'nids part 86 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt7.

In some respects I feel disappointed that I'm not sharing the following pictures 'live' so to speak. This is six nights continuous work. I cracked open the white DAS and just thought I'd see what happened. and as time went on I got better at it. Using my trusty sculpting tool I just scored some horizontal 'biomechanical' ridges and although it's not perfection by any stretch the clumsy nature of my sculpting does have a certain 'alien growth' feel to it. Day 1 aw me sculpt the left tower and for fear of ruining what I'd done I left it to dry overnight. Automatically that gives me a timescale of 8 days which is why I dropped all the other projects, although given it took around an hour to do I could easily have swapped to the vault or Tac Squad when this was done but I was a bit drained by the whole procedure. The second tower was Day 2, with an emplaced weapon slit, which I'd foolishly forgotten to add on the first tower, I wonder how difficult that will be.

Anywhere, I'd sanded the grout too much was quite flexible as I tried to sculpt the clay but it was only a minor irritant. Additionally the surface was still quite dusty, although you couldn't tell to touch but the DAS did struggle to stick. I don't know why adding water on the outside makes it stick but it does help. Maybe the clay is ultra-porous and it wicks through to help slick it up and stick to the base. I also found adding in chunks and then working them together helpful. I prepped a whole wall before I sculpted and think given the surface area you would struggle with Milliput to do this. I'm sure it'd start to go off before you got to this stage whereas a quick wipe over with water breathes life into the clay.

Here's where I shave off a day. Given these two inner walls a quite small and fiddly anyway I was prepared to gamble smudging the sculpt by doing two at once. I didn't expect them to be great so I could afford a mistake or two.

Day 4 and I treated the right tower as a single unit also, sculpting both sides of the emplaced weapon in one go. The following night I thought I could do the same on the big tower. 

With all my experience so far and growing confidence but it was a little too much and I left it with some of the elements sculpted hoping I could join them up without too much fuss.

I also filled out some of the inner battlements and Capillary towers just because I'd snagged my rubber gloves on exposed support pins a couple of times and to use up clay that had been out in the air for a bit.

Lastly I added on the forgotten emplaced weapon port - easy peasy and the remaining wall was finished off and I was able to blend it in with few problems. I'm concerned that the emplaced weapon ports are a bit bland, perhaps they could have done with a bit of texture?

I'm pretty much sculpting on the fly here, I'd intended to frame each wall [which will be bonewhite with a red flesh lining and my usual blue/turquoise chitin plate but I seem to have dropped fleshy bits on the walls which leaves the areas intended to take the fleshy bits quite plain. I also need to get my head round the Tervigon belly-esque flesh bits that will be growing out of the base...

I was going to be using some paper craft balls covered in PVA'd tissue paper but my brother reminded me about my lava balls, which are much more organic and I've also got a couple of Termagant bodies I can embed in it to look like the Bastion is gestating bioforms like a Tervigon and explain why it would be defended - so that has to happen as it's cool!

Anyway, I bet that would have been quite exciting to see that happen step-by-step each day, almost live, sorry. Although it does make it a bit easier to follow when I'll only have one post on the tutorial page and we'd be on 'nids part 91 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt13 with still tonnes to do - so much for that micro-blogging concept.

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4. | part 5. | part 6. 

'nids part 85 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt6.

In my head I'm still trying to work out which bits need to be done first, what materials will be used to make them and the best approach to take. It's not quite the tapered structure I was aiming for, although the capillary towers do create that effect although the actual Bastion itself is quite linear. Anyway, its a best guess situation at this stage and the next 'guess' was to sand the grouting down. Whatever pattern/texture/effect I'm going to do on the walls the grout is too rough to guarantee an applicaiton I'm comfortable with. Trust my luck to sculpt through some clay only to hit a spike of grout. So I bought some sponge sanding pads to shave this baby down.

