Winter is already here thus I thought about warming the theme a bit by introducing a tutorial of how to make candles for 28-30mm scale. Why produce such things? In miniatures hobby candles are rare bitz among what you get in the sets designed by main miniature producers. Even if a set contains some, their number is scarce. Why not make your own and adorn bases, miniatures and even scenery with them? Be it Age of Sigmar, Mordheim, Warhammer 40,000 or just a fantasy dungeon – candles will provide mood to both miniatures and scenery. Below is a quick and easy step-by-step of how to produce your own 28-30mm scale candles. Enjoy…
1 I started with preparation of candles-to-be by cutting toothpicks into small pieces. I tried to keep all of them between 5-10mm long, to better fit into the 28-30mm fantasy scale. Once I had couple pieces done I choose some of them and drilled small holes from one side. These will be used later to hold candlewicks.
2 Next I glued the candles onto the base. In case of scenery I usually drill small holes to hold the candles in place or just glue them as it is if I'm sure the scenery won't require enchanced durability. For the purpose of this tutorial I drilled some holes in an old square Warhammer base.
3 I then glued small pieces of wire into the holes, to look like candlewicks.
4 Then came the time to cover the candles with a basing glue, applying additional glue around the base of each candle to create an effect of spilled wax.
5 Next step was to prepare couple of small flames, using a wet paper tissue. I just rolled, then cut it into small pieces, which I then rolled once again.
6 The flames where then glued to the candles with super glue and once in place - covered with glue to harden entirely.
7 I left the stuff to dry, then painted it with mix of creme and white, washed the candlewicks and flames with some washes.
The end result will look more or less like this:
“It is a Dark Time.
The might of the Empire is dust, their crown is lost to them and their glory forgotten.
The promise of an age of peace and prosperity is drowned in blood.
This is your time. For the ruins of Mordheim hold prize beyond imagination: stones of power which can grant all your wishes.
But beware of your enemies.
Fear the Possessed, the Beasts of the Pit which roam the night.
Watch for the thieves of the Rat men, the Skaven of the Underworld.
Dread the corpses who walk like the living: the foul Vampires and their rotting minions.
This is Mordheim, the city of the Damned. This is the home of all your hopes. Be wary or it will be your grave as well.”
Mordheim rb.s.124
Working with some awesome Tabbletop World terrain bringed back memories of Mordheim and how I used to create fantasy scenery for my own gaming table. The idea to revitalize entire gameboard surfaced in my mind on more than one occasion but such a feat was somehow beyond my reach. To satisfy the muse and pacify my deepest Mordheim desires I decided to go one small step at a time. My attention focused on a piece I wanted to create since the earliest days of Mordheim – a creepy, dead tree. I already made an attempt to bring life to this piece couple of years ago, but the overall effect was rather poor and I ditched the project. This time I was much more experienced and much more hyped, but most of all I have acquired a lot of new skills and got to know new techniques during these last few years. I was ready to take on this Special Project head-on.
The idea was to make a sickly looking tree, hung some stuff on it then compose the surroundings so that the entire piece of scenery would create a nice visual effect. It was supposed to be a cool looking, mood providing centerpiece. The most important features were to be looks and being totally impassable so that the terrain piece won’t cause any placement problems during the game. Along with the tree there supposed to be some sort of eye-candies in form of small detail like a hidden treasure, bones, animals etc. Also I wanted to include either a small crypt or a monument somewhere on the base to provide a stronger mood to the piece.
