11/17/14: Terrain Tutorial: From Birdhouse to Burg!

This city, is my city, and I love it! Yeah I love it!

Patrick Stump aside, howdy folks!

Just a fun little project to show off! With my new studio, I've been wanting to add a table for gaming and pictures to give commissions that extra edge. Putting around online, I came across TerrainThralls, who have a lot of nicely done scratchbuilt terrain tutorials and pictures. The one that really stuck with me, though, is from Rob Hawkins. He did a lot of Games Workshop's and Privateer Press' huge terrain tables, so I really watch his stuff for tricks and tips.

The basis of this project is a wooden birdhouse, some plasticard, extra bits, and a little paint!

MATERIALS

• 1 Wooden Birdhouse (Mine is from Michaels and cost all of $5.
• Various sheet styrene (thick stripping and wood texture are ideal)
• Cardboard
• Vallejo Oxid Paste (Though simple spackling could probably work too)
• Various Warhammer Fantasy and 40k bits

A quick walkthrough on this one! I popped the windows off, the door off, and removed the hole at the top for the bird to enter. A WHFB fortress door was added to cover the door, a plastic brick wall was added at the bottom to add detail, and the attic hole was covered with a plastic Orc shield. The shingles are done with cardboard strips, and were angled as they went up to give a drooping, pointed look. Also, you can see the scale is perfect for 28mm tabletop gaming!

The windows are textured plasticard, while the hinges on the windows are little bits of plastic tubing added to the sides. The trim of the house is plastic stripping; while not necessary, they help add wall detail and texture. The walls were covered in a thin layer of Vallejo's Oxid Paste. Its decently thin and sandy, which gives everything a spackled texture. 

I also picked up a second one while I was out. All you really want these for are the shape; all the texture and detail is added by you. I also added a gutter to the smaller one, you can see it towards the middle of the picture.

Painting took less than an hour! I primed it grey, then sprayed the walls with Vallejo Model Air Ivory. The roof was sprayed with blues and greys, though it's up to you what color you spray them. The windows were brushed the same color as the roof, then were sponged with Ivory to give them a chippled, battered look. I also used weathering powders to created grime and dust on the walls and windows. 

The gutter was painted with Leadbelcher, then washed with Agrax Earthshade. A touch of Athonian Camoshade was added at the base to add detail. The posters were found on Google; I wanted to keep these fairly generic, so there's a mix of Mordheim and 40k posters. These were printed, cut out, tattered, then glued to the wall using white glue. When dry, I hit them with weathering powders and washes. 

Note: Mordheim posters from Cianty's Tabletop Wargaming; this site is amazing for terrain ideas, as well as general gaming info!

Even as a backdrop for 40k, they look excellent, and the big one isn't even finished yet!

I hope you guys find this helpful, this would work perfect for Mordheim, 40k, Fantasy (especially Blood on the Streets), Malifaux, or Wild West Exodus. Now, go to your local crafts store and start buying birdhouses!

Granesh

3/27/14: Tutorial: Making Zone Mortalis Fire Wasps

Howdy folks!

Sorry to keep you all without any major updates for a bit! Hawaii was incredible, it was nice to get out and sit on the beach for a while! A couple of the waterfall hikes on Oahu kicked my butt though! I'm a painter, not a mountain man!

But I digress! I've got a fun little project for all of you this time, something I've wanted to do for a while, and am just now getting around to! For those of you who haven't played Zone Mortalis yet: WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?! Its incredibly fun, and you can obtain the rules for free on Forge World's site (LINK). The games play incredibly quick, allow you to run units you'd never run in a normal game of 40k, and you can create a Zone Mortalis board with some wooden blocks, pink foam, or even draw it out on a big whiteboard!

After playing a couple games, though, I wanted to check out the stratagems, which no one ever seems to run! I was immediately hooked by the Fire Wasp entry; A T5, W2 Flamer with Scout on a 40mm base is AMAZING for the game. It can shut down corridors, block hallways, prevent charges, and throw wounds on both hordes and elite units alike! I'm sure Forge World will make a model for them eventually, but I saw a couple bits off Puppets War's website and just knew I had to make these bad boys!

Tutorial: Making Fire Wasps, the Easy Way!

Materials

Puppets War Flamethrower Left Palm: HERE

Puppets War Rotor Type Wing-Pack: HERE

40mm Base and Flying Stand (any height will work)

Spare bits (Tau Heads, IG Binoculars, Chaos Spikes, etc.)

Step 1: Wash the pieces and clean up any mold lines, flashing, sprue, etc. (Do I even need to say this?)

Step 2: Remove the hand from the Flamethrower Left Palm

Step 3: Flip the Flamer upside down, and glue it to the Rotor Wing Pack. The flamer pack (the part with the little "X" should meet up just about where the magnet hole is on the Wing Pack.

