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| The forces of Nurgle are coming! (Just look at that terrain!) |
Hey there ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to another edition of the Chaos Corner. I've got a little bit of a surprise coming up soon, but I don't want to divulge yet- it's a work in progress and I don't want to spoil anything, so just stay tuned. At any rate, I've been doing some terrain work, and I thought I'd let you in on some of that...
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| Notice- GW terrain, Armourcast, and Gale Force 9 all together. |
Terrain has never been my strong suit. I've done a ton of models, but my terrain work has always been lacking. I've never been good at it. I can't make stuff out of scratch really, and personally, I've always been much more interested in models that I'll be playing with than the terrain that just sits there. I have bought terrain pre-made from GW (the old fantasy graveyard, trees, etc), other stores on line (Gale Force 9 buildings, special order, for example), old Armourcast stuff, and private individuals (an overpass from a nice guy working out of Hawaii). I've dabbled in making my own GW buildings, but those efforts were never my best... I lost interest in it.
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| A scene from my Bachelor Apocolypse game | |
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But recently, I've had a change of heart. It really started when my wife bought me some GW terrain that I wanted.There's the field with the ruined Rhino, as well as the Marine statue with the broken aquilla. It was nice of her to buy me "nerd stuff", and my painting of them turned out pretty good. Since then, I've gotten into a bit of a habit- painting a ton of models, but then taking time to do terrain. I've done a bit with this, including the Chaos Shrine from WHF (it's Chaos, so it fits for me) and then recently the Landing Pad.I've enjoyed my terrain work, even if they don't turn out perfect.
So, I've decided to take a break from DE for a few weeks and work exclusively on terrain. I play most on 2 types of tables- grass field and urban. So, I need to make terrain for both if possible. So, let's look at the grass terrain first...
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| Now they won't topple over every 30 seconds! |
I've had GW trees for a long time. These are the ones of a type used for model railroads and such. Nice material, and a good look. I've used them for years, as a matter of fact. However, there's always been a problem- they always fell over! Just move a model near and- Bam!- fallen tree. So, after getting inspired to do terrain, I decided to put them on bases so they'd stand up. Nothing fancy- I just put them on bases and painted them green to match the battle-mat. That's it. Simple and easy- and my models will appreciate it!
But, I continued to make grass field terrain. I must admit I borrowed the idea from Bell of Lost Souls. An article there recently suggested that you use cork board (found in kitchens and such) as a base. Its solid, fairly durable as long as you don't put a ton of weight on it. So, I took a few trees and put them on. But that wasn't enough- so I decided to add statues from Lord of the Rings terrain (I had wanted to play it at the height of LotR madness, but never got around to it, but I had these pieces still- unpainted and forgotten). After placing the statues, I added static grass to parts of the statues, to make it look like moss, vines, or other overgrowth. It took me an afternoon, just about. Now, it's not the greatest terrain I've ever seen (or made), but it is effective and was quick to do.
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| Simple...easy...and fun to do! |
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| Nice ruined effect... |
So, I continued on my terrain kick. I went down into my basement and recovered my Cities of Death set. Yes, whn CoD came out, I bought a few buildings plus the giant set. Over the years, I also inherited sets from my friends. At the time, we were all gun ho for making cities and such, but that fell by the wayside. We all want to do our warriors, not terrain. But, I still have all of this stuff, so I decided to start giving it, as the Orks say, "anover go"...
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| Slightly crooked, but hey, it just got hit by an Orbital Bombardment! |
I decided to make my first building a Manufactorum tower (must be all my time playing the Manufactorum level in Space Marine from THQ). I had previously made buildings without bases. Now that had been fine, but I wanted to do something more this time out. What to do for a base? The building would be too heavy for cork. So, I did the next best (and easiest) thing for me--- I got the WHF movement tray set and used an entire sheet as the base. It costs $10 for 2, plus you get pieces that can be used for debris and girders and such. With my base ready, I began my factory...
I made a single, high tower, complete with smoke stacks at the top. I added walkways and ruined corners. But, the tower didn't end up quite straight enough. Like I said, I have a hard time doing terrain. Despite it being akin to the leaning tower, my brother justified it as "Hey, its bombed out, so it's OK if its crooked". He was right, so I kept going. I added some ruined beams and debris to the base, as well as a few resin bits from the old GW CoD basing stuff.
Painting it went quickly, as I had decided early on not to do every single detail. After all, who would look that closely at the paint job while playing a game. As long as the models looked good with it and it looked good on the battlefield, who cares of not ALL the wires are painted? So, to make it stand out from the rest of my (gray-ish) buildings, I painted it scab red with a scorched brown basecoat. The metal I did with my patented Nurgle Rust technique (brow, orange stipple, boltgun stipple over that). After a bit more detailing (but not too much)- I finished it. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I'm looking forward to seeing it on the battle field.
So, what terrain will I attempt next? I'm not sure-- but I've got a ton of CoD bits laying around, and God knows what else in my basement... We shall see. Until next time, friends...
But, I continued to make grass field terrain. I must admit I borrowed the idea from Bell of Lost Souls. An article there recently suggested that you use cork board (found in kitchens and such) as a base. Its solid, fairly durable as long as you don't put a ton of weight on it. So, I took a few trees and put them on. But that wasn't enough- so I decided to add statues from Lord of the Rings terrain (I had wanted to play it at the height of LotR madness, but never got around to it, but I had these pieces still- unpainted and forgotten). After placing the statues, I added static grass to parts of the statues, to make it look like moss, vines, or other overgrowth. It took me an afternoon, just about. Now, it's not the greatest terrain I've ever seen (or made), but it is effective and was quick to do.
I made a single, high tower, complete with smoke stacks at the top. I added walkways and ruined corners. But, the tower didn't end up quite straight enough. Like I said, I have a hard time doing terrain. Despite it being akin to the leaning tower, my brother justified it as "Hey, its bombed out, so it's OK if its crooked". He was right, so I kept going. I added some ruined beams and debris to the base, as well as a few resin bits from the old GW CoD basing stuff.
Painting it went quickly, as I had decided early on not to do every single detail. After all, who would look that closely at the paint job while playing a game. As long as the models looked good with it and it looked good on the battlefield, who cares of not ALL the wires are painted? So, to make it stand out from the rest of my (gray-ish) buildings, I painted it scab red with a scorched brown basecoat. The metal I did with my patented Nurgle Rust technique (brow, orange stipple, boltgun stipple over that). After a bit more detailing (but not too much)- I finished it. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. I'm looking forward to seeing it on the battle field.
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