Hive, Sweet Hive, part 5: Rust to rust.

Took a while, but I got to sit down with terrain and airbrush this weekend.
The original plan was to do the rust effects base layer Saturday so I could salt-weather the metal areas today. Unfortunately I spent most of Saturday fighting with mixing ratios and nozzle clogging (I'm fairly new to this whole airbrush thing...) and I couldn't get a mixture with a satisfying coverage without clogging constantly. So I packed things up instead.
This morning Sjors came over to lend me his Vallejo Air set, and things got off flying! It meant I didn't have to fight the mixing ratio and paint and could focus on getting used to the airbrush and getting things done instead! So today I finished the rust effects on the first terrain piece and the loose barriers and walkway. Next weekend I'll try the salt weathering and hopefully also get a start on painting the other parts of the terrain piece. Or I will keep the airbrush running and start the rust stage on the second piece as well. We'll see.

Here are the results  of today's efforts, after the airbrushing stage:

Nicely mottled, but a bit low in contrast and "pop". So I sponged on some extra orange "spot rust":

That's the ticket! Next time I work on this piece, a lot of the rust will likely be covered up again. But no matter, that's the point of the technique. Plus, as I'm not yet familiar with the technique so covering up more than I need with the rust effects at this point prevents me from accidentally uncovering bare primer during the salt weathering...

As I expect to be using a lot of wash on the Necromunda Terrain project, Sjors and I also spent some time mixing Nuln Oil and Agrax Earth surrogates, Luke's APS style.  I now have a small(-ish) jar of each, enough to thoroughly test it, and finish/drench a terrain piece or two. All in all, a good hobby-weekend!

See you next time!

Hive, sweet Hive, part 4, getting somewhere

Here's last weekends progress:

 Top platform/roadway built.

 Platforms and bridge added to the side, as well as extra detail. Sadly no real room for a full shanty house, I'll have to save that for a next terrain piece. Perhaps even make that the central theme of it...


Walkway testing, the magnets give a real strong grip and a positive connect when placing. No fear of these getting nudged and falling.

 Sturdy and stable, just the way I like it. The greatest risk will be minis sliding due to the (relatively) high angles I can connect these at.

 I even get a strong connection on the metal bottles of a Pringles can. This looks precarious, but is actually a quite stabile connection!

 The details on the other side of the Hiveway.

 The set of railings and "battlements" I built. Some of these are made from building scraps from the scenery pieces I've built. Realism, recycling and cleanup in one go! These are all magnetized to connect to the steel tape that also anchors the walkways.

 Like this. Now this setup may just be a bit excessive... ;-P

Primed the lot, hopefully paint can happen in the coming weekends. Looking forward to experimenting with the airbrush and (maybe) some weathering techniques.

See you next time!

Hive, sweet Hive, part 3: Prepwork

I felt a bit under the weather today, and needed to conserve energy and prepare for a job interview tomorrow as well. So no start on a next building just jet. Instead I attempted to do a few of the little "chores" that will come handy in the future.
I made a few Oyumari molds of some interesting features on various kits, that I may use on future buildings. I also tried out making a ladder and stairs, so I could work out any tricks or hiccups in the process before I committed to using them in a piece of terrain:

So far, so good, no major snags or problems, I just need to take the time to build them and be neat about it. I actually found the stairs somewhat relaxing to build. I need to play with the spacing a little bit, but it will grip the base of mini, so they won't fall of the stairs.

 Someone on a forum also asked for a close-up of my ladder platform prototype, so here it is:

 

See you next time!

Hive, sweet Hive, part 2

Work has progressed on building one.
I've adde more detail, in the form of piping and tubing coming out of the side as well as little scrap sheets of metal for repairs and such. Some greenstuff molded bits as well.
I've textured the Pringles tube to look nice and dirty and grungy. I also used patches of the same filler on parts of the floor and wall to get some nice texture variation. The rest was done with good old sand.

As you can see there's a bit of cover on the upper floor in this picture. That isn't permanently mounted... You see, I had a cunning plan and bought some steel tape to put along the edges of platforms. Magnets can grip on to this to mount barriers such as these or help keep bridges in place. This barrier is just a quick, nasty test case to see if things would work.
I'm glad to report they did. :D

I'm all out of primer, so I'll need to pick some up. Not knowing when a new job will start, I'll need to carefully ration my cash, so I can't really say when I can get new primer. Sucks a bit, buy hey, I've got plenty to build still!  I'm just trying to decide what I'll build next at the moment.

See you next time!

Hive, sweet Hive

Well, it was to be expected with the announced return of Necromund, that I'd dive straight in again...
While my Escher gang is still distinctly less painted than I'd like them to be I decided to start building terrain. I've only  ever played on the basic Necromunda cardboard and bulkhead terrain and I felt that needed to change. (Seeing, over the past few years, all the beautiful Necromunda/Inq28 terrain being built by hobbyists online, most notably the Yggdrassiliume board  by Neil101 and the Sump Town/Curse of the Alabaster by Shibboleth, have made me covet a nicely modelled terrain set of my own. Who said envy can't be a positive emotion? ;P )

So, with the wife away for the weekend, I dragged all my raw materials out of storage and set to. 
Here are the results halfway through day one:

Since taking these pictures around noon, I've added texture to the platforms, added hoses and tubes to the silo, some scattered debris/garbage to the ground and textured the silo to give it a nice rusty, grungy and nasty appearance. Tomorrow will bring more detailing and texturing the floor, with maybe a start on building two.
I'm planning to store as much of this terrain inside a few Pappis boxes, and to that end I've marked the dimensions of the bottom of a Pappis box on my sheet of basing materials twice. Whenever I cut a base, I will try to stay within these lines.  Any gaps and leftovers can be used for basing scatter terrain.


Ofcourse this terrain can be used for more than just Necromunda. I could use it for regular 40K (just use a bit less of it, on a larger table), Kill Team or Shadow War: Armageddon. There's the option of Inquisimunda/Inq28 ont it.  Smaller terrain items and scatter pieces, I could also use for Space Hulk (and vice versa, the SH tunnel sections can also be used for Necromunda, I "just" need to finish those too...). And ofcourse it could also see use in other Post-Apocalyptic settings.


I'm stoked and plan to spend as much of my spare time (at least until a new job kicks in) building more terrain. Hopefully the hive will rise quickly! ( So my Genestealer Cult can infect it...) 

See you next time!

Maxing the Mad, or how to make a Wasteland, part 5

Well, the final two hills have been finished.
I had some colour matching issues. As I said in a previous post my basecoat paint had run out. I couldn't find a replacement so I found a close match. I had also forgotten that I had added a fair bit of yellow to the mix last time. So these hills came out a bit more ruddy on the mid tones as well as a bit more chalky on the highlights.


I'm not too bothered as it still falls within the same natural range of colours.
Here they are, along with a dune and rocky outcrop I had done earlier for comparison:

I now have a core Gaslands/DAK terrain set, I just need to build specific items for both games/settings. But that is for a later date, I think, right now my mind is on Necromunda, and I think I'll be building terrain for that the coming weeks....

See you next time!