Standing on the Precipice

Well, this weekend I managed to get all the miniatures for Blackstone Fortress assembled:

I decided that simply painting in the glowing lines that represent seams in the material of the Blackstone fortress wasn't enough for me. So out came the panel line scriber and a metal ruler:

In theory I could play a game of Blackstone Fortress now. But I really want to try and paint them all before I do so... Luckily with an airbrush priming and basecoating (parts of the) mini's should go somewhat quickly.

See you next time!

Catching up

Hi folks,

Been a few weeks, sorry for not updating in the meantime.

A certain project that I made as a gift for a pair of Youtubers I really like has been received by them and so now I can share it with you.
The Youtubers in question are Snipe and Wib and the gift was a set of custom Gaslands cars in the colours of their own Space Marine Chapter, the Cardinal Archivists. I found out for each what their favorite kind of car was in the game and built them one.

Here the cars are pre-primer and painting:

 As you can see, the roofs of the cars are covered in steel tape, allowing the guns to be attached with magnets.

And the cars once painted (main colours and chapter marking done with airbrush):

I even managed to insert some drivers (somewhat) resembling the intended owners:

Both cars have been personalized to their owner, each sporting a favoured catchphrase and of course, Snipe's beloved antlers on the hood:

I also totally forgot to show you the group of Cyberpunk elite soldiers/special ops team I painted a few weeks ago:

These are old "Legions of Steel" Earth troopers, given a quick basecoat and shade with the airbrush before handpainting the details. First time in years I've used decals as well. Just a quick job to get them out of the Cabinet of Shame (more like a Room of Shame!) and table ready for when Osprey's Cyberpunk rules come out sometime next year.

The Multiverse Gaming terrain is on hold for the moment, sadly, for a combination of reasons:

For one, I want to incorporate LEDs (see previous posts about the terrain), but I found I'm getting cold feet about trying something new that I don't totally feel comfortable with in such a large project. So I will have to find/build a quick terrain project to serve as a test bed and confidence builder.

Second reason is that I've been losing the energy for large(r) hobby endeavours at the moment, due to some worry about my mother's deteriorating state of health, which means sitting idly by the sidelines as professionals essentially decide her fate. Most likely she'll need to go to a home for the elderly as she is no longer capable of taking care of herself, and no longer sound enough of mind to arrange her own affairs.

Third reason, and one that has only "materialized" this week is Blackstone Fortress. My copy arrived last Thursday, and I've spent today looking at the contents of the box, leafing the books. I've also made a start at assembling the miniatures. I assume this will be taking up my hobby time the coming weeks/months. I've always liked dungeoncrawler games, and to finally have one for 40K is quite exciting! The mini's are gorgeous, I hope the game is of similar quality as the plastics. Hopefully I'll have some worthwhile pictures for my next post.

See you all next time!

Zeal and Ardor

This post requires a song...

As said in my previous post, I'm painting a small group of Adepta Sororitas a.k.a. Sisters of Battle.
Well, they're finished:

The original plan was to use a few of them for =I=Munda as protective detail for a frail Ministorum priest. (The priest would be a non-combatant and instant loss condition if he died, to off-set using power-armoured zealots in a relatively low-powered =I=Munda enviroment.)
But with all my gaming buddies getting fired up about Kill Team, they will see use there instead (or in addition, more likely...).
 The base tones and shades for the red were done by airbrush, followed by a thin wash and handpainted highlights. This gave me a deep, rich red that looked like ancient lacquered armour. From then on everything is was painted by hand. I really enjoyed painting these. They are lovely sculpts that have aged remarkably well (except perhaps the somewhat less-than female faces, but that has been a criticism of the sculpts since the day of their release). I have a few more stashed away, as well as some Sororitas non-combatants and Saint Celestine. Those may see paint a bit sooner than I originally anticipated, due to the enjoyment of painting these models!

