Rat13 Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Now that I've knocked out a few smaller projects and got back into the groove of painting I think it's time to tackle something a little bigger. Now this project has been on my to do list for awhile but after recently starting a Rangers of Shadow Deep campaign it has become apparent just how much it needs to get done. It's time to start my big terrain project. After our big move I saw that I actually had the space to own and store some terrain. Believe me that right there was all the prompting I needed to start collecting. So little by little I amassed quite the collection of sci-fi, modern, and fantasy set pieces in addition to a lot of smaller scatter pieces. I figured all my small scatter pieces would make for a good start. Using poster putty I attached everything to slats, trying my best to keep the three genres separate. As I was excited to start in on some of the easier pieces I even forgot to take a picture of the first set I had planned to paint. So here are all the stoney pieces after their basecoat and wash. I had hoped to get a little further tonight but the evening got away from me. This is all the more unfortunate as I wont get back to it until Thursday at the earliest, but hey at least its started. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Khan Artist Posted February 3, 2021 Share Posted February 3, 2021 Coming along nicely! If you want a cheap, easy project, order some cheap railroad plants online and drill holes to match their pegs in a piece of MDF. Glue in plans, clip off peg at base. Cover base with tea and herbs. I made a whole table in an afternoon, and they smell nice, too. Perfect for Ghost Archipelago. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 3, 2021 Author Share Posted February 3, 2021 37 minutes ago, Great Khan Artist said: Coming along nicely! If you want a cheap, easy project, order some cheap railroad plants online and drill holes to match their pegs in a piece of MDF. Glue in plans, clip off peg at base. Cover base with tea and herbs. I made a whole table in an afternoon, and they smell nice, too. Perfect for Ghost Archipelago. I actually did that too awhile back and for the same game even. I went the dollar store route however, using their succulents, wooden slats, and sand. I've actually still got a lot of leftovers from the project but haven't gotten around to making anymore yet. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 5, 2021 Author Share Posted February 5, 2021 Back at it tonight just as planned. I'm happy to report that I even though I took a night off I'm still way further along than I thought I'd be. All the stone recieved a heavy drybrush and a final grime wash, so they're done. The doors were even finished tonight and thanks to an overpour of brown I basecoated the dirt on six objective markers too. If that wasn't enough I also finished a wooden barrel, a crate, and all the metal barrels. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 6, 2021 Author Share Posted February 6, 2021 Got a bit of free time while the kid napped so I went ahead and sealed everything. My desk was getting pretty cluttered so though I'd prefer to seal everything in one go this was a necessary step. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 7, 2021 Author Share Posted February 7, 2021 Almost zoomed ahead to the next batch without painting the bottoms of the current one. This step may not be all that important for the doorways but it's certainly necessary for everything else. After rectifying that mistake I decided to call it a night. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 Finally found a use for a container the wife found at the dollar store. Apparently it is excellent for small terrain pieces and is a much better system than my previous one (putting individual pieces in separate "bits" bags). The pieces are not as protected but they're much more accessible. On the painting side of things I started working on more of the Tiny Terrain pieces. In one night I even finished two more batches, the generators and the power cells. I even went ahead and replicated the company's suggested color scheme. Now I'm not exactly displeased with these pieces but they do have some problems. They have more bubbles than I'd like, some of their "bases" have an overflow issue, and all the crystals on top of the power cells snapped off. They are however fairly nice sculpts if a bit simple and at only a dollar apiece the price is right. I can certainly see their appeal. For my purposes I think they'll make great scatter pieces but they'd also be great additions to large terrain features or even dioramas. I can definitely see myself buying more of these if for no other reason than to just have some on hand. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Khan Artist Posted February 8, 2021 Share Posted February 8, 2021 I hear you, brother. My recent order from Scotia Grendel isn't 100% happy either. Turns out, resin doesn't like to be underpackaged for international travel. About 1/3 of the pieces were broken and they haven't replied to my email telling them that. I was able to glue them back together, but they won't be travelling out of the house. Anything that travels is either cheap, plastic or both. They also need sanding or scraping with a heavy duty project knife. Not many bubbles, and no seam lines, but the face on the sarcophagus is miscast. