Wednesday 4 February 2015

Terrain is everything - quick and dirty trees

Having had my hobby skills tapped by me son a while back in making a Neon particle/atom [whatever] he asked me to help with something else. His geography class are researching 'biomes' [I think] and he got the savannah. His task was to provide the scenery - trees and ground. So that means I do it ;) Anyway the ground was easy, I just took my FREE Ferron Proxima Battlemat, stripped off the red tint and it was pretty much set.

The trees were a little more difficult, I looked at a number of tutorials, sculpting clay over a wire frame, PVA over thick twine, my son even suggested buying trees! [I nearly slapped him into next week... I only say that for comic effect]. Anyway, we nipped to the Range [craft and home items] and they had this broom.

At first glance what did you think this was? ;)
It's called a 'Beason' Broom, all I saw were some really handy twigs that I could split apart and potentially glue together. And at £3 it was great value!


Here's a closer look at the twigs that would form the potential trees.


I picked up a pack of 10 50mm aluminium discs to base them on but I still hadn't sussed how I was going to try and fix these twigs to it and each other. I contemplated hot melt glue but didn't think it would look particularly realistic with globs of glue everywhere. PVA might do it but how do you hold everything in place while the glue sets?


So I come home that night and find out that the deadline isn't next week, it's tomorrow! I'd been telling him for weeks to get it sorted and he got confirmation on Monday from his teacher it was next week only for the teacher to shift the goalposts! So we go to it, quick and dirty. I strip a bunch of twigs out, using a clothes peg to hold them together.


 I then used some spare fishing wire to tie the base together. Ordinarily this wouldn't be enough but time was short. I'd have probably coated the 'trunk' in PVA so it became a solid mass. For this I want it to be as natural as possible, luckily the fishing line isn't too noticeable. I then hot melt glue them to the aluminium discs. I was a little concerned about the blue and black glue sticks but hoped the basing would cover them up.


However, for the purpose of potential gaming terrain these are quite a bit taller than they need to be. I'm sure with some clippers they could be trimmed down.


However, these all came together in a couple of hours. For 40k I'd spray them white and be done with it, maybe even add some yellow/orange/red flock. The only concerns are the twigs do have a waxy/dusty feel to them so I question how well spray paint would adhere to the twigs.


Additionally the twigs feel brittle so I would question their durability for continuous use, however I did find even some of the thinner branches particularly difficult to cut with heavy duty scissors so perhaps my fears would be unfounded? But that's a pretty good forrest for £6 in materials and there are still four discs remaining and practically a whole broom [I only did 6 stands of trees for convenience]


Lastly we based them up - PVA and sharp sand. For his project I wanted to keep things natural and luckily my sharp sand mix is similar to the ground print out. The only real concern is whether the PVA can dry in time. I propped this box on top of a radiator and hit it with a heat gun for a bit so fingers crossed that helps speed the drying process, it's got 8 hours until school at least.


Of course the heat gun started to melt the fishing line a little bit but I stopped well before these things burst apart, although I think the hot melt glue probably is holding these things together quite well.


Anyway, if you're looking for trees I think these are quite nifty and don't require a huge amount of effort. The most difficult thing is tying the knots in the fishing line but that may be just overkill. Some of the bases I just put hot melt glue on and stuck three or four twigs in without tying them together. If these get returned I'll paint them up so you could see simple yet effective they can be.

As a matter of house keeping it seems the PTBs have now decided to restrict access to blogs for me. funnily enough I can still edit and post just not view. There were always some blogs that I couldn't see if it was referrenced as a 'games' blog, regardless of what sort of game but now all blogs have been denied. So repsonding to comments and viewing others blogs may be less timely.

Monday 2 February 2015

BREAKING NEWS - Blog Wars 9 - King in the North


Luckily for me, as I'm short of content today [and maybe Wednesday], the latest Blog Wars info has been released Blog Wars 9 - King in the North so I thought I'd share.

If it hasn't been apparent already I love this tournament and I'll definitely be doing my utmost to support Alex to ensure it continues to be a success. Hopefully my gaming buddies will join me again, and anyone who reads the blog (if it isn't too difficult to attend).

Really excited for this, check out the link and any of NY previous battle/event reports in the tabs above.

Friday 30 January 2015

Polymorph moldable thermoplastic

Recently on the internets you may have seen a number of products that are moldable thermoplastics - materials that when heated [usually in warm water] you can then remold into any shape you wis. Recently I picked some up from the Aladdins cave of art shops in Manchester - Fred Aldous. This 100g bag was just £3.35


As you can see it all comes in pellets and what i was hoping to do was just make a quick cast of a dreadnought foot to go in my destroyed dreadnought crater. So here is the polymorph in it's raw form.


When dropped into hot water it all clumps together, although I fihed it out a bit quick - inexperience.


Mt Dreadnought foot in a plastic tub.


This is the Polymorph pushed on top, as you can see some granules had not melted enough to go transparent


From underneath.


