50. Streets Awash With... Wash... Building a Gaming Board part 12.

Half a Century? Big E! wept.
Also 14th post of the year so far!
Commitment and progress? I think so!

Considering it has been so long since this project got updated I'll point you to my previous posts to refresh your memory...

Back? Did you check?
No?

Well....

First off is my tests scheme for the paving slabs (The set on the right).

Pretty simple.

- Undercoat black (Chaos black/ Any acyrlic paint),

- Paint dark grey (Any will do. I used Black acrylic and white crylic. But the GW base dark grey would be fine),

- Paint light grey (may require 2 coats; My mix was somewhere between codex and fortress grey/ Mianly white with a hint of black = Pavement grey),

- Wash with watered down black, making sure it goes into the crevices. The while still wet use some tissue paper to 'dab' off most of the paint.
This will leave the paint in the crevices and give the slab a darker tone, with a dappled effect on it.

- Drybrsuh light grey (Might have to do it twice; pavement grey),

- Very light Drybrush light-er grey (pavement grey with more white).

Done!

Better?

Well I did Stage 1, 2 and 3.




So.

Step 4.
Apply black wash.



The black wash is just Chaos Black watered done a lot.
Yes you could use a wash alternative...

But this is cheaper.
Apply this liberally to the slabs



Do not let it dry, but use a bit of scrunched up kitchen towel to dab it off.




One side done to show the difference in shade.



Continue until all your pavements are done.

And that's all the update I have on that.

It is a bit laborious/back breaking.
I suggest doing it while sitting at something almost chest height.
It is that or suffer


That will do for today.
I have more to share, but I'll save it for tomorrow!

As always, thanks for reading.
All feedback welcome and such.

Over and out.

-DH-

49. Fire in the Hole! 40k Urban Terrain - Gun Emplacement part 1.

Whilst designing  terrain I've been thinking of generic terrain types (buildings and craters and such), and themed terrain.
The generic one takes care of itself(ish).
The themed on the other hand, requires a bit more forethought.

The one question I've been focusing on is; 'What armies are going to fight here?'
It is an Imperial World. Couple that with the armies I collect/intend to collect, and you have a starting point.

So far we have the Space Marines Land Speeder. I also have some Sisters themed terrain in the works.
In terms of 'generic theme,' these both don't necessarily fit.
These are both situational; Space marines may, or may not be present.

So what will?

Imperial focres of some variety no doubt. More than likely the planetary defence force.
For all intents and purposes the Imperial Guard.
So I tried to make something bassed around the material they would employ, without being to flash.

I decided to start with a fortified gun emplacement.
First step was to Create the base.
This was just some cork tile stapled to some hardboard and cut to shape using a jewellers saw.



Then it was time to play around with some fortifications.

I didn't want to buy another Aegis defence line, also I didn't want anything drastically detailed like the modifications I'd made to mine.
I wanted something that looked like it could be mass produced quickly, and put up in a hurry.
Something prefabricated and modular (that word again!).



Some wall pieces from the cities of death sprue and some high density foam/ Styrofoam/ insulation foam.
That'll do!


Next I wanted something to add a bit of variety and bite.
I thought I'd take something that time forgot out of my bitz box.



I wasn't too happy with these as they were.
They obviously are not made to stand alone, and together they look...well...



Odd?
A bit too uniform, but at the same time, not symmetrical enough (they sort of 'bend' in the middle).
Good old third edition terrain ¬_¬.

A quick google search gave me this...



So, I set to work modifying mine to better reflect reality.











As the pictures show, I just cut off the offending bits, drilled a hole in the middle, stuck a kebab skewer through and cut it to size.
I think it looks much better.
I could have attached a girder instead, but this was simpler,cheaper and just as effective.


Here's a mock up of the wall sections and the tank traps, with the gun I'm using.



The next step was to attach the fortifications to the board and add some basic details to the base.



+ bonus action shot.



I just used a knife and a screw driver to dig out some small blast craters.
A fortification in a war zone is bound to attract fire.
The green rings around the ridge are just green stuff to represent the displaced earth.
When I base it later these will be left open so I can augment them with filler and other materials to make them more pronounced.
Can't have a completely flat board now can we? :P

That is all I managed on that day.

