World Building

[symphonicpoet]

The fencing is particularly nice. Love the way you cut the hole through one. (And blasted a hole through the other.) I've got some worn fencing and some holes, but nothing quite like the big cut one. Might have to build some more. Well done!

 

[EricF]

The fencing is particularly nice. Love the way you cut the hole through one. (And blasted a hole through the other.) I've got some worn fencing and some holes, but nothing quite like the big cut one. Might have to build some more. Well done!

I think in my youth - blasted up fences and blood dripping from swords and bayonets was a touch more prevalent in my modelling! I'm going to rebase them this week so might throw up a fresh photo.

 

[EricF]

So now the one you have all be waiting with bated breath for .... I give you .... rocks. What battlefield is complete without random sudden outcrops of rocks!

These are actually actual rocks which have cunningly been painted to look like rocks. So we've got some MDF bases with a few rocks hot glued down and with the gaps filled in with sculptamold.

Primed and then painted with some highlights and browns on the airbrush as a base layer. I think I should have put more browns down on the grey ones, but at the time I was matching some other rocks (yes I have more rocks to share!) I'd just painted.

Then a couple of washes and some dry brushing to bring out the edges a little. Followed by plenty of greenery because that always looks good.

 

[twisted moon]

please cross-post to the geology forum.

 

[EricF]

So a return to the past again... the memory lane of unfinished terrain from my golden days of gaming...

We have some EPIC terrain, mostly constructed from some WD guides and extra points for whoever recalls the WD issue with these builds in... Anyhow I obviously never got round to finishing this stuff up. I've kept the more robust bits of terrain and will plonk them in the half empty EPIC box to perhaps return to one day, the rest I think having taken a few photos for posterity might have to depart the lead pile.

So some bunkers first, I'm amazed that after several decades that masking tape has not all peeled off. These I'll keep and might have a go at finishing up.

The defence line, well the foam core has taken a few knocks, but it's survived life in the bottom of an old Xerox box remarkably well.

The razor wire. I remember coiling all that stuff, that I'll keep. Those pesky bases where the bits of matches never stayed stuck down - they can go, I seem to recall feeling that way at the time!

Some craters or were they blast markers or minefields or something? I even managed to paint one, if I keep that rate up I might have a couple done to leave in my legacy!

Polystyrene rocks and a larger crater (probably not EPIC, but it was in the box with the rest).

Now look at these beauties (all smarties boxes). Maybe I ran out of paint or maybe I added to that building? Who knows? Such modelling skills!

 

[Niblebitzer]

Im loving those epic bunkers & defence line. I have that WD somewhere that had those guides for Epic terrain.

That car repair mesh strip rolled around bbq stick or similar is difficult to get to stick on base. I have that done exactly same but on my road pieces.

More of those at http://lunatix.epixx.org

 

[Loose Loser]

Very nice terrain, nice base. I always liked Final Liberation and all those little miniatures, specially Gargants. I like those miniatures that represented extension to Warhammer world that wasn't there in popular editions of Warhammer and 40K. Also, those Space Fleet and Battlefleet Gothic ships that you didn't have in before mentioned.

That polystyrene crater is like ordered, very nice.

Lovely Orks.

 

[EricF]

Just a quick snap of the old fences I posted a while back. As mentioned I thought I'd rebase them, but otherwise leave them unchanged.

Looking a bit fresher I think.

 

[symphonicpoet]

^It's hard to argue with a good fence, and yes, they look quite nice.

 

[twisted moon]

they look nice.

 

[EricF]

Yep, amazing how just some fresh flock brings them back to life.

So some shots of another piece, this ramshackle hut was originally from Stronghold Terrain, but they no longer sell the piece (I have half a memory that the company split and some models went off elsewhere).

Quite a nice piece with lots of little details that I painted a good few years back when I was getting back into painting. I think if I was doing it again I'd probably weather down the wood a bit more and add some moss and alge staining to the roof and walls.

 

[EricF]

Having seen some of the amazing Slann collections people have posted I thought I should get my Scotia Grendel Snake Pit out and get it painted. My casting was a little wonky so it need to go on a base and have some of the bottom disguised so I decided to make it an "outdoor" piece. Lacking any other jungle terrain - which is probably more suited to this - I though I'd just go with "a bit overgrown".

