Saturday, November 30, 2013

Terrain: Painted and Weathered








I was stuck out here during thanksgiving in order to support my companies' systems, so while my wife enjoyed Los Angeles, I got to get some terrain built and painted. I think she might be pleased to find out she avoided a lot of mess. The sheer amount of mess painting and weathering created cannot be understated. It is always kind of fun when people see our main living room with wrap around windows and mid century modern decore, to then see my office, with paint splattered floors, miniatures, air compressors,  and half finished projects everywhere. Everyone needs a bat cave right?

I learned quite a bit building these first pieces of terrain. Some of the rubble dissolved after several applications of diluted white glue, which only became clear when the first lick of paint went on. I think buildings look ok, but I liked them a lot more during earlier stages. Too much of the stone work I carefully laid out during construction got obscured by sand and rubble. I may use this to my advantage on other buildings, since it will cut down on unnecessary detailing.

So, things I like: Statues. Quick, Easy, Awesome: QEA

I really like the space marine statue. I won a painting competition a while ago at the GW Springfield store and received one of the marine statues as a trophy. I feel kind of bad repainting it, but I loved the way the first one came out and decided I really had to have two of them.  I am looking for things that look like candles, so I can put offerings all around their feet. I think it might be cool to have notes, letters, and posters pasted all around their feet. It would also make it look like some people survived the bombardment. Otherwise the city will look completely deserted.

I've got a few more buildings to build and paint, and then I can break out my battle board and see about updating the painting on it.

Once I figure out how to remove my crashed thunderhawk from its display board and make it a movable piece of terrain I should have a good looking battlefield.

5 comments:

  1. John, these look awesome. definitely like the candle idea. you could probably just use green stuff. Also what is the board under the thunderhawk? Maybr you can just cut around it?

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    1. The thunderhawk is embedded in insulation foam, plaster, and on a chunk of drywall. I may have to just pry the thing up and rebase it it. Of course then I would not have a display board. I haven't worked up the nerve up to tear it apart yet.

      Heading out to GW springfield this morning. This terrain used all of my glue.

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  2. That looks great! Great call on the candles and votive offerings too.

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  3. Is there any chance you can give a guide as to how you painted these? Thanks mate

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    1. Sure.

      These were airbrushed a variety of grey colors and then doused in Secret Weapon Miniatures green earth weathering powder. I filled a spray bottle with it and just soaked the buildings. The bronze areas received a wash made out of the green weathering powder from SWM. The trick was to use the airbrush first to lay down a variety of tones.

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