After selecting most of the initial materials and bitz for the project I started with the tree. I thought long and hard about where to get a long wire to base the tree upon, but in the end was able to get my hands on an old Ethernet cable. At that point I knew that I will have to strenghten the entire construction, but for the time being I concentrated on the base shape. I cut the cable into pieces, removed the excess of the outer layer and reshaped the inner wires into branches/roots on both ends of each piece. Then I grouped the pieces in twos and threes, taping them around the main trunk with a paper-tape. In the next step I composed the tree out of the newly created pieces and taped them together…
Having a tree I concentrated on basing it. Used a piece of PCV to cut the basic shape and glued a bottom piece of the statue I was going to add to the composition. I then cut the excess of PCV and modelled it a bit around the newly aded piece. I based the tree and added a huge natural rock to the base to serve as a sort of a sacrificial altar or something related to occultism (And to add weight to a base that was supposed to hold a big tree). I then used a basing glue on the entire trunk of the tree and taped it around with pieces of moisted paper towel. Left the entire thing to dry out for the night…
Upon waking up I started to add texture to the tree. There were two possible ways to achieve a durable and good looking effect. The first one was to use Green Stuff along with other sculpting putties to provide a nice texture. This one would take up a lot of time and cash so I ditched it in favor of the more simple and quicker way. Once again I used basing glue, but this time I covered entire tree. Once it was hard enough I added another layer and used a dryer to help it harden. I also applied a lot of Mourn Mountain Snow – texture paint from GW. Modelled a bit and then finished with a lot of Super Glue to harden the entire surface and strenghten the construction. This way I ended up with a nice looking, durable and highly textured tree…
Next step was to add more stones onto the base and provide a more natural shape to it. I used Green Stuff and some other modelling putties to create the base shape. It was a bit expensive, but I hadn’t had plaster around and wanted to progress without any delays. I even used up excess of the putty to quick-sculpt some fish and mutated creatures for another Special Project going on beside this one. Somewhere on the way I also started to add bitz to the tree so that it looked more Mordheim-like with hooks, nails, a dead body hunging by the neck etc…
Detailing took some time as I wanted to bring life to the piece. A short line of running rats here, A bird interrested with the candles there and a half burried treasure chest somewhere else. The work moved steadily forward and with each new feature the ‘Dead Tree’ look much more alive.
Once everything was in place I covered the entirety of the base with Stirland Mud – tecxture paint from GW. Usually I just use basing glue and sand, but this time I wanted to create something more detailed. ‘No shortcuts’ I told myself when applying the texture. Ended up with a complete piece looking like this:
What can I say – I was totally in the mood. Once I sat to paint this thing I couldn’t take a break even if only to take a work in progress picture. Just couldn’t stop. Took couple of hours to complete with me testing new recipes – wanting this one to look superior to all my previous Mordheim scenery. It turned out to be a concept foundation on which I intend to build my new Mordheim gaming board terrain series.
One thing that I can say about the paint job is that most of it is made using Vallejo Air paints and actually airbrushed. Some surfaces were drybrushed just to be lined with Flayed One Flesh. What is unusual for me is that I almost used no washes, which usually are the main source of highlights in my works. This time tho I decided to go in the direction of a proper airbrushing, rather than risk unpredictability of a wash. Either way – I finished the project by applying Birch-tree seeds to imitate leaves all around the base and in particular small spots over the altar and monumet. This complimented the entire colour scheme and deepened the mood of the scenery piece.
Here is a picture of the finished piece, but theres a lot more in the “MORDHEIM DEAD TREE” Special Project gallery…
Some pictures can be also found at CoolMiniOrNot, where you can leave your votes for this one if you like.
“Dead Tree” is not my last word when it comes to Mordheim Terrain. Even now I’m working on a brand new pieces, not to mention the ‘Toad Fountain” which was completed in the same time as this one. Hope you like this piece and will enjoy the entire series. I encourage you to leave feedback, especially in case of any questions related to the project.
It’s been almost four months since I have ‘finished’ The Colony Special Project. Such grand endavours are the reason I’m into painting and miniatures wargaming. That wondrous feel of completion once a huge project hits the finish line. It always comes with a great satisfaction but once the dust settles, a void starts to grow inside my heart. I’m happy with results, yet long for the ‘process of creation’. That is why I consider every major project to be alive for at least as long as I am. In case of The Colony – well, a gaming table could always be improoved or use some more scenery. That is the exact way of thinking which led me to writing another part of this article…
That being said I must confess that I wasn’t able to invest much time into The Colony in the last few months. Other artistic projects fell on me from all around the globe and I lived a prosperous life by lending my brush to all those in need of decent painting. Still, once in a while I stumbled upon some cool looking items that just screamed to be unleashed onto my gaming board in form of some sweet looking terrain. Many sources provided me with items of great value, among them my girlfriend (cosmetics), my friend Garran (his personal collection of ‘cool stuff’) and even some of befriended companies like Micro Art Studio, or Ekograf, who (knowing my tastes) sent me some of their leftovers. I sincerly thank all of you, my beloved providers, and proudly announce that I couldn’t resist the temptation and used all the items, you so willingly parted with, to further expand my scenery collection and bring The Colony’s theme beyond the bounds of my early predictions.
