More Desert Scenery

Last week I picked up the Imperial Sector boxed set of buildings to make some new scenery for my desert table I've been gaming on. It's much more fun than playing out in the wastes with just hills and mesas. So I got it home and started assembling some buildings. I really liked some of the ones that were in the battle reports in this month's White Dwarf. So looked at them for some inspiration. After assembling and gluing them to a hardboard base I decided to clip up a bunch of the sprue the buildings came on and glue it down around the base of the buildings for rubble. Then just glued some sand to the base and on top of the sprue.

Next up was to primer and paint the buildings. Also I found my last piece of moonscape so figured I'd do up a crater for this table as well. I primed them all black and got out my gw spray gun and sprayed a coat of vermin brown onto my new structures. Next up I did an overbrush of Tausept Ochre and finished off with a drybrush of bleached bone. As you can see in the pics, they came out nicely.

I figured while I was at it I'd also assemble and paint my Honoured Imperium set. So I assembled everything and primed it up and painted the broken aquilla and the ruined piece of building to match the other scenery for the desert table. I figured I'd use the Space Marine statue on various tables so went with a bronze color for it and a cement color for the base. So first up was a coat of tin bitz on the statue and an overbrush of codex grey on the base. Next I did a drybrush of dwarf bronze on the statue and a drybrush of graveyard earth on the base. Finally I finished off the base with a drybrush of bleached bone. For the statue I did a drybrush of shining gold. Now I could have stopped here but wanted it to look weathered and old so I decided to give it some oxidation by doing a wash of hawk turquoise mixed with a touch of snot green and some of the old gw green wash (from like 98) as I couldn't seem to find my thraka green wash. After diluting all this with water I went about adding wash into recesses on the status and around rivets, etc. As you can see in the pic, I think it came out rather well.

Til next time,
Steevo

Making River Pieces For My Desert Gaming Board Part 2

OK, so here we are in part 2 of 3 of my tutorial on how to make river pieces. In part 1, we cut our hardboard pieces, made a sand paste and created the riverbanks of the pieces. Now we'll paint it all and glue our pieces of scrub brush to make reeds.

Ok, first up is to get out the latex paint (Ace Sensations Earth Tone), all the banks and outer sand areas get painted with this color then a heavy drybrush of Bleached Bone. This will give us our sand color and a nice highlight.

Next up we paint the water area with the dark blue (I used an old Citadel color called Deadly Nightshade) then along the banks we'll paint Ultramarines blue. This will give the appearance of a shallower area. We'll also do a taper from any spots of sand in the middle as you see here. This is where the labeling underneath comes in. Not only does it keep the order corect so the banks line up but when you paint the shallow areas you know which way to taper the lighter color because of the directional arrow underneath.

Now onto the finishing touches. First off get out the Knarlock Green and stipple it along the banks to simulate algae and other underwater plants that grow in the shallow areas. Once this is done get out the scrub brush, a pair of scissors, and plug in the hot glue gun. Hot glue is the quickest east way to do this as it not only glues the bristles to the base but also glues them together so they don't fall over. So grab a small bunch from the brush and snip with your scissors. Then take the hot glue gun and apply glue to the bottom and then around the sides at the bottom so you are making a glued together bunch of bristles. Now, before the glue starts to cool, place the bunch of bristles in the spot you wish and hold it in place for about 1-20 seconds. As you see in the pic you want to apply around the banks and any shallow fordable areas. This looks more natural.

Once you have all the painting done and the bristles glued down it is time for the resin! That will take us to part 3 of this tutorial. Check back soon for the resin application and we'll finish the river!

Til next time,
Steevo