After about 30 seconds, I got bored, picked up the Dremmel and found a sanding attachment and safety goggles [should have worn a filter mask too as I was coughing a bit later on] and then sanded this mother. A lot of care must be taken not to sand through the pop bottle core on the battlements, where the plastic was thinnest, but on the capillary towers it was much more forgiving.

I've been having quite a debate with myself on the issues of this non-imperial bastion and how closely it should follow the template from the standard model. In some respect I've already gone off-piste with an oblong design instead of square/circular. This could be construed as 'modelling for advantage' as I can create a wider LoS blocking piece of terrain. Of course it's really modelling to fit the crater so I can argue the case for that, however I actually read the rules for buildings for the first time properly and discovered a Bastion is classed as a 'medium sized building' which outside of the Bastion rules could be any building measuring up to 9"x9", which is quite a footprint. My Bastion is currently measuring in at roughly 8.5"x4.5", considerably less so again I think I can contend with any debate.

The other issue is weapons and firing ports. Now the standard Bastion has an emplaced Heavy Bolter at each compass point. Much as it pains me with my design I will be following this with a bolter asymetrically placed North and South i.e. North in the left tower and south in the right tower [the one not with the door]. the East and West ones are a bit more ungainly as they will have to but alongside the Capillary tower ends. The only alternative is to this would be to have two facing North and two South but I can't justify this 'broadside' configuration given the advantages this might bring so N, S, E and W it is.

Fire points will also be an issue as they should follow the compass points two with 7 vantage points in total. However there's just no way I can design this thing for them to fit that way so I will will have four on the north facing [in the original design below I was going to have 5 but given the advantages and the fact they just won't fit the design I dropped it to 4] and two on the South facing. Ultimately every list I make that will include the Bastion will also have a 75pt alternative option that I will smiling swap out should my opponent be concerned [at which point I will happily name and shame their a$$e$ on my blog! Ha, ha!] Once again the solution to fitting this all into my head so I have a mental picture of what I'm doing is to do an actual picture:

With the grout sanded down I then marked on the sketch drawing. this gives me exactly where I need to make allowances for fire points and chitin plates for the sculpting.

I also sanded and gouged out areas for the node points to be fire points and used the Dremmel to gut out the slots for the 'heavy bolters'.

Each node point was sanded to try and fit the area and surface it was attaching too, hence why they're all colour coded so I put the correct node on the correct spot.

With the nodes in situ it looks like I have quite the broadside. I may suggest that the top-right node only fires towards the right [western] side that way there are still only 3 fire points on this facing, which is the Imperial standard. In fact I'll probably create a little diagram once it's complete so I can pass it to my opponent before a game so they can be clear what each fire arc is.

Not sure how I'm going to fit the fleshy growth areas around the door, I'm running out of space inside the crater but we'll see where we're at after the sculpting goes on. I think I'll go with DAS air drying clay as I've more of it, it's cheaper and doesn't require me t mix it beforehand like Milliput. It'll be less durable but if anything gets damaged I can always use it as battle damage, I just hope it's as easy to model with as Milliput.

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4. | part 5.

Support your local blogger - Facing The Grey Tide

For those that blog we primarily made some form of commitment with ourselves. To record our efforts and share those with others. Initially that's a shot in the dark, starting something with no audience and hoping one day to have a follower, some traffic and even just one person saying - "hey I dig your stuff" which makes us all warm and gooey inside.

Over time we'll join other blogger groups and one day one of the bigger boys might share what you're doing on their blog and suddenly it looks like the Imperium turned up on your blog because your 'hits' just went through the roof. Sadly some of the big kids have taken a break which leaves us 'middle-schoolers' [thats a fair assessment of this blog I think] to try and help out the new kids.

If I'm honest that's not going to bring a massive crowd to your fledgling site and whoever does turn up will be expecting to be entertained, informed and rewarded for their visit but we do what we can.