Anyone remembers that picture? It was published at the end of “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT part six article. Some of this stuff still awaits being used, but more than half of it has already reincarnated in a form of these scenery pieces:
A futuristic sculpture made out of a Maybelline eyelashes mascara. Once I stole this precious item from my GF’s secret stash I had a real wrinkle with how to use it. So many ideas, including an antenna, a column, a laser tube – in the end I couldn’t decide so I got back into a well known territory of futuristic sculpures. It is only fair to use items stolen from my GF as pieces of art, otherwise she might not be swayed to turn a blind eye on my theft 😛
I got that awesome Dactari from my Girlfriend somewhere along two years of gaming. Untill now I hadn’t had use for it, as I was more into Corregidor-like miniatures, but finally I got the idea, made up what MDF pieces I will need to ‘cage’ this chick and ordered them from a friendly company. Once I got the stuff I just build the cage and here’s the result. It makes foir a nice rooftop piece or a great standalone scenery piece.
These can be used as objectives or just some random scenery pieces. I made them out of HDF pieces, leftovers and small plastic tubes* filled with shower gell. The tubes were given to me by Garran with which I tend to play Infinity, but also exchange concepts during our long painting/modelling talks. The guy is so nice as to share some of his stuff with me and I try hard not to let this gesture go to waste.
This is another source of endless inspiration. These are some throwbacks from Micro Art Studio’s production. MAS is very serious about their products – each and every one is checked for defects before it proceeds to packing. Once a defect is discovered, all imperfect products are kept as samples to avoid same kind of mistake in the future. In case of large quantities tho – some items may be sent to a friendly modeller to be used for awesome scenery building! One might even say that these can be used in a variety of crazy ways…
Six bridges are a bit too much on a 48×48″ table so I designed these scenery pieces to help me setup and then keep the gaming board in order. Simple yet effective, adding depth to streets and a nice futuristic note to the overall visual effect.
Made with playability in mind, these low planters are perfect to fill my choosen theme of white/orange/green scenery. They fit both at the ground level and in the rooftops. I made these using pleksi rulers to provide detail, while the rest is just plasticard cut to fit the empty spaces. The visuals vere enchanced by plants and HDF ‘orange’ pieces.
This plant compartment module is a pearl among the scenery pieces I’ve created lately. I’m really happy with how it came out. To think that I struggled for almost a year before I decided how to use two Yves Saint Laurent caps. But let’s get to the way these items (there are actually two identical scenery pieces) came to life. Some time ago I got a set of used up cutter casings from Ekograf to use in my quest of bringing imagination to reality. My friend Garran was the one to dig these out specially with me in mind (Once again thanks mate!). Once I layed my hands on these fine pieces I knew that something wondrous will come out of them. So I started planning and was quickly drawn to still unused Yves Saint Lauren caps. Their hexagonal shape fit perfectly to The Colony’s theme so I based the entire construction on them. After adding couple of PCV pieces to make the construction higher I used plexi rulers to add detail, then used cutter casings and some HDF leftovers to build particular compartments and mounted them around the central column. For the plants I used a fake Bonsai tree made out of gum. It was to fragile to be used as a standalone scenery piece, but inside the compartments it could easily outlive all the other terrain pieces. So I used glue and some tricks of my own to enchance the vicualts of tree stupms, added fake greenery and mounted these fine looking plants inside the compartments. ‘Orange’ elements followed and themed paint job done the rest. Now I have two LOF blocking pieces of scenery, that provide a lot of cover, fill empty spaces between the buildings and go along with the theme.