Pict-capture by Servo-Skull, 938.M31: Members of the Blessed Orders of the Adepta Sororitas defending a sanctuary-shrine during the bi-annual Cull of the Mutants in the lower reaches of Vattgern Hive. Though a long-standing tradition, over the past few decades, the Cull has become increasingly controversial and disputed, as it deprives the industrial houses of the Hive of vital slave-labour until the mutant populations have restored themselves.

See you next time!

A Derelict Citiplex part five, and a Kill Team

With the painting of the first quarter of the Multiverse Gaming Vault Builder Megaton Set, it's time to start building on the second quarter.
With this I'm really going off-piste, pushing the modification of the mdf even further, making a double-length wall, and severely modifying a column and one of the floor boards, so I can start integrating lighting:

 The modified column, with the additional PVC tubing, which will have EL-wire wrapped around it.

The core in situ, still without the top.

To make sure I have a place to put wiring and the powerpack for the EL-wire, I've mounted magnets in the bottom of the column and in one of the floor tiles.

 As this will leave a hole in the floor (still to be drilled in this picture) when the column isn't in use, I've magnetized a spare part to cover it:

 And I had to do a quick test-wrap with the EL-wire to test the effect:

 And in glorious motion-vision:

This weekend, I've been painting a few old metal figures to use for Kill Team:

  

 The colour scheme, although mine are darker in tone, is this piece from the old Witch Hunters Codex:

They aren't done, hopefully I can manage that next weekend.
After that, I guess I will need to continue building the Vault terrain and start fiddling about with LEDS, wiring and soldering irons...

See you next time!

A Derelict Citiplex, part four

Well, the painting part of the first quarter of my Vault Builder Megaton Bundle is done. All that's left to do is varnish the thing and add posters and proclamations (which I still need to have printed, so that will delay things a bit).

I spent the weekend cutting a few custom airbrush stencils, and combined with a few commercial ones, added some interest to the floor tiles:

After which I destroyed parts of it again:

I'm really pleased with how the weathered and worn floor looks.

Once that was done, and having yesterday and today off, I could turn my attention to the walls, giving them an all-over wash, then drybrushing wear and tear, painting in details and dirt and finally stippling on wear and rust. (For some reason, I don't know why, despite having the same hairspray treatment, the walls and columns refused to chip. So back to hand-painted chipping I was).

Resulting in this:

Some model's eye views and close-ups (as well as some Goliath Gangers in deep trouble!):

Once I add loose scatter terrain and perhaps some patches of detritus/rough groumd, this will look rather nice indeed... :D

Oh, in the intervening weeks I also built some goodies for a duo of youtubers, but I'm not showing those until they've seen it themselves. 
And most of my needed gear for integrating lights in the next set of Vault Builder terrain has arrived... Now to see if I can finangle it into these little, thin walls!

Also, friends and I have been getting more and more serious about gaming Kill Team, so this terrain should see use soon. :)  Everyone is building Kill Teams, but I've got an Ork army, I can pick a ready to go Kill Team from. But still, the frenzy of building and collecting is infectious, so I'm looking at making an entirely new team as well. I've got several options, but at this moment Sisters of Battle (using the Astartes rules for now) and a converted Ork Freeboota Kill Team seem to be leading the pack as far as enthusiasm goes. I'm limiting myself to building just one team at a time, so I'll just have to see who wins the poll!

See you next time!

A derelict Citiplex, part three

And progress continues on the Citiplex...
I've airbrushed the rust and grime basecoat on the floors and walls, then hairsprayed them (to enable chipping at a later stage, should I want to).   I managed to get the floors painted after the hairspray had dried. All this I managed to do in an afternoon off from work.

This weekend, I didn't quite get as much time as I'd liked to, but at least I managed to do the basecoat/shading for the walls and columns.
One side of each wall I painted in a tan/dirty white colour, with other side a faded, dark green.

