Terrain is everything - modular plug gets painted

How much fun was this? There's nothing like doing that Ferron Proxima red planet basing. For something that was so painful to do and a permanent issue I love doing this now. Sure I've come across a few other red-planet bases that look really cool and there's still the issue that my Vermillion art paint is in fact a closer match to the 'Battlefield Mars' as I originally titled it but it makes me smile every time I finish one of these.

Of note is my use of Iyanden Darksun for the yellow. My son bought me it, he'd originally wanted to get me a Space Marine Librarian but I bargained him down, as I don't need it and they are expensive. Also, I tried to get a standard acrylic craft paint to reduce my reliance on Bronzed Flesh to lighten the Vermillion for highlights. The best I could find was a 'pumpkin' colour, which is indeed a light orange. Still, mix in some brown and we were nearly there.

Lastly a close-up of the Stargate-esque iris hatch. Successive coats of Stonewall Grey but thinned to allow some of the Red Oxisde undercoat to show through. This gives a nice weathered effect. Some slight highlights on the chevrons with the yellow stippled on to give that mottled weathered effect, love it. Now what else can i build to go in the socket?

Forgeworld - Nearly Thunderwolves

It seems Forgeworld may have just solved the Thunderwolf Cavalry dilema so many are struggling with, perhaps. Skaven Wolf Rats for Fantasy Battle. Presumably you get the 5 for £28 and you'd still need to do some work to make them less rodent and more canine/lupine but they look like a good start and even the branding look like Space Wolf runes, what do you think?

Terrain is everything - 2nd man-made hill

Having said I can't recall if this was the Athena Plateau or the Mercury Plateau, There to accompany the Vulcan Plateau I think I resolved in my head that this is in fact the Mercury Plateau. It's a uniform square [not taking into account the staircase] which better reflected the planet Mercury, whereas the Athena Plateau is/will be a long thin hill better reflecting the bow Athena used in her hunting. Look, have you seen the misplaced symbolism in star constellations? These are as good a reasons as any! 

Anyway below is the black undercoated hill with the modular socket capped off with a door and the steps faced with another new buidling material

Cable ties! Sure they're 4.8mm which means they don't quite cover the 5mm foam card but the little step adds detail and 'more detail is more detail', not to mention the many little grooves from the tie grip. I'm sure there's plenty more ways they can be used, even en masse as a whole wall texture and as I got a bag of 50 for £1 they're cheap as chips.

Here's the newly undercoated Plasma generator in plugged into the socket. More on that soon.

 And a marine in place for scale.

Terrain is everything - Dawn of War Plasma Generator part 4.

I think things are going to get a little messy/confused over the next few posts, so please bare with me. With the Plasma Generator, modular plug and second man-made hill progressing there will be a bit of overlap, separation and repetition in the pics. It's all good though.

Below we've finally got a bit of undercoat on the Plasma Generator. I tried to keep it thinner than usual to see if the folder card texture would show through, we'll see in time when the first bit of real colour goes on.

As you can see the plasma tubes seem a little pale, this may be the array of new electricity sucking Halogen bulbs we have in the kitchen. Sure the pics are not as murky as on my phone but we seem to have lost the brightness of the real Ferron Proxima which I think explains the slightly insipid gel colour.

And here we have the generator mounted in the man-made hill modular socket. For those who plan to make this baby with LEDs this could be your solution. Plenty of room to hide gubbins in this little base.

Now I can't recall if this was the Athena Plateau or the Mercury Plateau, There was very specific fluff why I chose to name the two other man-made hills that will accompany the Vulcan Plateau this way. Typically I didn't write down the blog post explaining these reasons at the time and I've since forgot the reasoning but there'll be an update on the man-made hill soon.

Last up the two tier foamcard has been covered. The template will be vague here. As you can see the diagonal cuts for the upright pieces had to be widened at the ends to accommodate the reinforcement on the uprights. This was quite difficult to measure for the trapezium, and it turned out they were all different sizes. So I'll put in a max size trapezoid and you'll just have to trim it down. I'd also used the jewels from some small jewel brads in the corners, they were just too big though and I cut them off, with some PVA residue left in place but that could me some metal corrosion. I replaced them with smaller rivets from card 'chads' made with my late Grandfather's ancient hole punch, it's still so handy.