One thing still stood out of The Colony’s theme. The Micro Art Studio’s gaming mat (which I just love and don’t want to ever switch for anything else) was screwing with my colour scheme too much. I’ve figured to try and paint it, using sprays and airbrush. For this purpose I’ve airbrushed the entire mat with Vallejo’s German Red Brown, then used Vallejo’s white primer to lighten some spots and finished with Games Workshop’s Zandri Dust primer spray. Once the last layer was dry I moisted the gaming mat and used a piece of cloth on it to ensure that no paint will leave marks on my terrain, miniatures and accessories. Must say that MAS’s gaming mat holds the paint perfectly, while keeping it’s previous properties. The picture does not entirely cover the hue but rest assured that now the gaming mat fits perfectly to The Colony.
Last four months might not seen me The Colony-centered, still I’ve managed to improove the inicial concept of this gaming table. I’m really glad to be able to transform this:
Into this:
Are more upgrades incomming? As long as I live and am into Infinity – that’s not a matter of if, but when. Stay tuned for more of The Colony.
You want to learn more about The Colony? Check out the entire series using THIS TAG
Half a year of waiting, two months of working and four days of painting have finally seen “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT finished. Last week, after adding some final detail which you can check out in “The Colony” Special Project part FOUR and FIVE, I was engaged with painting all the terrain. It was a hell of a hard work, as the enormity of surface being painted overwhelmed me to a point where I slept around three to four hours each day, woke up to paint, made a break, then got back to painting etc. Still, my work has paid off – as right now my gaming table for Infinity is complete!
Or so I have thought till the moment of taking first pictures came by. Not only the ‘GO GO NOMADS!’ night club looked like if painted by a three-years old, (Which my beloved GF announced just as soon as she layed eyes on my masterpiece…) but also some key colour wheel synergies were missing. Here and there I overkilled colours or just made plain mistakes. Couple of improovements had to be done ASAP, as otherwise I’ve risked my mind being overheated with self-directed anger. So I’ve started working on things that triggered my self-loathing, eliminating them one at a time.
‘GO GO NOMADS! Night Club’ was the first one to undergo a small redesign. I’ve dimmed the pink, and ‘browns’, adding much more white to consolidate colour scheme and black to set a strong, but natural contrast. This change did the trick of dimming the effect of “child’s dream”… It’s still ugly as fuck, but my concious is clear – it was planned from the beginning to make this one into a nice easter egg.
Next thing to add was “detail” as my buildings clearly lacked it. The simplest way to do it was to use some already existing, tiny wall features, paint them using a variety of colour and also add more plexi-glass holos.
In the end I also harmonized the main colour scheme by adding much more green. I used aquarium plants and some MDF leftovers for this. Green plants broke the flat colour scheme of the walls, and complemented the overall colour scheme – now all the Holos were once again moved to the visual background.
Inbetween all these changes and upgrades, I was able to made a short photo session. You can view the entire GALLERY HERE, while below is a small sample:
Also as a bonus – I’ve already played one battle on the table – taking some in-game pictures and preparing a short video about how terrain was set up for it.
Is this the end of The Colony? Judging by how necessity is the mother of invention I think that we will see some more of The Colony in the future. Especially with such kind of things around… just be sure to visit this site from time to time 😉
The story of “The Colony” Special Project is closing to an end. In FOUR’th part of this article I’ve started to add detail to all my buildings. The quantity of vents and additional stuff was so enormous, that I had to support with a help of a friend, to prepare all of them – still it took more than a week to complete. Once vents were in place I started to paint all the buildings, which was a challenge in it’s own way. I never imagined that painting buildings can be so exhausting and so many mistakes can be made during such a (should be) easy and relaxating task. Still – I was confronted with the ‘unexpected’ and had to improvise more than couple of times…
Before we proceed to actual ‘painting stuff’ it is vital for me to continue where I’ve finished “The Colony” Special Project part FOUR. I’ve introduced you to ‘Astro-Gastro Center’, which was one of my table’s centerpieces. A single picture is not enough to show the number of detailed food boths added all around the building…
The idea was born out of necessity. After deciding to differentiate both of the ‘big’ buildings – I had to find a nice theme for this one. I had a lot of trash and leftovers from purchased terrain sets. I was also supported with couple rare pieces (like Zen Terrain’s food both signboards) provided by a friend. I’ve picked the best pieces and decided to build the theme around them, for this building to be at least as special as the ‘GO GO NOMADS’ night club.