I then dowsed it on cold water to set the plastic...


which was a mistake as this stuff sets rock hard and made it extremely difficult to remove the foot. Now Fed Aldous also do that Japanese Oyumaru molding plastic which probably would have been better for a push mold.


Eventually I got the foot out but I don't hold out much hope for this as a puch mold as extracting a milliput foot would be difficult as there is absolutely not flexibility in the Polymorph once set. Also the detail is patchy, I thinnk because the beeds hadn't all melted properly. I'm sure I'll find some more uses for this though, G.O.D. if they had this in a transparent version I'd have so much fun!


Anyway, it was worth a shot and I've still got loads more to play around with but just thought I'd share my experiment.

Wednesday 28 January 2015

Christmas resin - moar your base are belong to us

I'm starting to regret that double post on the Genestealers now as my content starts to dry up, still that won't stop me throwing all these Carnifex base updates at you in one bumper crop!


I have to say these initial pics of the green digestion slime look really cool and in some respects may look better than the finished article


But you be the judge... sure there's more detail and it matches my other slime green but...


anyway it doesn't matter now it's all too late.


because I attached the rim of takeaway mango chutney tub to the edge of my base with PVA.


I then proceeded to fill it with Vernidas varnish


Here you can see how much was put in. I'd expect this to shrink by about 80% so I am going to use successive coats to build it up. Drying it on the radiator is speeding up the process a little bit.


Fingers crossed when I come to remove the form that PVA can come off cleanly too. I did a little test with the Vernidas on the plastic and it didn't stick too much so that should separate. However, that red stone on the right has highlighted another concern. I've noticed over time that previous Vernidas pits have perhaps yellowed a little bit. As you can see the surface tension of the varnish has pulled it up over the rock and already I've discovered a jaundiced tint to it.


I can live with that as although I think the crystal clear pool looks fantastic it's not particularly realistic given the stuff the nids [including themselves] will throw into a digestion pit.


I may regret not using a proper two part epoxy varnish/resin which would have done exactly what I wanted for less fuss. Anyway, this will continue to be topped up daily and eventually I'll be happy with the amount of fluid and then crack the rim. Meanwhile I've been working on Deathleaper's scenic base and actually have the first set of highlights done on 3 Deathwing Terminators!

Monday 26 January 2015

"Has anyone got wood? I need wood!"


Although my eldest son may have abandoned all 40k pretencions we do enjoy watching the always entertaining Wil Wheaton on tabletop and in so doing he has started to show an interest in other games. We recently went into a Waterstones book store and noticed they stocked a range of board games and I think the fact you were buying them from a book shop and not a 'hobby store' changed his view on them. We weren't sure which one to get and to be honest hadn't watched the original Catan on Tabletop, just the Star Trek version [mmm 7 of 9!]. Anyway, we went back again and I had a Waterstones voucher that had been burning a hole in my wallet for a year now but I was desperate for the Scarfolk book which I found and it was half price and amazingly it was a £20 voucher not £10 so I cajoled him a little bit into getting it with his recent birthday money [he had enough to practically buy my car for what I paid for it as a repaired insurance right off] and I contributed the remainder so now we have this.


As a family our gaming habits are usually the Sherlock addition of Cluedo [Clue for the American readers], Game of Life or Pop & hop [generic Frustration]. So despite the excitement I really had doubts this would ever get played but somehow the second night we had a go. I was the white, my eldest orange and my wife and youngest formed a coalition team to begin with in the blue. We stumbled through the rules and by the time we called a halt due to impending bed times I was in the lead things to an aggressive road building strategy.


A couple of nights later we attempted to pick up where we left off, it was handy that I took a picture just in case the board got knocked but we didn't take into account the youngest deciding to 'tidy the board' and so doing redistributed all our specific resource cards back into their respective piles. There was obviously recrimination, tears, frustration an attempt to soothe things over [we really don't play well together, fingers crossed this will help rectify that issue] and ultimately we were back on track. We had a lot of fun and with a sportsmanlike suggestion to my wife if she continued her road north from tile 10 instead of encircling it she could attempt to build more than then 10 road links as she would be on 9. She then managed to use up all her road pieces before me and snatch the 2 VPs from my grasp. The eldest also managed to play the most knights and I couldn't catch up. The end result was the blue coalition winning with the eldest on 9 and me trailing on 8. If the wife had failed to build her last settlement my son would have won and I'd have still been short of developing a Palace to secure 9VPs


Aside from the board hijinks, a misunderstanding with maritime trade and a last minute confusion regarding a burgling spree by the robber this was so much fun. I really hope this becomes a regular event. We think the youngest gets the gist so even if the wife decides not to play the boys and I could still give it a shot. A few more games under our belt and this will definitely be worth it, even if it's not 40k related. However it's been surprising how many people have commented on it on my Facebook timeline. I know it's treated as a 'modern classic' but I didn't realise so many people would be aware of it, but there you go!

