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 Tiger9gamer wrote:

Annnnd exalted! awesome post! Personally I feel a little gunshy for commenting, as I feel I will just become an endless robot saying the word "Amazing" over and over when it comes to your breathtaking models! Your an inspirtation, and If my gw allowed more home built terrain I would defiantly be copying some things I seen here!

Anyways I did have a question: have you ever tried to make a tench line?

Wow. Thank you. And please, robot away. I do the same thing. There are plenty of people here on Dakka that I am in awe of, but I try not to let my lack of meaningful feedback get in the way of saying something. It helps to know people like what you're doing, it really does.

I assume that autocorrect is not your friend like it is not mine and what you meant was "trench line". The answer to your question is no, I have never tried to build a trench line, but for a lot of different reasons. For one, trenches are static positions where soldiers die. It is a tactic for fighting that developed from its nascency to its pinnacle in the span of World War One. It was abandoned at the beginning of World War Two with spectacular results for very good reasons. The French lost because they didn't get the memo that that tactic doesn't work against a modern army. This lesson is doubly true when you are dealing with an enemy that can strike you from orbit or land its troops via drop pod or teleportation anywhere it wants to. Trenches became tactically obsolete in 1918.

For two, even if I put all that historical nonsense aside and built trenches anyway, I will end up with a tactically inflexible terrain board. Every game will be the same, there will be no variety and that would get boring so fast. I try to make terrain that can be placed in different configurations and that will look and be compatible with many different ideas, so I can use my city buildings as rural towns, isolated ruins in the wastelands, or compounds out in the woods. This aspect of terrain building is really important to me. I want people to experience the same sense of setting that I do when I build my pieces. I like evoking many stories.

For three, not to drag this "no" out infinitum, I live in a tiny apartment in New York City. My bedroom is also my workspace and my storage. While I sell my stuff online and sometimes on consignment, the vast majority of my projects live in bins that tower over my sleeping area. I have no where to put such a project.

However, after all that said, now I feel like I might want to try to build some sort of trench system that would counter my own arguments. A modular, orbitally defensible, teleport prohibitive trench system. Who knows? Everything's a challenge. Thanks for the feedback, Tiger9gaming! I really appreciate it. Have an awesome day!


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 alabamaheretic wrote:
Good post man. I normally lurk on your thread for inspiration and to see cool terrain.

Well keep up the awsome and I'll keep an eye out

Thanks very much, alabamaheretic! I hope the advice I sent you via PM is useful to you!

It was I sent ya one back. In reply.

Yep, I saw it.

Hope everything is okay with your father and your family are keeping strong. Terrain is looking great too.

EDC

Hey, I love your stuff mate, you know that. sometimes I just gawp and forget to comment!

 evildrcheese wrote:
Hope everything is okay with your father and your family are keeping strong. Terrain is looking great too.

EDC

Thanks, EDC. My father has been "tattooed" with the target markers for his radiation therapy. Actual treatment begins on the 7th of March.


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 inmygravenimage wrote:
Hey, I love your stuff mate, you know that. sometimes I just gawp and forget to comment!

I hear you, graven. I appreciate the comments when you remember to make them.

I know the feeling well bud, you sometimes get a glut of comments, but more often it's a barren and quiet place. Another area is the Gallery, you spend a fair bit of time finishing up a model and making a nice montage pic up and no-one votes for it, But someone who has painted his space marine with a yard brush and tar gets votes galore, admittedly low ones but votes none the less. Sorry rant over......

That little "doodle" is a perfect little piece, love it.

And I forgot to say before, totally loving the windows idea you did, with mucky windows, brilliant, and stolen...

 Camkierhi wrote:
I know the feeling well bud, you sometimes get a glut of comments, but more often it's a barren and quiet place. Another area is the Gallery, you spend a fair bit of time finishing up a model and making a nice montage pic up and no-one votes for it, But someone who has painted his space marine with a yard brush and tar gets votes galore, admittedly low ones but votes none the less. Sorry rant over......

That little "doodle" is a perfect little piece, love it.

And I forgot to say before, totally loving the windows idea you did, with mucky windows, brilliant, and stolen...

Yeah, I identify with the gallery envy. What're we gunna do? I think most people can't be bothered to sift through the hundreds of thousands of images in the database. I try to make time to go through and vote on images that "need votes" every now and again, but it's time consuming.

Thanks for the compliments and you're more than welcome to "steal" my ideas. That's why all in progress photos I have up on Dakka are in a gallery labeled "tutorial photos".

I did some more work on my building. I started to fill in the gaps between the cardstock "sidewalk" slabs with air-dry clay and craft sand. I also applied a layer of medium ballast to the alleyway and half the yard.