It started with some small adjustements to the building’s walls. Once I had the boths made and in place – I started to add some small elements to try to give each both a special theme.
One day’s work resulted in Astro-Gastro Center being born out of scratch.
I’ve been already head to toe in building stuff, so I decided not to stop at decorating the buildings, but also work at adding some high placed spots, for snipers, forward obserwers and linked ‘shooty’ troops. Not too much – just enought to raise the area of play – one level up. I used what was left of my MDF pieces, added some Plasticard and prepared these, fully detachable advertisement banners. As a filler I used the only thing that I had around – the Scar_hand Painting bussiness cards 🙂
[I have already played on these – they have a nice impact on gaming style, along with just being useful).
Now I can focus on the actual painting, which started just as it always does – with a proper undercoat. For my colour scheme I require three strong layers of undercoat. It starts with grey, proceeds through either creeme/bone or soft grey and finally get’s whitened with Games Workshop’s Skull White spray. Skull white is vital to the overall looks of this Colour Scheme, as it’s really white and matt. It goes well with MDF terrain, covering all with a nice, strong layer. Whole process of undercoating ate an entire day – with me sitting on a balcony, spraying each individual terrain piece – one after another. Three rounds of undercoating, with my nosdrills clogged, eyes irritated and head on a verge of exploding. At least my neighbors did not protest about the smell…
One day later the regular ‘painting’ started. It took three days of labour with a lot of painting and not much sleep. I used an Airbrush, while a regular brush applying some Fire Hot Orange to keep up with my table’s main theme (Orange + White/Creeme + Greenery). I used a masking tape for this – providing some curious, industrial shapes on the roofs and walls of all buildings. I also used a colour wheel to check out which colour will go well along with orange/green in a tri-colour scheme. The wheel told me that purple-pink should do, so I decided to try it out on ‘GO GO NOMADS!” night club. (which I actually regret by now as while ‘solo’ the building looks just ugly as fuck :P).
Another ‘layer’ was composed of sandy yellow and soft brown. I applied them both in certain hexes along the roofs and in much smaller quantity over the walls.
Finally added some blood splatters and grease, which sounds pretty easy if not taking their enormous quantity and dimensions of the buildings I had to work with.
I also added some soft points od dust and dirt along with smudges here and there. Then decided to fill all vents with dark brown/rust Vallejo effect and add more smudges – comming out of them.
My work is finally done and I have mixed feelings about the end result. While the entirety of “The Colony” presents itself great – particular buldings require some additional work. Especially the infamous “GO GO NOMADS!” night club is one to build up my concerns – will surely make some corrects and keep working on it in the days to come. A proper gallery is under construction but now I can provide you with this small sample of how “The Colony” looks like.
See you in “The Colony” Special Project part SIX next week 😉
The long awaited moment is finally here – I acquired all the materials necessary to proceed with “The Colony Special Project”! Somewhere along this month I have received packages filled with stuff from Titan Forge, Reycast and Micro Art Studio. Each time I got one, I almost jumped out of my pants with excitement, but kept my precious ‘bitz’ for later, when all the components be here. 26th of April the last delivery arrived and not being able to wait any moment longer, I jumped straight to this project! By the way – if you need to catch up to this project – visit “The Colony” Special Project part ONE, TWO or THREE. If you are like ‘Show me more of this stuff, now!’ then proceed below…
The longer I waited for the missing parts, the more ideas came to my mind. More designs were added to the toll and I kept ordering stuff from Micro Art Studio and Reycast. In my mind’s eye “The Colony” gaming table was expanding with each new addition. Having some of the parts at my immediate disposal, inspired me to improve some early solutions, along with creating new ones…
This one came to me just like that – one day I was totally happy with the way my cap-made barrels worked, next I was disgusted by how limited the idea was. My barrels were firm structures, with uncomfortable bases, difficult to shape them into a bigger mass. The solution was obvious – I had to get rid of the bases somehow. Still a base was the only thing that kept the barrels together and I really didn’t wanted to keep each barrel separate. (Which would be totally unplayable, with all the barrels moving around etc.) So I decided to improve, rather than remove the bases – a quick drawing and Micro Art Studio was working with my new design.
