Never used the walls inside out before they do work surprisingly well that way round, much more specialised way of filling in the windows too (I usually just glue a big rectangle of plasticard behind them).

Pom trees work really well as a concept, looks properly sci-fi.

 Ignatius-Grulgor wrote:
Never used the walls inside out before they do work surprisingly well that way round, much more specialised way of filling in the windows too (I usually just glue a big rectangle of plasticard behind them).

Pom trees work really well as a concept, looks properly sci-fi.

Thanks for the feedback, Ignatius-Grulgor! I should have another update for y'all Sunday or Monday evening.

Just a quick update (because I took so many photos of the stuff I was working on that I need to spread it across a few posts...and I also need to cook dinner tonight). There are quite a few half finished terrain pieces at the store I am working at. They are mostly of an "okay" quality. I have been instructed to make them better. So I started with this piece:

This was the quality and condition I found it in. Foam glued down with a loose smattering of texture. I could go on for hours and pages of text about my arguments against this kind of texturing, but alas the butternut squash is not going to cook itself. A summary would be - don't texture surfaces like this. It looks like you glued some rocks in a clump to a masonite base. After you paint it it will STILL look like you glued a bunch of rocks to a base because the flat masonite where you didn't glue any rocks to is still flat; it's just a different color. Probably the same color as the clump of rocks you glued to the part of the base where they are sitting right now.



Also, don't use white packing styrofoam. It is too soft to hold up to the rigors of game play, much less the rigors of turning it into terrain. It will get smashed and ruin all your hard work before you are even halfway through, no matter how much glue you slather it with in an attempt to "strengthen" it. It was the first thing I broke off when I got started.

I used this...


...to hide the foam and the rocks, and to smooth all the hard edges of the pink block:





Incidentally, now the piece weighs about 5 pounds (2 and a half kilograms).

Next, I hand-mashed some of these aquarium gravel stones into the still-drying clay exterior:







And then these, which are pulverized walnut shells that you can pick up at a pet store or craft store:






And then craft sand for which I have no picture, but you'll have to believe me that I got it at a craft store and that it is exceptionally fine:





I applied the sand deliberately sparsely and hope that the clay will crack between now and when I return in a few days. Then I'll seal it and paint it and you will see the miles (or kilometers, if you prefer) of difference between the original and my improvement.

Thanks for looking! C&C always welcome. Have an awesome day!

I saw a croissant and now I can't unsee it!

 Ignatius-Grulgor wrote:
I saw a croissant and now I can't unsee it!

That would be the crunchiest and worst-tasting croissant in the history of bread.

Good work on the colourful plants, 'boss.

Nice improvements on the croissant-rock piece.

Those plants were so bright! Makes me recount the odd camo schemes from the old RT book

Thanks for the feedback Dr H and shasolenzabi! Yeah, I know what you mean shas. Like those yellow and black tiger stripe patterns on the space marines? I remember thinking that that pattern would only work on a very specific world.

I really liked the way the Peg trees turned out, I was worry for a few moments as they were slightly... well phallic, but well recovered!!

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:

 Ignatius-Grulgor wrote:
I saw a croissant and now I can't unsee it!

That would be the crunchiest and worst-tasting croissant in the history of bread.

You've clearly not had a Croissant from Asda before

Terrain is looking great dude,

 SJM wrote:
I really liked the way the Peg trees turned out, I was worry for a few moments as they were slightly... well phallic, but well recovered!!

Heh. Any potential "tree" is likely to look phallic to begin with.


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 JoeRugby wrote:

That would be the crunchiest and worst-tasting croissant in the history of bread.

You've clearly not had a Croissant from Asda before

Terrain is looking great dude,

Thanks, Joe! And no, I don't even know what Asda is. A cafe chain, I guess?

Knowing a wee bit of other countries and such, Asda is a Food or grocery chain, and based on what he says, they have issues baking decent bread products in their stores

I am now an official builder of my LFGS' terrain, all thanks to you!

lliu wrote:
I am now an official builder of my LFGS' terrain, all thanks to you!

Cool! Glad I could help, lliu! That sounds awesome!


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Also, here are some pictures of the finished leaner rock piece:









More progress reports for you all tomorrow evening. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!