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 8, 2021 Author Share Posted February 8, 2021 33 minutes ago, Great Khan Artist said: I was able to glue them back together, but they won't be travelling out of the house. Anything that travels is either cheap, plastic or both. They also need sanding or scraping with a heavy duty project knife. Not many bubbles, and no seam lines, but the face on the sarcophagus is miscast. Yeah, had I known they were resin I probably wouldn't have bought them. You always hear how resin can achieve such crisp details but I don't think that crispness justifies its brittle nature. Anytime I've ever worked with resin pieces I always end up breaking something, this being the rare exception. Though the only thing I could have broken on these chunky pieces was already broken on arrival. In fairness the Jersey barriers and walls all had the same problems, it just didn't matter. With those pieces any mistake just ended up giving the piece more character. Whenever they're not trying to replicate something typically made of concrete however it really becomes an issue. I'm all for battle damage I'd just prefer to decide where to put it. Thankfully none of these will be seeing any travel beyond the storage tote to the game table and back again. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 9, 2021 Author Share Posted February 9, 2021 The power cells and generators were sealed before I moved on to the next sci-fi slat. This time I decided to go with brighter colors, thinking that if I didn't like it I could always just bring everything down with a wash. The results weren't horrible but they weren't exactly what I wanted. So I went ahead and added a wash. In retrospect I probably should have used the wash sparingly as it brought everything too far down. I'll take another look at them tomorrow to determine if I want to drybrush some areas or leave everything as it is. The console however will be staying as is. The dirty worn look really works for it as a lot of the details are broken and the sculpt itself is just so rough. It's screen will need a little more work though and I've already got a few ideas. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 11, 2021 Author Share Posted February 11, 2021 I didn't make too much progress tonight. Deciding to keep the current pieces as is however I went ahead and sealed everything. The console even recieved some attention in the form of adding a crack to it's screen. Admittedly at close up it's not great but at tabletop distance it looks pretty good. I also basecoated my next sci-fi piece, Tiny Terrain's escape pod. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 12, 2021 Author Share Posted February 12, 2021 Almost forgetting again I painted and sealed the bottoms on the latest batch of sci-fi scatter. Just like the first time this may not have been a big deal for the console, but it was certainly necessary for the other pieces. Then I started on the escape pod in earnest. I painted the base, added the details, and hit it with it's first wash. Next I painted all the metallic details in addition to adding scuffs and paint chips where appropriate. One more wash brought it all together. Tomorrow when its dry I'll take better pictures because for what was essentially a speed paint it looks pretty good. I also started working on the fantasy objective markers that got basecoated so long ago. Aside from the treasure token most of them only needed a couple colors, so they all reached the wash stage pretty quickly. The banner requires a bit more attention than the others, so I opted to ignore it for now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a better idea of what I want to do with it too. Then again I'll probably play Rangers of Shadow Deep tomorrow night so I'll actually have two days to come up with a plan. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 14, 2021 Author Share Posted February 14, 2021 Never really came up with a plan for the banner but I forged ahead anyway. I didn't make a ton of progress tonight but all of them are a little closer to finished. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rat13 Posted February 15, 2021 Author Share Posted February 15, 2021 Most nights I'm surprised by just how much I get done and this is certainly one of those nights, but hopefully you'll agree with me. After cleaning up the base rims on the objective markers I grabbed the next slats in line. Thinking I would just basecoat things and call it a night I actually ended up in a real groove and almost finished everything. Get ready for a lot of freehand of varying quality. Like usual I covered everything in a wash to dirty them up but I took all the pictures before that step so you can clearly see everything I did tonight. My two main inspiration pictures. And my actual results. I'm still getting the hang of freehand, mainly because I don't practice very much but I think I did alright. Thankfully as is the nature of graffiti most of my sloppy lettering, spacing, and inconsistency can be explained away by a rushed vandal. If nothing else this really shows just how much of a nerd I am as all I could really think to do is add a bunch of references. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Great Khan Artist Posted February 15, 2021 Share Posted February 15, 2021 Is it bad that I thought the sticker in the reference photo said "No bodies?" 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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