First up is Evan S and Facing The Grey Tide at http://ftgtgaming.blogspot.com, here's what he had to say

My most recent articles feature the new Eldar Codex with a review of the book and a battle report. I'm also hoping to finish up some of the STC terrain I got from you and show that off, with all due credit when I do.

So if you like my blog and my STC's then at some point you'll get to see someone else make some.

Something I particularly like are the battle reports which include pictures and accompanying text as standard but additionally there are top down diagrammatic maps of the action like the old White Dwarf reports. When I started doing reports I was going to do something similar, just less detailed but gave it up in the end as being too laborious. As I've said an average report can take a couple of hours to put together, a lot of respect to Evan for the diagrams, I'd imagine that's at least another hour on top of what I'd normally do.

So, nip over to Evan's Facing The Grey Tide at http://ftgtgaming.blogspot.com

'nids part 84 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt5.

So I've iced my cake! Well, covered it in tile adhesive/grout. It was a cheap pot from a £1 store, I used about 2/3rds of it and applied it with a plastic spoon. it's not quite as tapered as I'd envisaged but I'm not worrying too much about that. I am worrying that it is slightly bigger than I planned, I probably should have done just the single tower regardless of the rooftop area.

As it is this represents quite a large piece of Line of Sight blocking terrain. I can definetely hide more behind it than a standard Bastion. I may have to position it obliquely so the opponents view is still a wdithe equivalent to a standard Bastion. I made sure I isolated each chitin plate so I could still take benefit from the pop bottle shapes.

The opposite side.

Next up I need to sand the grout ridges down a bit so whatever sculpting I do isn't interfered with. However, there is an 'organic termite-mound' look to it already and should you be nervous about your ability you could stop here and try and paint the beggar.

However, there are no fire points or emplaced weapon slots. I'll be representing the fire points with the ever-useful Tyranid node points. I managed to win an ebay auction with 11 of these for £2.19! So there'll be a couple left over.

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2. | part 3. | part 4.

'nids part 83 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt4.

The original plan for the capillary towers involved an empty bottle of Dove Shampoo that was quite tall which would be coated with Milliput but for some reason I'd recycled most of them a few weeks ago. Ultimately I was left with one option - a standard 2litre pop bottle. I used the upper and part of the cylindrical bit for the battlements and split the base into it's five 'petals' and trimmed and overlapped them up the tower.

Even with some heavy duty scissors you can only go so far in the base plastic as it's the thickest part. By cutting each petal out as thick as possible you then have five shapes that you can trim down so each is smaller than the nxt and that way they can 'grow' as they get further up the tower. I used mostly dress maker pins to hold it in place with some small points of hot melt glue because...

It turns out the heat of the hot melt glue can be enough to melt the plastic! You can just make out on the picture below, to the left of the middle spire, that was pinned back into place, just above that cut line you can clearly see the foamboard for the roof. This is because the plastic is melted back to that just visible white reflection then the glob of yellow glue. It doesn't matter if you can't make it out, it's there and it's an issue, particularly when you cut the battlements to fit and then they 'shrink' back from the heat, be warned [also that glue is super hot to the touch, even after application but somehow cools instantly as it burns your skin!].

Another melting area, just to the leftt side of the cross-member on the right, you can see the yellow glue curves away from the foamboard as the plastic receded. Also a genestealer for scale.

This is 15 models on the battlements, can't imagine Termagants being as forgiving and there's still scultping material to add. So long as I can fit 10 or 4-5 warriors I should be alright. I'm hoping more to be inside the building and using the fire points, not exposed on the roof.

The second main capillary tower and the two lateral towers get their pop bottle Chitinous plates. I also cut out some of the foamboard for where the door is going to be on the left.

Perhaps if I'd had some coloured bottles these would be easier to make out but hopefully the addition of grouting will strengthen and reveal the structure in it's entirety. It's surprising how quickly it seems to be filling out, hence why I've begun to focus primarily on this project ahead of the others.

Next up, lets 'ice this cake!'