I picked up the project again a day later and set about pepping the base with some more details so it was ready for texturing later on.



And a close up.




This is the same as the Land Speeder in terms of materials used;
Filler, bits of small and large slate.

I had to put filler on the walls to stop them from melting when I undercoat it (if I use spray...I'm undecided).
It needs sanding down to even it out, and then I can put the first layer of sand on the base.I also want to flesh out the entrenched gun. I don't think it looks Imperial enough.
Needs some tech gubbins and iconography.

Anyways.

As usual, all feedback welcome.
Hit me up here, on the B&C of @DarKHaZZl3 on twitter.

Thank you for continuing to read!

Peace!

-DH-

48. Random Update part 10. Going, going, gone! Some Experiences of the Second Hand Mmodel Market.

Hey guys, I know I said there would be another modelling update. I half lied.
My bad.

This update is about buying models on the internet.
Specifically from sources other than shops.

What sources you ask?
Well;

ebay,
Trading groups...

And well, that is about it.

Ebay
Now we all know that ebay is full of bargains and rip off, amazing service and complete bastards.
But despite being the soul destroying auction site of evil i managed to find some great stuff on there recently.
So I thought I'd share (and rub in) some of my loot.

SKULLZ ULTRAMARINE.



This guy I got for £10. Which, is really quite cheap considering how rare he is.
He has a little wear and tear; he's come off his base peg and there is some excess superglue, but nothing that isn't fixable.

GAMES DAY 2006 DWARF DAEMON SLAYER.



This is my bargain find (more so than the Skullz guy). £9.03 plus postage (£2.99).
Sure it isn't in the original packaging, but as I intend to build it I'm not bothered.
Came with an extra Damon head too!
DWARF COMMAND DRAGON SLAYER



The Dragon slayer from the dwarf command box. I probably paid too much for him (he is 1/5th of the £20 box, so say £4? I paid £6), but is is still less than, say, the new GW plastic slayer.  I can that win enough which is win for me. Especially considering....

AVATARS OF WAR DWARF BERSERKER REGIMENT (Well, half of one...).



Yup. Avatars of war do a regiment box for Dwarf Beserkers.. In other words, plastic slayers. With command options.
The box contains enough to make 20 'slayers,' but this was only half a box.
I paid £10.03 and £3 postage.
That's right! £13.03 for ten plastic models, as opposed to GW's £40 for 10 metal models.

Between this and my Dwarf bitz I'm sure I can throw together an interesting unit.
When you add in the Games Day slayer, The Daemon slayer and the Skull Pass plastic slayer, I only need two more for a 15 strong unit.
Which brings me to...

AVATARS OF WAR DWARF BERSERKER.



Make that 1 more.
I really like the Avatars of War Dwarf stuff.
I'll admit I didn't bid for this one, it was a buy it now and BNIB so I paid a little extra for him.
But still, he was only £9.95 including postage, and a much better sculpt than, say, the new GW plastic ones.

1:24 SCALE RED BRICKS

Another buy it now, and no image for this one.
£8.99 for 500 bricks. I don't know if that is a good price, but I love them!
Well, I love the idea of them. I am yet to use them. But I reckon they could be used to make some amazing basses and/or scenery.
Overall I think I did well over the past few months.
(I also bought a couple of GameCube games, which I was grossly over charged for. Swings and Round abouts, eh?).

Moving on...

Trading Groups.
The other source of models is via trading groups, such as those of Dakka, Facebook and so on.
These are often a mixed bag, with peoples issues being immediately obvious to everyone.

I've had a couple of bad scenarios occur (Items not turning up, people committing to buy and then letting you down/not replying to messages)

I'm here to endorse such groups though.

So long as you buy through paypal you are pretty much guaranteed a refund,

And as long as you send items via a reputable courier service (royal mail, for
example), you are covered for almost all losses (at least in monetary terms);
you get your postage cost back, as well as the value of the item sent (proof
required, sorry limited edition models) and the buyer as stated gets their
refund.

