Monday 20 June 2011

Terrain is everything - Vent Tower pt 5. RESOLUTION

Suggestions still welcome for a new name for the 'Vent Tower'. I've managed to resolve all my issues with this building and expand it way beyond my initial concept and the end result is much better than I could have hoped for. There's far more detailing than any of my other buildings and considerably more thought, blood, sweat and tears gone into it's construction.


Here's the studded front door. I finally got some pins to stud the door with and they've come out really well. Can't say I'm convinced those hinges are functional but what you gonna do...? You can also see the roofing detail on the door arch. This will be copper/verdigrised like the Honored Imperium Statue [I'm looking forward to that!]. These strips were all done in card. I'd thought to use some plasticard strips so they wouldn't warp horizontally but cutting card was easier and the PVA saturates the card so it moulded to the curve of the arch whereas the plasticard would have always wanted to spring back to being straight. In the end there was little horizontal warping so it's all good.


Here's the fire port in the roof, so you could 8 people shooting from this building! Some detail work on the spires, more strips of card for the masonry work.


Use of the Ravenwing upgrade sprue to just add a Dark Angel vibe to the structure and not leave the surface so flat. Also a close up of the inside of one spire to see how my card work covered up some of untidy bits. Probably not the exact bits to cut and I don't know how to put this in the future STC [that bit may be left 'corrupted' in the template ;) ] but you can try and gather what was done. 


The other spire and how it was tidied up, a bit neater than the first. Also a close-up of the door if it helps. I also possibly need to trim some of the reinforcements on the base, you can see there's quite a gap between the bottom and the floor so a quick trim will resolve that. Still to decide if I should mount it on MDF. It'd be more stable and robust but part of me thinks it'd be better without.


Some more views in it's original 'stunted' state. Last time you saw this the two bar railing was only a Photoshop fantasy. You can also see where the template papers spray mount has delaminated. Sometimes it's necessary to pull these off. The tearing can also add a bit of texture.


Here's the extension...


... and here are the three separate components and their modular 'plugs' to fit them together [all masked up to prevent aerosols melting the foam core].


2 comments:

  1. Nice work. I haven't ever seen studded doors used in 40k terrain before, but it works well. Brings the gothic flavour in without loads of skulls. One window does seem rather few, but then I guess there's a roof platform for a reason.
    Of course, the blessing (and curse) of making modular terrain pieces like this is that there's always the possibility of making another section/base/top, and before you know it you've got a foamcore city.

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  2. Thanks Januarius, although with the sloped designs I've used it's quite hard to get that 'city' vibe. These are more buildings on the edge of a town. I must try to come up with more vertical deigns, although I don't really need anymore terrain. I've an idea I'm working on at the moment just so I can throw it out as a concept for willing DIYers. I think it'll be cool but I don't really need to do it to completion [but I probably will].

    Also I make it a point to always respond to those who take the trouble to leave comments. Sadly Blogger seems to be screwing all my comments up so I hope everyone understands if I'm not keeping on top of things. Thanks again.

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