What did you do today.

[Karantu]

@Karantu - Well done on making terrain. But why use card, don't you have a 3D printer?

I just enjoy scratch building terrain. And honestly, its faster and easier to build large pieces like this by hand. On the other hand the 3D printer is good for details and complicated bits, so I've been thinking of printing some bits to help spice up my scratch builds.

Also my 3D printer has been acting up lately and I've been too lazy to fix it. Building terrain is just my way of procrastinating when I should be painting models or doing things like fixing my 3D printer.

[Jye Nicolson]

So I've been playing 40K against myself for practice as well as doing some painting, and I've learned some things:

- LOS blockers just make melee armies wildly more viable, especially ruins
- I painted my Eliminators the wrong colours, should have done them Scythes style because holy hell they're good as Fists
- It is *possible* to beat the Wolves in a standup melee if you charge them, but you won't walk away with too much of that battle force left (especially if they're Repentia who are glass chainsaws, everyone involved in that fight is going to die)
- Transports are wonderful

But the most important thing was a painting tip:

- You can achieve a really great random blood splatter effect, like the Sister was just wading through the blood of heretics, if you try to paint her robe Blood Angels Red, including the inside. Red splodges everywhere!

[The Other Dave]

Blood Angels Red is pretty... authentic when wet - I spilled some on my hand the other day without noticing and was momentarily a bit freaked out.

[Konrad]

@Karantu - Well done on making terrain. But why use card, don't you have a 3D printer?

I just enjoy scratch building terrain. And honestly, its faster and easier to build large pieces like this by hand. On the other hand the 3D printer is good for details and complicated bits, so I've been thinking of printing some bits to help spice up my scratch builds.

Also my 3D printer has been acting up lately and I've been too lazy to fix it. Building terrain is just my way of procrastinating when I should be painting models or doing things like fixing my 3D printer.

@job- "Skulls for the Skull-Throne!" There you go.

@Karantu- Hey, I'm not seeing this terrain everyone is raving about. It just says "Image" where the pic should be. Can you post an old-fashioned link to cut and paste? I'm a cheapskate and enjoy making my own terrain, too. I could not find any chipboard and bought some the other day on Amazon. Shipping was a killer and for most stuff regular old illustration board will work. Chipboard is nice though, a bit stiffer and won't bend as much when you layer glue on it. Sometimes when you are using little, tiny pieces of illustration board, it will separate in layers and can be troublesome.

I've been puttying away this week. Got the 3rd version of the Digga-dino rider about 75% done and a good start on another Diggachick. I also have my own terrain project as a little side project. Pics later.

Satoru Takahashi on the FB forum posted a WIP of his "Oddball" Sherman model. So I watched Kelly's Heros again. What a fun flick. "It's a mother beautiful bridge and will be there."

[Primarch]

Satoru Takahashi on the FB forum posted a WIP of his "Oddball" Sherman model. So I watched Kelly's Heros again. What a fun flick. "It's a mother beautiful bridge and will be there."

A great movie alright. And I approve of your new avatar.

"Woof, Woof, that's my other dog imitation."

[The Other Dave]

I've been slowly chugging away at my Iron Golems over the past couple days - 5 of 8 done so far. I've been finding that even with a really simple cookie-cutter paint job things go much faster if I paint them one by one start to finish rather than the usual batch method.

For fun I threw together a process post on Twitter, so I'll share here if anyone's interested in the <spooky voice> secrets of Contrast-based NMM </spooky>


My pre-shading base is Grey Seer primer, then a dark-sepia-ish wash (about 1:1:2 VMC smoke, black ink and matt medium, plus about the same amount of water to thin) then a white drybrush. Nuln Oil would probably work too but I'm still a crusty old mix-your-own guy in some ways.


The skin is about a 1:1:2 mix of Guilliman Flesh, Basilicanum Grey and contrast medium, then I hit "chafing areas" with a 1:1 mix of Volupus Pink and contrast medium. (These guys' lore is that, being from the Realm of Metal, they have zero organic materials in their kit...) Contrasts do wet blending really well compared to acrylics because of their slow dry time so it's pretty straightforward to blend it out.


The red bits are Blood Angels Red straight out of the pot, washed with a 1:1 of reddish-brown Gore Grunta Fur and contrast medium to tone down the red and strengthen the shadows a bit.




The gold starts with straight Snakebite Leather, then fairly randomly-placed NMM highlights in VMC Light Yellow and finally spot highlights in white. Those little diagonal slashes seem to go a long way to making (what seems to me) a convincing-ish NMM - you'll see then again in the steel bits.




The steel starts with about 2:1:1 mix of Basilicanum Grey, Talassar Blue and contrast medium (I've found that mixing two colors often bumps the opacity way up with contrasts, so mixing in a bit of medium makes it behave more "contrasty" again), then again semi-random, diagonal-slashy NMM highlights in VMC sky grey then white. A bit of cleanup with dark grey and it's done.

Aside from drying time, this guy took maybe an hour altogether? If my temperament could handle batch painting (or I just had to paint a bunch of models quick, which I don't ) I could probably bash out ten guys to this level in an evening or two without too much trouble.

[Karantu]

@Karantu- Hey, I'm not seeing this terrain everyone is raving about. It just says "Image" where the pic should be. Can you post an old-fashioned link to cut and paste? I'm a cheapskate and enjoy making my own terrain, too. I could not find any chipboard and bought some the other day on Amazon. Shipping was a killer and for most stuff regular old illustration board will work. Chipboard is nice though, a bit stiffer and won't bend as much when you layer glue on it. Sometimes when you are using little, tiny pieces of illustration board, it will separate in layers and can be troublesome.

I post all of my pictures on Twitter so that might be the cause. I'll try posting them on Imgur and see if that helps.

https://imgur.com/gallery/ksth8FR

Illustration board is basically multiple layers of paper stuck together so it it tends to peel a bit during construction but I've been sealing it with Mod Podge before painting and that seems to help. It also absorbs PVA glue really well and forms pretty strong joints so that's a plus too. Although I've heard that chipboard is the same with PVA glue. Anyway I'm a firm believer of using whats available so I'm going to keep making terrain with it for now.

I'm going to try experimenting with the different types of foam that they have here once things calm down a bit.

[Konrad]

@Karantu- Cheers! Not bad. You could try polystyrene foam or foamcore (same stuff with paper facing) for the think bits. I like it as it's relatively cheap. It's easy to carve, press detail into. I'll try and find/take a pic of some of my Mordheim stuff.

[Primarch]

Just a heads up of the difference between foamcore (paper backing on foam) and plain foam, foamcore can warp pretty badly depending on how you paint it. I've had to throw out a few pieces of terrain due to warping. However, foamcore is less likely to chip with use and will look better for longer.

[Konrad]

Just a heads up of the difference between foamcore (paper backing on foam) and plain foam, foamcore can warp pretty badly depending on how you paint it. I've had to throw out a few pieces of terrain due to warping. However, foamcore is less likely to chip with use and will look better for longer.

Really! I can see that happen. 3 layers, 2 different materials. Here is a sample of my foamboard (no paper) terrain.

The stones are all carved in with an old ball-point pen. There is a bottom shot where you can see the original material, maybe 5mm thick. It's primed with black gesso as aerosol primer eats foam.


And here is a little side project I have going now. This is all illustration board. Ball-point texture and some odd, extra-putty, sacks (and fish) You can see the foamboard flagstones on the bases. and barrels.