Friday 23 January 2015

'nids part 161 - And yet Moar Genestealers

These were the final 5 Genestealer to be based. I was looking to make scenic bases with barrels but in the end just went with slate as I had it to hand and it would cost me nothing. But it was here that I realised just why these old models work so well. This is mainly because they come in two body poses with separate arms to give the vatiety. When I was kitbashing the others I tried to distribute the two poses evenly but somehow ended up with 4 leaping poses and one standing pose in this brood of 5.


And this is where the pose came alive. Once you attach these to stones you can shift the position and the result is a really dynamic leaping pose. The main reason for this is that it's leaping off the back foot whereas the current model has the front foot being the point of contact. There's just something in the back foot pose that implies there is far more momentum at play. Even when you look at the Spawn of Cryptus he's stood on the front foot.


That's not to say you couldn't reposition the new ones leaping off the back foot it's just they're naturally sculpted with the front foot attached to the 'slotta' slot. When they're all finished I'll line them up so we can compare and contrast. For now I just need to add some sand to these bases and another 5 from Deathstorm.


Then it's undercoat and put away as some of the other items need some attention, whether it's my Realm of Battle Board, Dark Angels or other secret squirrel projects I need to crack on with them instead of 30 genestealers which will ultimately drive me insane!


As there was only 3 pics I thought I'd just throw in the primed pictures and ended up taking considerably more and I could have eeked this out into another post!


Of course red oxide primed models don't show up too great on a my red planet realm of battle board but you can catch the gist until the finished models get photographed.


Toxin stealers, once again primarily used for unit identification. The majority have two pairs of toxin sacs, but I stumbled across an odd non-Macragge, on the left, and he has some of the Carnifex sacs for a more organic 'riddled with poison' effect. If I ever get any more I'll kitbash them the same so I have 5 at regular intervals and 5 poisoned all over the shop.


Some straightforward carapace armour biomorph.


Original Space Hulk stealers with extra carapace and scy-tals. I also noticed some of these have tails that look like worms, segemented with a 'head' you can use your imagination for what I'm describing it's a common image. However some of them are the same but have more of a 'cap' like pointy toadstool.  So it's interesting again to see the variety in this model.


Carnifex armour plates, scy-tals and urban bases left over from the 2nd gen Space Hulk bases that were too big for 25mm bases, if only we knew of 32mm back then...


More scytals and armour and I had one feeder tendril head left. I recently did a trade in which I swapped 3 Feeder heads for 2 pairs of Fleshborer Hives but I was sad I'd got rid of all the Feeder heads only to discover this guy amongst his mates.


And some tilt-shift shots with a bit of post production messing about.



Wednesday 21 January 2015

That little matter of varnishing

My Realm of Battle board has been languishing in the garage for a couple of months now. Although I repaired the damage wrought by the Polyvine varnish I had not finished adding shading and painted the skulls. More alarmingly the garage is where we keep the tumble dryer so it's been regularly exposed to warm, moist, fabric dust! I've covered it up but I'm well aware I'm not doing any favours to its future prospects. So I need to tackly the varnish issue. To that end I prepared this 6" strip of MDF and painted it up.


As you can see it follows my standard Red Planet Basing and I can test out a suitable varnish instead of doing it on the boards and ruining it and having to start again. Although the grain is more pronounced than my boards I'm confident that if I can seal this neatly it'll be more than OK for the smoother RoB board.


Now PeteB, Liam and Ben think I'm overly paranoid about protection*, Liam and Ben haven't varnished their boards but this 'ultra tough' floor varnish seems to be ideal.


However, the milky/creamy consistency was worrying and there is a mention of it leaving a white finish on the tin which brings us back to Polyvine territory.


So I applied the varnish, foolishly to two thirds of the piece instead of half and I think you can see it's not acceptable. Granted this was still wet but the varnish managed to 'rehydrate' [not sure if that's the correct term] the top layer of the craft acrylic and mix with the varnish. This meant the varnish took on a slight orange tint and together with it's thickness has obscured much of the deepest shaded recesses.


I was going to be much happier with a brush on varnish but at this stage I'm contemplating a spray lacquer, of course I now only have a small amount of my test strip to try it out on. The question is which brand do I go for. There are some cheap clear varnish sprays available and I know 'cheap' should have alarm bells ringing but I recently saw some forum posts saying they were very good. I've actually even got some from a purchase at a £1 shop a while back.


I wont' be touching Purity Seal but there is Plastikote and there is even a supply of Rustoleum, which usually is only available in America.


I'll hopefully pick up a Plastikote, test it and my £1 shop version if the results don't stand up I'll have to accept this isn't going to be sealed. Meanwhile I might make another test piece just in case!


* Update, this is the reason I believe I need to varnish the boards:


These are just two of the five or six paint chips I discoverd on my Realm of Battle board which hasn't even been used for gaming! It's been sat in the garage, covered in bubble wrap for a weeks


I may have caught them bringing them into the house but that questions the durability of the paint a great deal. Anyway, I've got a Matt Plastikote Varnish Spray so I'll give it a go, on the test piece first.