Step 4: Carefully drill a little hole in the underside of the flamer to mount the flight stand. Use a hobby knife to widen the hole if need be.

Step 5: Prep your base. Mine is a 40mm with textured plasticard and an old pair of FW IG binoculars to add variety to the base. Paint as desired (I prefer rust and industrial-looking numbers). 

Step 6: Customize your Fire Wasp to match your army! For the Imperial one, I simply added a set of purity seals to the side and the IG binoculars to the top to create a vision port/searchlights. For the Nurgle one, I moved the eyes to both sides, rather than on top. Chaos spikes adorn the wings, a skull with a chain adds a flesh-hook look, and the drill is from the finecast Warpsmith (his little servo-arms break too easily!)

Step 7: Prime and paint to your heart's content! For the Imperial one, I opted for a military grey with splashes of color. I get a feel of the Terran from Starcraft looking at the flash of colors on it, which is what I wanted! The Nurgle one was rusted out and sponged like the other one. Purple was used to compliment the orangish hue, and the green slime trail was made using hotglue, gloss varnish, and Moot Green. 

I added a little marking to the front of this Wasp to continue the military feel.

Not the pus spray! Anything but the pus spray!

These would be very easy to make for any other army as well. A winged Ripper with a bio-acid spray, a Tau drone with lights and antennae, and even a group of gretchin goading each other around corners and corridors with a comically large flamer, the possibilities are endless! 

40k's theme is Forge the Narrative, so why not build some fun, characterful models to match your army for that one off game of Zone Mortalis? You could even get ambitious and build a sentry gun or even your own Space Hulk for your army to defend from boarding parties!

I hope this tutorial inspired some of you to get out there and make your own Fire Wasps! I'm planning on making a couple more and sending them to some good friends, especially Carl at The Independent Characters, since I know he's got a Zone Mortalis board these would fit beautifully into! 

Alrighty folks! I'm about a month out from moving, and I'll be moving again in July, but that doesn't mean we don't have some awesome projects coming down the pipeline! Be ready for 3 tables worth of terrain! More C'tan than you can shake a Staff of Light at! An army consisting of 3 Knights and a Warhound! I might be able to sneak some Alpha Legion in there too....

Stay tuned!

Granesh

5/9/13: Tutorial: Painting your Realms of Battleboard Cheaply and Quickly!

Hey guys!

So after getting that Realms of Battleboard finished so quickly, and the positive response off the Facebook page, I figured I'd through up a little tutorial on how I got the table finished so quick. For those of you who weren't following the page, I got the board completed in just about five hours, off and on, on Saturday and Tuesday. Being the second complete board I've done, I knew what I was getting into and how to really rock the board out. Lets get started, shall we?

MATERIALS

Army Painter Fur Brown Spray

Black Spray Paint (Krylon, Citadel, whatever works)

Grey Spray Paing (I used Ace Auto Primer, its a mid grey-tone)

Brown Latex Paint (Lighter than the Fur Brown)

Several Large Brushes (For Paint and White Glue

PVA Glue (Elmer's Glue

Flock (A large bag is preferred, I ended up using 4 containers of the GW Flock)

Wal-Mart White Paint

Pallid Wych Flesh

Stormvermin Fur

PREPARING THE BOARD

The Realms of Battleboard has no release agent or anything on them, so you don't have to worry about washing them. Your first step is to spray the edges of the board with the Black Spray Paint. Don't worry about getting it on the board, we'll take care of it when we start painting.

1) Spray the Board with the Fur Brown Spray, keeping the stone and hill areas grey.

2) Spray the rocky areas and the hills with the Grey Spray Paint. Focus on the rocks, but you can spray a little bit around it to blend the rocks into the board.

3) Overbrush the board with the Brown Latex Paint. The texture on the board will do all the work for you, just don't streak the board. 

4) Overbrush the stone areas with the white paint. Again, don't streak it, just lightly brush it on and let the texture do the work.

By now, your board should look like this:

FLOCK THIS!

Its time to lay down some flock! Get your PVA Glue and your flock! Make sure you've got a surface covering, like an old tablecloth or a large poster, to collect the run-off.

1) Apply Watered down White Glue to the brown areas. Its up to you how much you cover, I prefer to have some of the base brown showing.

2) Carefully, begin laying down the flock onto the glue-covered areas.

3) Let it sit, then gently turn the board sideways and knock the flock off onto your collecting area. Put the excess flock back into the container.

4) Rinse and Repeat! Your Board will look nearly finished now!

You're not done yet!!

WOULD YOU LIKE SKULLS WITH YOUR SKULLS?

I understand all of GW's universes are wartorn, but do we need all these skulls? Lets start painting them!

1) Coat the skull areas with Stormvermin Fur.