Quickly based on some foamed PVC and with some filler around the base I threw on a coat of primer and got to work. Nothing very exciting, just picked out the stones in a few shades of grey and threw some washes over them.

I wondered about doing the snakes in different colours, but opted in the end to just keep them the same. I didn't replace the missing skull by the steps. I've no idea when that came off, or if it was a miscast.

Never totally happy with modelled fire on models, but I did these in yellow and threw a little orange and red on the top with a dry brush.

 

[twisted moon]

both lovely pieces and you've more than done them justice.

 

[symphonicpoet]

The red jewels around the edge look particularly nice. And the snakes are lovely too!

 

[EricF]

Thanks, I was rather pleased with how the gems turned out myself.

So last time I brought you rocks painted like rocks, this time for the more extragant man, I give you "rocks someone else picked up, cast silicone moulds of and then cast resin copies of ... painted to look like rocks". Yes for the gamer too lazy to go and pick up rocks you can buy pretend rocks... I think this was a piece of terrain I picked up from Tiny Worlds when I was getting some brushes. To be honest they are a decent set of scatter rocks for the battlefield and were well cast.

Nothing very special in the painting. After priming (automotive etch primer) in grey I did some basic colours and highlights with the airbrush. A few more shades of grey and some browns were layered down again with my airbrush before some washes to pick out the details and then some final highlights drybrushed on softly (very fond of Rosemany & Co Smooshing Brushes for terrain painting).

Finished up with some flock, static grass and a few tufts and clump foliage.

 

[Fimm McCool]

Lovely rocks! That's going to be one excellent-looking table.

 

[EricF]

Cheers. One day I might get a table set up!

Well I manage to snap some quick photos of some ancient terrain I made many decades ago. When I say made, I really mean started. As with so many projects these were never finished. Not sure if I will go back to them. There are faults on them so I may just leave them in storage for nostalgia's sake. Hopefully my scratch building skills are a little improved these days.

All foam core with texture paint over the top, probably too much texture paint with the benefit of years.

So the next piece was a bunker that I think was from a White Dwarf terrain tutorial.

I am tempted to finish this one up, it needs some repair, but the quality of the build is better than the foam core units.

Then finally:

A fairly large temple. I quite like this, but wish I'd not coated the floor tiles with texture paint. Maybe I could re-tile it. Again I have a feeling this is based on a tutorial from White Dwarf. All shot on a Blood Bowl board I made for a Games Day, but that can be shown another day.

I think there are a still a few more retro posts I can do as and when time permits and I find the old bits and pieces!

 

[EricF]

I've finally finished up some terrain I've had sat to one side for ages... pretty rocks, specifically the Battlefield in a Box: Energon Crystals. Which were about the only crystals I could find at the time that were cast in clear plastic.

You can (like the rest of their range) use these straight out of the box, but I decided I did want to base them up as a I wanted a few larger clumps of crystals. The bases of the crystals are roughly sanded flat and I had a crazy idea (not a crazy as putting in LEDs, although it did cross my mind). I bought some 2mm mirror plasticard and cut my bases from that. Then spend a few relaxing hours going through the grits (400 - 3000) to take the sanding marks out of the bases and get them back to a optically (ish) clean surface that would let through the light, a quick finish up with a spot of acrylic polish and the undersides you'd never see again looked great! So the idea was that maybe the ambient light would go through the crystals and reflect back making them a little brighter on the battle field. Before sticking them down I did a little shading with some black pigment to just break up the continuous nature of the castings at the bottom and make them a little more interesting.

Anyhow they were glued down with a clear adhesive and some stones and bits put around along with a good glob of Vallejo Dark Earth which is my lazy man go to for texturing bases. A bit of black wash and gentle highlight later to bring out the details a bit and then a generous helping of tufts and a bit of sponge scatter and time to call it a day!

Does it work? To a degree, on the clearer casts (and they are quite varied) it works better - you can certainly see the light reflecting. So I think on balance it was worth all the sanding! The actual terrain pieces themselves are not bad, casting isn't as clean as I'd like, but maybe that just makes them more interesting?

 

[twisted moon]

they look great.

 

[Captain Brown]

Wonderful work EricF.

Cheers,

CB