With some scattered ballast to make it look like the gravel from the yard has spilled out. Also, I heard clamor for scale shots, so here are some Barry shots:


Here I illustrate the adjoining back alleyways:


And the broken post on the corner of the sidewalk:



Here I try to figure out how to dress the building with storage items. The roof or the little alley in the yard where no model's base will fit. The roof placement looks awkward to me, even though it would provide cover for anyone on the roof. The backyard placement seems more realistic to me, but feels exposed to the street and will probably force me to build a fence.


Then I filled in the rest of the backyard gravel:


Then the sidewalk got primed and I added more gravel to the sides of the alleyway:



I lavished a lot of detail on the alleyway.


I used clay to create a well-worn path down the center:


And then smoothed all the details with craft sand:


And finally added the trash bin to the backyard:


That's it for now. Thanks for looking and have an awesome day!

Looking good mate. I really digging the boxes and the small details on this piece a lot.

Oh I gave you a nod in my blog about your sector and a link to come check out your cool terrain and a link your sector as well man!

any way check on your cool stuff later

Bama

Warboss - I'm new to your blog here man but I'm really loving what I'm seeing. Your terrain looks really gritty and realistic; you certainly have your own style.

I was also just browsing your gallery and I love your Loota and Buggy conversions. They're probably from ages ago but I wanted you to know I'm an admirer, nonetheless.

Stay strong with regards to your father's health, man. It sounds like you once had a good relationship with him so I hope that you can find peace with each other now.

Welcome, NidLifeCrisis! Thank you very much for the feedback and the well wishes. Both are greatly appreciated.

@bama: sweet! Thank you, sir.

Anybody have a suggestion as to what color I should paint this building? I'm kinda stumped.

Sandy I think.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
Sandy I think.

That's not a bad idea, graven. I'm definitely going to paint the sidewalks a light grey and the gravel a bluish-grey. I like the idea of muted colors like sand, grey, dull blue, brick red, and the like. Also, I guess as a side note, I have no intention of painting these buildings (at the moment there's 15 of them) in matching colors. But I am definitely going to try to match them in color value (when I was in college I took a year long class on light and color study that introduced me to the 3 aspects of color. This random website that I found through Google helps to illustrate what I am talking about when I say "matching color value" ).

So, I have one vote for Sandy. Anyone else have a suggestion?

It depends a little on the regional area you are depicting.

The generics for Gothic city = grey, Desert = Biege, Temperate zones would maybe lean toward white buildings. Or you can go Balamory on it and have a complete bloomin rainbow.

The vibe I am currently getting would be leaning toward dessert. Flat roofs and open courtyards, so from terracota to cream really.

So long story short (too late) Sandy will be perfect.

 Camkierhi wrote:
It depends a little on the regional area you are depicting.

The generics for Gothic city = grey, Desert = Biege, Temperate zones would maybe lean toward white buildings. Or you can go Balamory on it and have a complete bloomin rainbow.

The vibe I am currently getting would be leaning toward dessert. Flat roofs and open courtyards, so from terracota to cream really.

So long story short (too late) Sandy will be perfect.

Thanks, Cam! I hadn't thought of using a regional color palette. That's an excellent idea. I am using the city I live in as reference for architectural style (to a certain degree, squeezed through my brainmeats and reinterpreted through my hands), but I could also use this city as a color reference as well. Although I'm not sure how much soot I'm willing to coat everything in (yay, New York). Maybe I'll sift through some online photos of neighborhoods until I find one I like. Great feedback!

you know if you wanted to try something different and give the building an alien yet human vibe make it light green...like a pale greysish green kinda like old hos[pitals from the sixties and seventies....it would be different would be from the norm and yet would still feel the same as in construct. if you were to do it deserty i'd go with a sandiy red honestly to make it a different. those are my two cents.

check your pms when you can.

bama

Working backwards:
Building colour: think about who made it, why they made it, and were they the decorating type. That'll tell you what it was made of, and whether they painted it, and therefore what colour it "should" be.

I think the boxes/storage looks best on the roof, however you will need to add a way of getting on to the roof (ladder or a hatch).
Although, further to your thought about what would happen to the storage in the yard: maybe put some empty boxes in there to show that they have been pilfered, and therefore you don't need to make a fence.

Building is looking nice. Like the "worn" path, good touch.

Nice broken wall also.

Blog comments:
There is an ebb and flow to DDakka traffic. The time of day, and which day of the week, can greatly effect the quantity of comments that you get for a particular post. Sometimes these can't be helped due to real life commitments (a thing called "work" and an entity called "family" are often cited ) and/or geographical position: A practical or convenient time to post is not the same for everyone.

