Two fresh pieces of terrain finished

 Over the past weeks I have been painting up quite a lot of terrain, and that to prepare already for 2027.

 

Because there will be quite some events run there, meaning more buildings the better!

 

It also helps of course to have some more finally finished for the solo OPR games I will be running here at home, and that also made me decide to "mix and match" on the scale: ruins of both pure 28mm as well as heroic 32mm, which looks huge compared to each other, but melts together on a field of battle in the end.

 

The first one finished was a small ruin in "pure 28" as such, a simple piece painted with some craft acryllics for drybrushing.

 

The second one, and as such much huger, was a 32mm heroic one, three tones acryllics and a mixture of brands of browns for the wood work. 

 

That is some nice additions as such to the tabletop for a bit of home gaming! 

Space game objective markers on a budget

 So, we build and painted the final three objective markers "on a budget" for the Warfleets day the 10th of May.

 

And "on a budget" is basically totaly free on the materials levels.

 

All where made using old compact discs, whom at fleamarkets often end up in the boxes "take away free" neat the end of those.  For the rest, nothing more was used then sand, grinded stone and pebbles, all from the garden and park roads.

 

To that end, they where glued on the compact discs, and all painted with, apart from a light drybrush on the top layer, with cheap acryll paints from the dollar store, in my case Amsterdam paints from Talens. 

 

And so, after a paint job taking about two days, most of the time paint drying, we have a solar flare, a dust cloud and an ice asteroid field to put on the table.

 

Now let's get ready for the battleday, and check back for the report around the 12th! 

Sand and Bone Terrain Pieces

 Yes, I did it this time, painted up the scenery parts of the latest Spearhead set in less then a year this time...

 

Only about half a year actually lol... 

 

The set actually was features in the WarCry set before, but as I didn't buyt that one, having the Underworlds warbands that where included already.  So now I could tackle the six parts, which are smaller, or less volumunous then the previous set.

 

The first one I painted up was the largest of the wall sections, going for a darker grey tone this time. 

  

I then did the other large section, which is a fence and paints up really fast with all the metal spikes. 

 

And as such, I also painted up the next fence section then, the smaller one, as this took about a day on and off painting while doing other things.

 

After the fences where completed, it was the small solid wall section that was then painted, rounding out the "basic" terrain pieces of the set.

 

Going into the special pieces in the set, the large female bust statue was painted up first, going for a ghostly green on her "skin".

 

The final piece to be painted was the vampire crypt, and this took the most time of all of the set to complete.

 

So there we have it, the Sand and Bone terrain set finished in the same actual year it was released... albeit with only days to spare before the year ended.

 

Ain't I a powerhouse painter lol... 

Artisan's Contest XL: Warmaster Hobgoblin Village

 A new edition of the Artisan's Contest is upon us, and I joined in for sports and motivation to finish some Chaos Dwarf related projects.

 

The theme this time: Bastions, Bulwarks and Badlands, so it's a scenery / terrain theme this time round.

 

And that motivated me to paint up the Argatoria 10mm terrain I bought a while ago to go with my still to paint Warmaster army.  It contains two small watchtowers, a big bone teeth styled entrance gate, and three tents suitable for the Hobgoblins.  As such, I would paint this up to go as a Hobgoblin settlement, including reinforced towers, to go on the tabletop.  And of course, they are all based together on that venerable piece of utility called a compact disc for those old enough to remember them things.

 

Result wise, you can find the winners and all entries HERE on the Chaos Dwarf Online community.  Lucky for me, there where actually only 3 entries, so with 3 prices (1st, 2nd and lucky participant), this meant I would be in for the prices.

 

And while I finished on the bronze spot, I actually received the silver spot price, due to one of the organisers taking second.  So a lovely unit of Highland Miniatures Bull Centaurs is heading my way now, woopwoop.

 

Those will surely take a prominent place in my forces! 

 

Scratchbuilding a Space Dust terrain piece for starship games

 Today I'm making a simple, yet effective piece of terrain for my space game battles, in te form of a space dust cloud piece.

 

Now, google space dust, and it comes in a lot of forms and clouds in our universe, so there is no right or wrong way to go about this thing.

 

So I settles on wanting to make a spiral formed piece of cloud, that can be treated as impassable or hazardous "terrain" on the tabletop.  And you need next to nothing to create it.

 

So apart from paints, what did I use? 

 

An old CD, which you often find at the end of garage sales in the "free" boxes.  Doesn't matter who is on it, but a small tip, put the shiny side downwards, the imprinted label takes paints better.

 

PVA glue and a paperclip: because you need to stick sand to the cd

 

Sand and a teaspoon: to sprinkle the sand on the CD

 

The process

 

As I said, it is a really simple piece of terrain to make.  You put down the CD flat, with the label up as mentioned before.

Then, using the PVA, I drew a spiral, "flattening" the thicker layered glue parts with the paperclip.

 

Next up, I sprinkled sand with the teaspoon over the glue, before tapping off any excess not stuck in the PVA. 

 

And that is it for the actual building of the piece, so leave it all to dry for 24 to 48 hours, and then move on to...