More filler, less killer in my next update me-thinks

Terrain is everything - Heads-up

The other day I brought the joys of a site called Artificial Owl to your collective consciousnesses and I hope you got some fantastic inspiration from those pictures. Maybe you also managed to guess one of my new projects, that 'To Do List' keeps getting bigger instead of smaller! I keep asking myself why I'm adding another piece of terrain to that list when I have plenty already and we're not even playing with it. Not to mention unfinished terrain quite a few people would like to see done, Cathedral Tower anyone? But I think I answered the big question in the last post:

"I could see something unique and inspired, a cool looking terrain piece, a viable gaming structure, a creative challenge and something that's core material would be relatively cheap"

and if you recall the thing I enjoy most about 'the hobby' is the terrain building so I guess it's moot point given the focus of my passion. Anyway, were my subtle clues to my project too subtle or where they hidden sneakily in plain sight?

I give you President Ferdinand Marcos:

Can you see why I got so excited? It's a ruined building, but not a building. Now, once you add in a polystyrene head [£6.98 including postage from ebay] you have the start of a really cool terrain piece. So, gues what my brother got me for Christmas [after I told him to].

Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't an easy task and there's no STC I can prepare for it [or can I?]. The head is solid Polystyrene so I'm unsure about how to go about carving it inside. I've thought about using it to attempt some paper-mache effect but then how do I take the 'cladding off' and fill in the internal structure? There's a lot to resolve but this baby is 14" tall and once embedded into a hillside will make a really cool piece of terrain with at least three storeys to it.The other big question is do I go Ferron Rockcrete [which I don't want to do], sandstone, so it looks cool jutting out of a Ferron hillside, or alternatively go Statue of Liberty on it and Copper plate the thing in wonderfully weathered panels, hmm...

Although you could always go the complete line of sight blocker and go all Prometheus on it? It seems big heads are 'on trend'.

It's another long-term project so we'll see how it goes. I'm sure I'll have a moment of intense activity only for it to cool off and be left half-finished. Meanhwhile, the wife has noticed I have more terrain than we can ever field, not that we've played a game in a good while and she's beginning to question why? She mentioned selling stuff, to which I pointed out the issues with that and my reluctance to part with anything I've actually 'created'

Terrain is everything - modular plug

Here's a quick update on something of nothing. Originally my modular plug and socket was developed for the Vent Tower, allowing me to swap the roof section for an extra storey with the roof slotting into another socket. The socket concept was further expanded in the man-made hill [or this one] and now with my my DoW Plasma Generator I'm looking to fill that socket so you can make modular terrain pieces that you can fit together to allow for a dynamic and versatile collection of terrain pieces.

However, you may be a budding terrain hobbyist who does not wish to create a man-made hill or a Vent Tower to take advantage of a modular socket so I put together a simple base. Of course you need not make the DoW Plasma Generator with a plug on the base but I think it's nice to have the options.

So I give you a standard CD, with a sheet of foam card cut to fit and bevelled at a 45° angle. A standard Imperial socket is 47mm square, which as we know is down to the fact the Emperor's favorite number was 47. This square is removed and sheets of mounting card are used to edge the hole. In this instance I have a camera shutter/stargate-esque hatchway to the bowels of Ferron Proxima but you could use the alternative zig-zag hatch on the man-made hill. You must ensure the card isn't too thick or the plug will not align perfectly and the Plasma Generator will stand proud of the socket. As you can see I made this mistake, just a bit on mine. Enjoy the sneak peak of the Plasma Generator in it's undercoat finery, more info to follow on it's progress.

Terrain is everything - Dawn of War Plasma Generator part 3.

Here's an update just to add the finishing touches to the generator vents. As you can see mounting card was also used on the lower parts, with the two holes punched in and on the bit with the vents on. It was this second bit that I think the use of mounting card was a bit much as visually it takes away the horizontal line of the edge of the generator and instead continues the slope, which isn't the correct profile, but never mind. Cereal box card may have been a better choice here...

OK, the big question is the vents themselves. Well, my wife does a bit of card making and she has a whole slew of 'jewel brads' as shown below:

A simple operation to remove the jewel and a snip of the long brad, which together with the two short clasps holding the jewel in place can be folded back to leave you with this:

Some aluminium car body repair mesh was snipped with nail clippers to the right size, a delicate job but worth it as granny grating would be too big a mesh. This was just PVA glued in place. Of course I cocked up and snipped the four corner pieces of three of my eight Vents, which you might just be able to make out below. It's an alternative 'clean' look if you wish but I think the PVA will hold the cornered pieces in place better and more detail is more detail, best not to remove it.

Next up some rivets, in the corners of the side trapeziums and a couple of Drop Ship Aquilas, if only I had four...