Hobby Update: Miscellaneous Terrain

In 2020, I wanted to beef up my available terrain in general; for KoW and potential things like Fistful of Lead or Grimdark Future. Prior to the pandemic breaking out, I made a few materials purchases, including "Granny Grating", toy pipes, chipboard, a few more bits from the Garden of Morr set via bits shops (finally picked up the statue).

Over the summer, my hobby space shrank more and more as working from home became permanent, but I did manage to get a bunch of terrain pieces done. The most complex piece was the river, and I'll have a separate, more detailed post for that coming up. With any luck, these will actually see the table in 2021! Apologies in advance for the pictures... all of the terrain is in storage right now, and I'm using what pictures I took at the time.

I always liked this statue. Glad I was lucky enough to snag one on its own. 

I had previously lucked out, and picked up a few tombs from online bits stores. This time, I was able to snag some fencing, and the great statue. Frustratingly, the statue doesn't have a flat base, instead having an odd V-base, meant to lock into the specific base from the kit. For a ruined setting though, that works fine! I stuck it on a lipped round base, and the statue leans forward slightly, and the terrain paste covers it up. Some brown paint and a little acrylic gloss makes it all look like the statue is teetering a bit in the mud and muck. Hard to see from the pic here though, so I'll try to point it out in a future battle report.

The fencing is frustrating delicate; the bends to the points all happened accidentally. Though, like the V-base of the statue, this can be an advantage, selling the ruined look. I snipped some of the metal fencing down too, and the result should be a nice, meandering ruined cemetery wall. 

Some potential points of interest for games. Plus some barriers.

In my bits purchase, I also managed to score a steepled tomb from the Garden. I had a previous, still unpainted, one as well, so I painted both up over the summer. The red/blue rooves look a little silly color-wise, but I rather like them. I think they would make great objectives for a skirmish game, or opposing ends of a huge cemetery zone.

The obelisk is from Reaper, and made an appearance back in 2018. Here, I managed to paint it up, and add a nice little glossy effect to it, like it is all damp and stuff. Damp is good for a Cthulhu obelisk, and this will make a nice objective or something.

Lastly in this pic, are some bits I picked up on their own, from the old Chaos Warshrine. I picked up the sides of the shrine years ago, and they've just been sitting around. The actual sides bits (the bit with the little demony face) may get turned into ramparts or fences at some point too, but for now, just the ornamental lattice is being drafted for terrain. A little green stuff was needed to get them more secured to the base, and then a basing paste was used to disguise it all. These make me think of the little energy shields from Halo? These don't seem to really offer much cover, but have a nice feel to them. 

Quick overhead shot of the river. More to come on that later... 

The statues are from a 3D printed graveyard kit I purchased back in 2018, and hobbied on that same year. I did up the tomb and tombstones then, but never got around to the statues. I did them up with the Garden of Morr statue, and this picture shows off the muddy effect a little better. The 3D prints are fine, but can look bad if you get into detailed painting, as the printer results in all the little layers and such. To compensate, I did some very messy painting and more of an "overbrush" for the lighter gray areas than a highlight or drybrush.

Roman barricades, and more statues.

I have picked up a lot of boxes of Warlord Romans over the last few years. One of the Legionary boxes comes with a bonus plastic scorpion, and related siege-y bits, one of those bits being a sudis fence. It looks like I've picked up at least 5 of these boxes to-date, as I found 5 of the fence pieces, and did up a pair of fence terrain pieces, which should look nice matching with my Kingdoms of Men.

Onto the industrial bits!

About midsummer, I started playing around more with industrial terrain, for Grimdark Future, or Fistful of Lead, with the hope that I'd get some kind of tabletop game in this year.

On the left is an oddly long can, turned into a kind of fuel tank with the help of some cereal box to cover the ends and some bendy straws. I think it needs some little warning/flamable signs or something to finish it off, but was my first attempt at an "industrial" piece, so it turned out well.

The pipes are kids "learning" toys, linked earlier. A simple hobby saw can cut through them, and I messed around with an angled cut and a rusted pipe for some light cover, and a more upright piping system spewing green gunk made of hot glue. Both worked out ok, and were good tests. I used up like, 3 of 64 pieces, so more piping terrain will be coming eventually. I think they'll look better incorporated into structures, or as kind of longer "pipe fences." We'll see...

The structure in the back was a cylinder of mixed nuts. If you remove the labeling, there is a kind of cardboard underneath. Adding some plasticard strips, and a Mantic up top, and it makes for a pretty convincing little supply depot. This was mainly a test for glues and paints, and turned out pretty good, considering I just snagged it from my recycling bin on a whim.

The mixed nuts cylinder turned out nice enough, and was a popular snack in the apartment, so I kept experimenting. Late in the summer, I was really deep into the youtube channel Wyloch's Armory. I liked his general approach to hobbying, and just found his videos quite informative. I bookmarked a lot for future use... Getting more into industrial terrain, I was really surprised with his modular terrain, and decided to try it out. Instead of soup cans, I decided to test out a big coffee tin, and that worked out well enough I decided to use up more of the squat mixed nuts things.

Not too bad.....

Mine are unlikely to be modular though. I don't know what it is, but my precision is just not there. While most of these have the 3-layers and space for tabs... my sections are all messy. Perhaps a small ground walkway, like tossing down plywood on a small construction site could be possible, but I'm certainly not going to be able to rock anything as good as Wyloch anytime soon!

Weird, DIY paper mâché.

The last things I played around with were some "bunkers" of sorts, using mushroom containers, which had the right approximate dimensions to seemingly protect a few minis. I snipped the lip of the container off as it looks weird to include it. By itself, the plastic is pretty thin and wobbly, so I tried to reinforce the interior with some PVA glue and a bunch of shredded paper towel, in a kind of odd paper mâché. I can't stand on it or anything crazy, but it can easily support some minis on top, and it doesn't bow or flex as much when handling the terrain piece, so I'm counting this experimentation as a win.

I scuffed up the exterior with some very coarse sandpaper as an easy weathering effect and to give the primer and paint something to adhere to. A juice cap and granny grating was added to make the tops more interesting, and some basic grey and metallic paints were applied. This turned out great for what is arguably "trash!"

The terrain making was a fun endeavor, though these kinds of pieces tends to take up a lot of space. I basically doubled the terrain storage space I needed over the summer! Still, it will be nice to have more fences and the ability to put more (and different) things on the table when gaming does eventually resume.