 

The painting

 

 It is space, so of course it needs to be against a black backdrop.  For that, and as I don't want to use my expensive wargame paints, I used hobbycrafts Acryll paints, in my case from the Talens "Amsterdam" range.  These cost about 3 euro for such a big tube, and lasts you a lot of terrain pieces to undercoat.

Once all that is dry, I wanted to make my spiralling dust a mixture of pinkish purples and light blues.  Now this is done with hobby paints, and a first layer of three was painted on the sandy parts.

 

After those, a heavy (be carefull not to rub the sand off) drybrush was done on the whole spiral, and as it's floating around dust, don't worry if some overlaps.  Heck, it makes it even look better.

 

A final, light and heavily contrasting drybrush was done, to give a good sense of deepness to the whole dust spiral.

 

So that's the spiral done, now to work a bit on the black to prevent it from being dull and boring.  This was done by adding some small patches of a very dark blue on it, and then some white dots to represent the stars out there.

 

All that was left was a coat of varnish, again using a relatively cheap hobbycraft satin varnish, to give it a bit of shine, and the whole terrain piece was finished.

 

Not counting the drytime of the glue and the varnish, this is a fun little project that can be undertaken in about half a day of work, and it gives some nice detail to your spacetable...

 

Hope you liked this little tutorial! 

Objective markers for Border Patrol at Ekeren

 So, at the end of the month I'll be participating in the Border Patrol at Ekeren tournament, which is for small forces of 500 points.

 

Of course, my Chaos Dwarfs will be the chosen force, and as I was reading over the scenario's to devise my plans, I noticed something.

 

For the first two scenario's, you need respectively two and three markers of 20mm round size for the secondary objectives, which count as battlefield decorations.

 

Now, as I was clipping off the spare parts of the Gargant Spearhead, I had a few pieces that I put aside for terrain decoration, and then decided to use a few of them to make myself my own three markers.

 

The flattened goblin, the running human and the skeletal waypost are all excellent for this, so I took one of each and themed them to my basing style of my army.  So it looks the goblin fell into the magma, the human flees from it, and the post, well, just stands somewhere along the way...

 

A small and quick side project, but it just brings that little bit of additional flavour to the force... 

Fire and Jade Spearhead Terrain

 So the second set of Age of Sigmar Spearhead has been released... and I finally painted the scenery pieces from the first one.

 

For some reason, they always skipped the paint line, or be left on the side.

 

But now I sat down and spend some decent attention to them, in order to have them painted up at last!

 

The first one completed was the small section of ruins with the burning brazier, which was also ideal to test out the colourscheme in which I wanted to paint up the whole set.

 

The second one was the other small section, containing the toppled over Stormcast monument.  I painted this one tone darker grey, to create the idea it was carved out of a different stone later then when the original, now ruined, buildings where made.

 

And then we moved to the bigger sections, the first one I painted up was the one with the skeleton bolted to the window frame.

 

Before painting the final section, the one with the large bell hanging in the window frame.

 

The models where great fun to paint, and have some very lovely details on them for sure.  Now to get myself in action to do the new ones from Sand and Bone as well in let's say, about half a year hehehe?

 

The war against the grey, it never ends... 

Warhammer Underworlds Beastgrave terrain

 This year, I cheaply got my hands on the Warhammer Underworlds Beastgrave terrain, thanks to the Age of Sigmar magazine.

And so I have been painting these up in and between other projects, slowly rounding them out to make the boards look a bit more "sexy" during games.

 

As such, I went to assemble the 6 pieces, painting them on and off between other projects when I had like those quick 15 minutes to spare or the likes.  I also opted to vary the greys of the rockwork amongst them, as in nature rockwork isn't monotone the same either.

 

 

The first one I painted up was the poison cloud one, going for a sickly greenish colour for the smoke. 

Secondly, the small bubbly pool was painted, with which I went for some muddy coloured water inside.

 

 

The next one is a bit of a personal favorite in sculpt for me, the one with the large crystals in the centre, so I went for a purple effect.  Slaanesh and all that you know...

 

 

I then went for the piece with the large skull on it, going for a bit of a dark grey effect on the horns. 

Next, the maw with the tentacles was on the to paint list.

The final terrain piece to be painted was the large skeleton on the rocks, the biggest of the pieces.

 

And so the whole set has been painted up and ready to... become scatter terrain in solo games and such, as the new edition Underworlds has smaller hexes, no longer fitting for these pieces.

 

Never the less, it was a fun in between project to do, adding some distraction from regular paint projects.

 

 

Rocky terrain features

 It has been quite some time, but I have finished some scatter terrain pieces the past weeks.

A quick paintjob using Talens Amsterdam acryllics, ideal for 3d printed terrain stuff, and some rocks can be littered across my battlefields.

The STL was for asteroids, but their shapes and size made me think they looked very suitable for a fantasy 28mm battlefield, so I based them grassy and ready they where.

All in all a half a days work for some nice little 15 pieces of scenery, so I`m good with that.

Now to start printing some ruins and Chaos Dwarf suited terrain!