2) Mix the Stormvermin Fur and the Pallid Wych Flesh, and overbrush it onto the skulls.

3) Lastly, drybrush Pallid Wych Flesh onto the skulls. They're a prominent part of the board, but keeping them in the same tones as the rocks makes it a little more shocking when people figure out there's a bazillion skulls on the board.

4) You're not done yet! There's bones all over the boards. Look on the hills, in the flat rocky boards, and other places. These just need a quick coat of Pallid Wych Flesh and they're done.

FINAL STEPS

At this point, you're done. You can matte varnish the board and be done. But there's a couple other things you can do. I went back through the dark grass, applied PVA again, and applied light grass. It just adds an extra variation and effect to it. While you're at it, line up the boards and decide if you need to apply any more flock. Clean up the black edges, any areas the black is still showing through on the board itself, and anything else you missed. Otherwise, NOW you're done!

I hope this helps everything trying to get a Realms of Battleboard done! It appears daunting, but tackling it in stages makes getting this project done extremely quickly!

Alrighty guys, if you have any other questions, drop me an email or hit us up on Facebook. Happy Painting!

Granesh

10/26/12: Tutorial: Vibrant Rusting Technique

Hey guys!
Wait, what is this? A new tutorial? Get outta here! No, you read that right! This is one I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and I’ve gotten pretty positive feedback from the style, so I figured it was time to rock this guy out!
This rusting technique is perfect for accent coloring to a piece, as well as complimenting a darker piece with a bright eye-catching color.

Materials Needed

• Orange Weathering Powder (I use Forge World’s Orange Rust)
• A dark and light metallic color, such as Leadbelcher and Runefang Steel
• A tissue or paper towel

Step 1: Coat the desired area in your dark metallic color (in this case, Leadbelcher).

Step 2: With your Weathering Powder, mix it together with a little water until it makes a paste. Then brush the Powder paste onto the area. Its alright if it’s a little thick.

Step 3: Using your tissue, begin to wipe away the weathering powder, focusing on the raised areas, as the rust would chip off these areas first as the object is smashed around.

Step 4: Using a detail brush, apply your lighter metallic color to the object, focusing again on the raised areas but leaving some of the darker metallics showing.

Step 5: Matte Varnish your work. Seriously, unless you wanna get orange powder all over the rest of your pieces! If the orange is too bright for your taste, you can also wash the surface with Agrax Earthshade or Nuln Oil to darken it.
This technique can apply to any surface you need. I’ve rusted the Ogre’s equipment to show how they don’t treat their armour with the greatest care, and I’ve rusted the Autoguns on my cultists to show the ragtag gear they’re running around with.



I hope this helps you, the reader, out! With the new chaos book out and the new Warriors of Chaos update out, this technique would work great on Plague Marines/Warriors of Nurgle, as well as Orcs/Orks, Ogres, and even Imperial Guard!
Alrighty, back to work!
Granesh

4/11/12: Tutorial: Painting Purity Seals, the SLW Way!

Hey guys!

What’s this? A tutorial?! I’ve been getting compliments on how I do my purity seals, so I figured I’d put up another tutorial and show you all how I do them! Trust me, its easy. This works on anything paper, from purity seals to parchment, books, seals, and anything else like that.

Painting Purity Seals
Colors Needed:

• Charadon Granite
• Dheneb Stone
• Skull White (optional)
• Any color and its highlight for the wax

Painting the Paper
Step One: Paint the parchment Charadon Granite.



Step Two: Using a 1:1 mix of Charadon Granite and Dheneb Stone, paint the parchment, keeping the Charadon Granite in the folds and recesses. It doesn’t look like you’ve done a lot, but it’ll help blend the final step.



Step Three: Paint the parchment Dheneb Stone, again leaving the Charadon Granite in the recesses and the 1:1 mix around it. As I said, step two helps blend the two stark colors and keeps the paper looking smoother.


Step Four (optional): Using a very fine tipped brush, carefully paint small lines across the parchment. You don’t need to write anything, broken up lines convey the look of text, especially at this level.



Works fine with more important characters too, like Captains or even Sergeants!



Painting the Wax
Step One: Using your chosen base color, coat the purity seal. I’m using Scab Red.



Step Two: Using a fine tipped brush, dot your highlight color onto the wax. By dotting the paint, the wax will look pitted and stamped, which is what we want.



You can see it better on the right side.

Purity seals really help to tie colors across a model. A warm army like Imperial Fists benefit from a red wax, while armies like Raven Guard or Iron Hands might do better with a Green or Blue. Just use what you think will work best with the army!

I hope this helps all you painters out there having trouble with Purity Seals. Obviously you can go deeper, but this works great on standard infantry where you just want to get things done and looking good. Speaking of looking good…



SEXY! Plan’s to get half the squad done this evening, then work on some homework…stupid papers…

Granesh