He's one of the best;



£20 including postage. Brand new.
I'm not complaining.

I've had some great trades too; I got rid of some OOP scouts in exchange for
the Space Hulk Genestealers. Both parties were happy; not only did we both get
something we want, we also got rid of something we don't want or need any more,
with the postage our only expenditure.
I also traded a Tau Etheral for Griff Oberwald.


Times are getting harder and harder, and hobby activities only ever get more
expensive.

So next time you're thinking of starting/expanding an army, have a look at your collection.
Do you need all the stuff you own?
Why not offload some of those projects that are never going to get done.
Use the money to buy new models, or second hand ones.
You might even find a good swap deal out there.



Got any nightmare stories about ebay/trading groups?
How about success stories?

Let me know in the comments an/or on twitter @DarKHaZZl3
Peace out, and thanks for reading

-DH-

47. Get Out, Get Out Now! 40k Urban Terrain - Crashed Land Speeder part 1.

Never have I seen such a wretched hive of scum and villainy...

Oh wait, it's the UnderHive. Of course I have!

Welcome back!
Guess what? I finally managed to get my phone working again.
You know what that means?! ACTUAL UPDATES!

Praise the Omnissiah I guess?

Speaking of Omnissiah...



Got my hands of this bad boy.
I've got to say, overall I'm impressed.
I'm not a fan of big models in games, but I love these guys.
They seem a bit under costed, but time will tell I guess.

My one gripe with the book is that it cost £25. The rules only take up 7 sides of A4 of the 60 something in the book.
Yes it is pretty. but it simply isn't worth the price tag. DO yourself a favour, and buy the eBook version. It is £5 cheaper.


Anyway, moving on.
I promised some actual models and such, so I shall deliver.

As I said before, I'm currently working on several projects (while I wait for my appetite for painting to return).
At the forefront of these are my terrain projects.
There is no point making a board if you have nothing to put on it right?

Considering I have a few projects, with pictures at several stages, I will be posting them individually, over the course of a few days.

So I present to you the (several) stages of one of my terrain wip's; The downed land speeder.
A few (well, more like eight I guess) months back I was given a fair amount of models by a friend whom no longer wished to play.
Some of this stuff was salvageable, although not a great deal; they were from a long time ago, a time when patience was the anti-christ.

One such object was a Land Speeder Typhoon.



So I took it apart. I put the missile bits to one side (Most of these were missing), and had at it!









The general idea is that the Marines took a major hit to one of the rear engines (I have yet to sort the engine block out), and were forced to disembark before crash landing. Will they have survived? Who knows?!





Positioning. Done.

I kind of wanted a little bit of a 'crashed and skidded along the floor' look about the piece.

So after some tearing chunks out and green stuffing I had this;





The main skid track belongs to the Land Speeder, the second its left wing.
They'll be suitably damaged accordingly. I need to get some gun parts from the depths of my Bitz box and/or ebay.

In the meantime (otherwise known as Today), I wanted to press on with what I could do; Adding debris.
While I liked the current pose, that green stuff mound just irked me.

So I soon saw to that!



The debris is made up of a mix of materials.
The White stuff on the floor is my old friend polyfiller. It gives a bit more variety to the ground and makes it less perfectly flat.
The big white chunks are a plaster cast of cities of death floor, tiles smashed up and placed around the crash site; I'll be posting more about plaster casting in another post... so stay tuned for that one.
The rock/stone/slate pieces are a mix of large gardening slate and the smaller slate bits from the GW urban basing kit.

There is plenty more left to be done;
More rocks, bitz, buildings and other generic debris,
I need to sculpt the seats back in,
I need to suitably damage the engine block and custom build the inside,
and once all that is done it needs to be based in line with my board.

So there you have it. A real update, and the first of many.
Hopefully I can finish 5 terrain pieces by this weekend (unpainted, obviously).


Any feedback welcome!
Also, suggestions on other urban terrain ideas.

Thanks for reading.

-DH-

44. ...OF DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. 'It Came From Under the Mountain.' Dwarfs part 2.

Welcome back to Underhive Hero.
Though in regards to today's post, under the mountain would probably be more fitting.
(And yes this is part 2. The thane, my first Hall of honour post, was technically part 1).