Using these re-designed bases let me combo my barrels in many new ways, while maintaning their firm and durable form.
Somewhere between second and third part of this article I felt like something is amiss. Some vital part of gaming tables designed for Infinity that I hadn’t thought about. The ‘Objective Room’ – that was it! So important, yet I totally forgot about it when preparing my initial designs. I started thinking about choosing an Objective Room from among all the cool looking terrain provided by many different companies. In the end I couldn’t find any that would fit into “The Colony”. I wanted to implement something that would compliment all the sparkling holo-ads used to fill this gaming table at some point. In addition to that, I’m not a fan of roofed Objective Rooms. These should be of infinite height and I really wanted to design an objective room that could be considered to fill the role, not being a scyscraper at the same time. I’ve figured out to use a force field theme! It was perfect in it’s simplicity and would go well with holo-ads. In order to keep the cubic force field in the theme of “The Colony” I’ve designed a base that would be used to contain it. Just imagine a futuristic city space, where a permanent force fields are set up in the key locations, like around the antennas, some military consoles etc. VIP’s have access to these, while regular citizens are denied entry. So that’s the bassic idea of my Objective Room. It was made into reality by the courtesy of Micro Art Studio, which used my initial scetch to provide me with the final product. Just take a look at it…
The idea on the paper:
Pieces have arrived:
The base for the force field: Built using a method of errors and corrects, using one MDF piece as a universal ruler and the idea as an actual instruction…
Objective room – closed doors (access denied):
Objective Room – open doors (access granted):
Ingame pictures:
I really do like the end result, and cannot wait to paint this stuff. If anyone is interrested in purchasing one – please contact Micro Art Studio. It is somehow exclusive with a price set to around 50€ and that’s because of the production costs. Still I’d love to see my own design on some random battle report pictures around the internet. I hope that some of you will find the price sufficient and purchase one of these.
Up from the start the idea was to decorate my buildings, at some point, with use of cool looking stuff like vents, doors etc. My buildings are tall and without some detail – could look really intimidating and cold. In order to breathe life into my gaming table I had to forfeit a small percentage of my terrain’s playability tho. This decision was not an easy one, but in the end – once I started to decorate with common stuff – I just couldn’t force myself to stop and started adding some sweet looking details like food booths and Robo-Prostitues enclosed in special display casings. I also decided to distinct both big buildings by giving them a theme. One became a “GO GO NOMADS!” night club, while the other became a small restaurant center.
Doors:
Robo-Prostitutes displays: The idea goes like this: I liked Karakuri miniatures, ordered them to use them at some point, still didn’t had any idea how. Once they came, I figured to display them around the strip club. I made some simple math, asked Reycast to cut some pieces for me and once they came in, used some trash to complete my designs. In meantime I already painted Karakuris, leaving their weapons in place (Cause this is a Nomad club, and Nomads do love guns just as much as the robo-chicks!)
“GO GO NOMADS!” strip club: Is still being decorated, but I can show you how it looks by now. Will have to prepare some of the bitz to finish decorating tho – and I also ordered two larger Holo-Ads with club’s name – Will have to wait for these…
“Astro-Gastro Center”: The whole idea was about a big building with couple of food booths in it’s bowls. I had some leftovers from Zen Terrain’s food booth, along with some trash I used to create my won mini-bars. Some of them simple, while others with their personal theme and all. And here’s where I would like to stop this part of “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT article. I will leave you with shis little teaser. (Hope you don’t mind.)
I do hope to see you soon in the next part of “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT article. Keep your fingers crossed for me, as there’s a lot of work awaiting my attention. In meantime, feel free to ask any questions about this project – here, or at my Facebook.