I divided the columns in equal numbers, half getting the tan, the other half getting sprayed in green.

Now I need to decide if I want to add some coloured striping or other markings before I start the chipping process. Hopefully I can do this next weekend.

I've also, bit by bit, started receiving the EL-wire, battery packs and LEDs I need to start building the sections I want to incorporate lighting in. Frustratingly, the components that seem to take the longest to arrive are the spools of wire that I need to actually connect things together...

After years of not doing so, I'm really enjoying building scenery again and the airbrush just makes painting it once finished so much faster and more fun!

See you next time!

A derelict Citiplex, part two

Today, I did the second pass of detailing on  Multiverse Gaming's Vault Builder set.
As I said before, this is only a quarter of the total amount of terrain I bought from them. I bought two Vault Builder Kiloton bundles, each containing two sets each of Vault Builder Sector Alpha and Beta.
I didn't end up adding as much as I'd thought on this second pass, for two reasons:

-One: I was afraid I'd overclutter the terrain (an odd thought seeing the new Kill Team and other terrain coming from Games Workshop, but as I said, this is supposed to be a set of multi-genre terrain).
-Two: I got impatient, I want to primer this stuff and paint it up! Having just these two sets finished has gotten me excited about the final table.

Here's how it looks before I covered it all in black primer:

I did some things differently from the instructions given, so let's recap these. I'll also include some tips an thought on my approach:

-I replaced the cardboard inserts with 15mm diameter ribbed tubing from the local hardware store. Just slide these in, mark where to cut and glue them in once cut. Tip: Cut in the recessed parts of the ribbing and clean up your cuts so everything looks as neat as possible. When drying, wrap the columns in rubber bands so the tubing gets compressed into place. (I'll see if I can get some step by step pictures the next time I build a few more columns)

-I cut the tabs off the wall bases, so the components all stay modular.  If you built them according to the instructions, unless I'm mistaken, either everything locks together permanently, or you end up with walls standing on top of separate bases. All the items in the above picture can be separated. I did it for this set, but for the next set(s) I build I'm considering making a few double width walls. In the end I may end up building a few tiles with columns and /or walls permantly attached, in order to integrate lighting and hide the battery pack under the floors.
Tip: The tabs I cut off from the wall bases, I glued one of them onto the top of each door. This makes them easier to grab and pull out of their frames.

-I added Green Stuff (modelling putty) details. I made these by taking impressions from interesting details/elements from various unbuilt/semi-build sci-fi kits I own. (Mostly GW terrain and models, these walls have details glued on them taken from, among others, the new Mechanicus terrain, classic Necromunda bulkheads, even a Space Marine drop pod.) For the molds I used Oyumaru (a thermoplastic re-useable mold material), but you could also use Green Stuff to make the impression, just make sure you lubricate the surface enough, so the mold will come loose once cured!

-Extra details were added with parts from my scratch-building stockpile: plastic rod and guitar string pipes and cables. The retainer clips for these were cut from metal sauce/puree tubes (cut them open, wash them thorougly and flatten them out.), as was a patch panel on one of the columns. If you have a sturdy enough paper/card corrugator tool, you can also use the sturdier puree tube metal to make corrugated roofing panels.

-On one of the panels (fourth picture, lower right corner, 2 squares left from the space marine) you can just make out a large white panel. This isn't plasticcard but steel tape. The plan to add such panels here and there so I can attach setting-specific items to the walls with magnets or magnetic tape.  I've yet to build any add-ons but I'm thinking of a gothic shrine for 40K/Necromunda, a laser-cut billboard or sign for Cyberpunk, and maybe a framed poster or something for Post-Apocalypse games.
Here's a close up of the steel tape, as well as some sryrene tubing:

If you are ready to start priming your MDF terrain, just get a cheap can of matt black spray paint from the local DIY or hobby store. MDF soaks up a LOT of paint, and it would be a shame to use an expensive can of hobby primer for that!
TIP: When building the walls, have a spare lenght of MDF (from the frame the walls came from) on hand to "wiggle" the side walls to the right distance throught the connector slots. Otherwise you might find that the connectors don't quite fit into the slots, as the sides of the wall are too close together. Once again, maybe this is clearer when I take some pictures during the next assembly session.