DWARFS.
Yup, with a new army book and some new models due for release, I thought I'd dig out my dwarf army and finally get round to doing something with it.
It has been sitting in various boxes for about 5 years now in a half built state.
Time to amend that a little.
(This theme or restarting armies and not finishing anything is getting a little over done, yes? I know.
Tough).

After painting that random thane/lord, I decided to do something a bit more ambitious/ useful.

And what else do dwarfs have if not big ass  Anvil of Doom?

Still a work in progress. I'll post more when I get round to painting.

But for now, enjoy the pictures

-DH-

42. A Road to Glory. Sisters of Battle Part 13.

Hahahahahhahahah....

Yes They are back! The nuns with guns have returned!!

I finally got round to painting a test model.
YES THAT IS RIGHT. A FINISHED TEST MODEL!







The light washes most of the highlights out.
That being said, I want to bring the bone up 1 shade, and the purple on the tabbard could do with more layers and a brighter final highlight.

But for a proof of concept I'm relativity happy.

Ignore the base though... painting marble is another thing entirely.
Something that will require some practise and experimentation.

But yeah.
The Sisters! They Live!!!

-DH-

41.Random Update part 9. Killing Them With Kindness (and a Little Spite).

So yeah, I can't be arsed to paint lamppost right now.
Go figure!

   In the meantime I'm painting all sorts of odds and ends... as you saw by my recent completed dwarf.
I guess this is just to keep my mind on painting, without drowning my enthusiasm with painting just one same process over and over.
That and ya'know, little pieces for my gaming board are not all that exciting.


Anyway, here is another little side project.

I posted this on the Bolter and Chainsword a few days back.
Unlike there, I feel I can go into more detail here.
Story time!

  A considerable amount of time ago I had a group of friends.
We'd meet up regularly and game, drink and generally be merry.
One day it all just stopped. Me and another of my friends were frozen out.

Snap back to not too long ago. I start a new relationship with someone which opens my eyes to why all this happened.
And it is petty.
Vindictive.
And just a dick move all round.

Justifiably I was angry, but as time goes this anger has faded.
I got the vast majority of those good folk back in my life now.
But I am still a little bitter.

One day, my girlfriend mentions that the instigator of this cluster fuck asked her to paint some models.
To which I replied 'fuck that shit.'

But then I thought, you know what?
I'll paint them. And well too!

I'm kind of being the bigger man.... but not really.
At the end of the day these models will have been painted by me, and everyone will know that.
I think that will be more irritating than anything; receiving praise knowing it is all down to someone you tired to freeze out.

The models in question are Space Marines of the Ultramarines, second company.

So here is the progress so far;





I managed to get the 'prototype' miniature basically finished.



So yeah. A few touch ups, and nine more to go.

HA

-DH-

39. Lights, Camera, Lamppost! Building a Gaming Board part 11.

Game Grumps sapped all my painting time last night.

  I mean, I did do 'some'

painting...
 So here it is;



Just the light done basically.

Recipe is fairly simple.
Paint the area you want to be light a light grey (I used Astronomican, because I'm still living in the past),
Next paint most of the section you just painted in a 1:1 mix of that Grey and White,
Then paint another smaller square inside that square of almost pure white (judge for yourself on this one).

After than apply a glaze of Vallejo transparent yellow (It is the same yellow I used on my Space Marine a while back),
Once this is dry add a wash of Sepia (I used Gryphone/ however the hell you spell it).




Once it dries you're done.

Since this picture I've blended the colours in together a bit more, gloss varnished it and added some 'glass' highlights.

The blended colours are made using Vomit brown and Golden Yellow (using Scorched Brown and White for darkening and lightening respectively).
Gloss varnish and add some 'reflection' type white highlights, and you're done.

You know what? Seeing as I'm feeling so goddamn generous, I'll take a quick picture
*Snap*



You can just make out the white lines... but the light kinda washes out the rust effect.
Either way, it looks good from a distance.

Just need to finish that cable and I'm done...
well, done with one of the 5 total.

Progress!

-DH-