And then there's the times that the usual suspects to your blog go awol. I've had times where one of my blogs will fly along with lots of regular visitors, and then all of a sudden it appears that no one is visiting any more. It turns out that one or more of the regulars have had to disappear for a while and that leads to...

...comments and updates draw in more comments/visitors. I've found that when I'm updating my blog(s) on a daily basis, I get lots of visitors and therefore comments. But it only takes a gap of a few days and the next update gets far fewer comments.

This boils down to a blog appearing at the top of the list. Not just in the "recently updated" list, but in "my subscribed".
I, like many people I suspect, will go though times in a day where you will lurk to see what's been going on and think "I'll comment on that later".

When "later" comes around, if that blog has been pushed off the first page or two, you forget which blogs you were going to comment on and decide to wait until it's updated next time... and a vicious circle begins.

Personally, if I'm going to comment I want to say something useful rather than "good job". However, if I can't find something to add for a while (or I have a massive backlog of blogs to comment on), I will pop in a quick "good job" post; so you should see those posts from me as a big compliment.

And recently I've been afflicted with a horrible disease that has prevented me from updating and commenting on DDakka; it's called Fallout 4.
But I am getting better. Expect me to be more regular than I have been the past couple of months.

I liked the little corner ruin with the blue interior.

and all the best to you and your father.

and I too, liked the dirty windows.

Damn, you've done a lot of stuff since I last commented.

Wow, Dr H, that was comprehensive.

I go that way sometimes. Consider it quality over quantity (of comments).

 Dr H wrote:
I go that way sometimes. Consider it quality over quantity (of comments).

I'll take it.

Hiya Waaazag

Hope your doing ok with your Dad ( as OK as you can be anyway)

The building is looking sweet, it's making me crave doing some scenery of my own again (if only I had the cash to buy my new workbench and jigsaw :()

I agree with what Dr H has posted re the building, background is key

Where is the container scatter from?

Thanks, JoeRugby! The container is hirst arts.

some really good tips on here anyone new to scenery making should take a look, well done

Best wishes to you, your father and your family Warboss. I hope for the best possible results.

The blog comment thing... y'know, sometimes all I can think to say is, "nice." which sounds, well, lame, so I end up not saying anything. What you ought to consider is the number of page views you get. That is the measure of a blog. I would say subscriptions too, but right now there is no way to know how many people subscribe to a page.

I try to post early in the morning ( EST, which as a New Yorker you are in the same zone as me.) before I head out for the day.

I vote for sandy, but then I may be a bit biased about desert or other arid themes...

@bobbuilder: thanks very much, my friend!

@Red Harvest: thanks, Red Harvest. Yeah, I try to rely on page views as a measure of how well I'm doing. And like Dr H pointed out, I notice I get a lot more views when I update more frequently. When I'm keeping up, I average about one to two hundred views a day. But as I have no metric for this I don't know if that's good or average or what.

Anyway, I appreciate all the feedback, well wishes, and advice I have gotten these past few days. It really helps put things in perspective. Thanks everyone. Have an awesome day!

I feel like I have this tendency to fall off the map from time to time. Life just gets in the way sometimes.

Sometimes, but I'm glad I still follow this

Say, what would you recommend for making wood look like concrete? I am planning ahead for this year's Army on Parade, and I wanna make a highway section for my skitarii.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Sometimes, but I'm glad I still follow this

Say, what would you recommend for making wood look like concrete? I am planning ahead for this year's Army on Parade, and I wanna make a highway section for my skitarii.

Thanks, Tiger9gamer. I would recommend mixing a 1:1:1 water, elmers glue (white glue), and Crayola air dry clay and then stippling it onto the surface of your wood. This will create a a rugged texture that your paint can then pick the detail on. Alternatively you could use craft foam to create the road bed and paint that. I find the craft foam is easier to work with, is flexible, and takes paint well. Also, it's super cheap.

Really nice to see you are alive

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
Sometimes, but I'm glad I still follow this

Say, what would you recommend for making wood look like concrete? I am planning ahead for this year's Army on Parade, and I wanna make a highway section for my skitarii.

Thanks, Tiger9gamer. I would recommend mixing a 1:1:1 water, elmers glue (white glue), and Crayola air dry clay and then stippling it onto the surface of your wood. This will create a a rugged texture that your paint can then pick the detail on. Alternatively you could use craft foam to create the road bed and paint that. I find the craft foam is easier to work with, is flexible, and takes paint well. Also, it's super cheap.

I like that idea and I'm probably going to use it for my blacktop on the street itself! And I should have specified: It is going to be a bridge, maybe 1 foot wide and 2 feet long. Any ideas for that then? also I do like that mixture idea. Would it work on pink foam too?