As to why I chose Multiverse Terrain's offerings over other brands of Necromunda compatible walls? One is price, you get a lot of terrain for your money, especially considering that other companies don't offer the floorboards as part of their sets. The second is the sparsity of detail, as this means I have lots of room to add my own details and to modify the appearance of the walls. This is important to me, as I am at heart a scratch-builder, I want things to look thoroughly my own. The Multiverse walls allow me to do this without significant modification of the parts/building sequence.
Future purchase plans include the connector clips, as I forgot to order those this time around, as well as an extra 30x30cm of floorboards, to give me enough tiles to fill a complete 90x90cm/3'x3' Necromunda gaming table. Plus, Multiverse Gaming has announced more walls, sets and other items for the Vault Builder range, so I expect to get a few of those as well.

Currently the primer is curing in the garage, hopefully I can fire up the airbrush and at least do the basecoats next weekend...

See you next time!

A derelict Citiplex (for various games)

About two weeks ago, I  received my double set of Multiverse Gaming's Vault Builder set.
While the past weeks have been busy, I did manage to assemble the core structure...of one half of one of the two sets. There is a lot in there!

I already knew I wasn't going to build them as intended by its designer(s). Originally because I would be using it for Necromunda Zone Mortalis games, meaning I would 40K it up. But, with the trailer of Cyberpunk 2077 being released, Osprey's Cyberpunk skirmish rules on the horizon and a general interest in post-apocalyptic gaming. the plan morphed into something a bit more multi-genre.
So now my challenge has become to build it in a way that is sufficiently generic, but also has enough setting-specific detailing to be useable and visually pleasing in several genres, without being too visually jarring in any of them...
I do like to make it easy on myself. :D

One of the things I wanted to differently are the pillars that come in the set. Originally, these have cardboard inserts that you have to bend into a curve to fit into the pillars. The way these are lasercut, and grain of the cardboard means these do not bend cleanly enough for my liking.
But I think I've found a solution by replacing them with ribbed plastic tubing.
I have a second idea for making one of the pillars, but I need to get some longer length of wire:

Today, I spent some time on the first pass of greebling them up. I made some oyumaru molds of some interesting details from various (GW) vehicle and terrain kits. Earlier this week, I made some casts from them. Which I started glueing into place today:
 

See you all next time!

Tetanus Bridge, fait accompli

Yes, Tetanus Bridge is done:

 The part I've come to consider as the "back side".

 The top. Lots of real estate for shanty buildings and barricades.

 The nominal front, without the extra parts.

 And with the extra parts.

 And together with the terrain I had already built. As you can see, the bridge links between two of the hazard-striped steel tape sections.

 And with my Slag Barons "negotiating" the price of an off-world shipment with my Void Crows salvage crew.

 

 And some gratuitious close-ups (fuzzy because my camera won't cooperate...)

See you next time!

Tetanus Bridge

So, having a few extra days off this week, I decided to push on with the Necromunda terrain piece:

Base colours and shading are done on the metal parts of (and around) the bridge. These are all over a layer of chipping medium and will be heavily weathered, before getting dulled down with wash and some drybrushing/sponged on fresh rust. So they may seem a little bright and cheery (which the camera for some reason has amplified...). Next step for them is chipping al the paint and sealing it all with matt varnish. After that it's all hand painting to go.

As I had some spare time and a full compressor tank when this was finished I also primered the 20 Chaos marines I had ready for the army speed build project, and gave their shoulderpads their base colour and shading with the airbrush. Next step for them is airbrushing the main colour and then handpainting the details.

See you next time!