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2. | part 3.

'nids part 82 - Tyranid Bastion growth pt3.

From the template post you should have seen how I've made a nice slot for my foamboard. I have to say my Dremmel has become an invaluable tool in this enterprise. I don't use it often but every time I have it has made the process easier, quicker and much more relaxing, despite spinning blades, sanders and drills at 100s or RPM

Skeletal structure in place, glued down with hot-melt glue, gotta be quick with it though. So two tools you should be looking to invest in [if you haven't already] when you have some spare cash a Dremmel [or generic equivalent] and a hot melt glue gun [which can be bought for about £5!]

Here's the reverse view, the 'South face' which will have the door on the left. You'll notice some missing pieces from the battlements. These were cut off to allow the roof to slide into the remaining uprights and the roof slots. Each piece was then glued back in place with a cocktail stick embedded inside for support.

Now I was mooching around in the garage and I had some chunks of white packing styrofoam from a desk I just put together. It was in convenient sized chunk so instead of opting for my denser [more sensible] peach foam I used the white, my scalpel and some sandpaper. There's not template for this you're just going to have to sculpt 8 columns that fit between each cross-member and follow the roof shape. Alternatively you could pack it with newspaper or tin foil I suppose.

And the North side, which will be mainly fire points and emplaced weapons.

Now here's where the story takes and interesting diversion you may recall I painted a 'hide' for my brother's pet lizard. The other day he rings me up and asks for 5 minutes of my time to "look at something and give him my opinion". I was due to game that night and his 5 minutes didn't take into account the 40ish minute round trip to his girlfriends house, the first time I had ever been and a place obviously local but actually quite unfamiliar to me geographically speaking. I was less than keen but decided to do the right thing and I have to admit it was the right decision. He's currently making a vivarium for his beasties and this is how they do it, look familiar?

Now I have to say I was amazed, my brother is the car guy, playing around with engines and stuff. The last time I saw him be this creative was when he made a remote control hover craft from plywood. Bizarrely at the weekend I'd been to get some peach foam from B&Q warehouse but they no longer stock it and here's my bro with a stack of it and at least two sheets unused :)

He showed me a couple of lizard forums where they talk about their vivarium 'builds' just like I do here and on 40k forums. There's a whole world of folk doing terrain equivalents but for pets and techniques they use that will help me. With a base of foam he will now use several layers of acrylic tile adhesive/grout. I'm pretty sure it'll be like a surf board construction, foam core with a hard bonded shell.

I'm going to nip out to a £1 store and pick up any old grout, I think the acrylic stuff is safer for the animals. Regardless, with a grout base I'll then be able to add air drying clay or Milliput decoration otherwise if I tried to apply it directly to the foam it'd probably not stick and flex too much to get a decent finish. Before all of that I need to work on the battlements and create the capillary tower plates...

Tyranid Bastion | Foamboard core template | part 1. | part 2.

You asked and the Great Devourer provides - Tyranid Bastion template

OK people, from a couple of comments it would seem there is some value in sharing the template I've used to make my Bastion, don't worry updates on that soon but before then I thought I'd share the template so folk can 'catch up' should they wish to do so. Here's  sneak peak at where I'm at, hopefully help with understanding the plans.

And you'll need the larger of the double moonscape craters and it'll need to be cut something like this, I drew  round the foamboard when it was constructed and used my Dremmel to cut the plastic.

So the template is at the link below, rest assured it's a bit whacky, well it does come from the mind of a Xenos. The difficult bits are the two cross members that are at an angle and NOT perpendicular to the centre line. Hopefully the top down views should give you a clue to how to cut the slots and the view of the crater has two yellow 8s the inner one is the roof and the outer one is roughly the footprint of the base and hopefully we'll taper all the way up to the inner 8.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B97Rk-BalgZbRFBSNS1DalRnaDQ/edit?usp=docslist_api

Updates soon, but see if you can make hoof nor claw out of it ;)