Ever been in a situation when you really wanted to work on a certain project but couldn’t? I just found myself in such. I’m almost ready to paint my gaming table, with almost all of the pieces already assembled. I even purchased a big stock of sprays and paints required to complete “The Colony” in one go. (Yup – at this point I already picked a perfect Colour Scheme for “The Colony”, being White-Creeme with addition of Grey and Orange elements.) If you read “The Colony” Special Project part two – then you know that once I’m into something – I usually do it at once, regardless of weariness and time required to do it. This time I feel like a trapped animal. The erge to continue my project is killing me, but I cannot proceed without vital pieces that are still to arrive. That’s why I decided to deceive the system.
Being unable to proceed with “The Colony” buildings I focused on add-ons instead. I had some cool ideas for new ‘filler’ type terrain pieces, along with some old ones that needed refitting. If you have a gaming table than you know that buildings provide a variety of different levels and shooting corridors, but it is the fillers that build up the table’s theme and atmosphere. Just take a look at this picture:
Looks kinda empty doesn’t it? Well that’s because it is completely devoid of climate. Just like my old ‘White Boxes’ were. Ok – it is still very playable, with all the additional features, but for a gaming table to have a soul – there must be a plenty of small, sweet looking fillers to attrack the sight. As I am very impressed with Zen Terrain’s design, I decided to incorporate some of their style and colour scheme around my rather industrialised, cumbersome buildings.
Not much to say about these, except for a fact that they are just awesome – It’s love from the first sight 🙂
Micro Art Studio’s Kickstarter campaign just finished and I’m sure to purchase some of their new fillers. What I like the most are standing tripple-holo-ads and benches, but since these are not available for purchase right now – I concentrated on repainting a set of best in the market MAS Holo-Ads. One cannot complete an Infinity Gaming Table if one does not possess these!
I already had a lot of fillers made for my previous gaming table. You can see them all in Tutorial: ‘Do it Yourself’ Gaming Terrain article. All of them could use some additional paint job, or rebasing to better suit the new theme, but the ones that needed it the most were: medium sized walls and (my favorite) futuristic sculptures. I really wanted to provide them with some extra love, cause they looked like this:
I invested some time to redevelop these pieces, adding cool looking plants and a new-themed paint job. I also used a Zen-based pieces to solidify the theme. The end result is exactly as it should – futuristic & juicy.
Inspiration strikes like a lightning and I’m pumped with urge of creation. New ideas come and go – some of them just too good to be skipped. One of such ideas came to me more than a year ago, when I saw a pile of leaflets. These were so ‘Infinity’ styled, that I took couple to use them at some point. As it happened – now, with a new project on the run – these funny, 3d hologram leaflets were perfect to base a terrain piece on. Just some PCV, MDF pieces and twenty minutes provided me with two of these:
Another idea came to me last week, during shower. It sounds stupid, but once you see the end result, you won’t be laughting 🙂 This was certainly the best idea of 2016, yet to be beaten. Infinity 3d Consoles instead of usual tokens, born out of thin air in a matter of two days.
You can read some more about how these were made in Tutorial: Infinity DIY Console. If you like them – be sure to spread the word, so that more people will see them 🙂
Having so much terrain pieces left me with a dilemma of what to do with some of them. Gaming on “White Boxes” required a lot of playable fillers to expand table’s properties. Now, with brand new design some pieces are too big, or too many to be used. Still don’t know if I should try to sell these, strip bare and re-use the parts or redesign against reason…
Now you have seen all the fillers I currently worked on. Why are they so important? Well… do you still remember that poor looking terrain at the top of this article? Take a look at this and tremble with ecstatic shiver!
There were supposed to be at least three parts of this article. With outdoor Objective Room in development, buildings awaiting some substantial parts, new table’s playability being regularly tested, Now I’m pretty sure that two to three more are yet to come. Who knows – If I have to wait more for a delivery of resin pieces – I might loose some of my sanity but also come up with some more ideas! Stay tuned for “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT part four!
Welcome to Modelling Infinity Console tutorial, a short Step-by-step trip through a process of creating Consoles perfect for objective markers in Infinity the Game and other Sci-fi wargames.
You may consider this article to be an extension of “Tutorial: Infinity ‘Do It Yourself’ Gaming Terrain”, in which I tried to inspire you to hunt for some awesome everyday items. Pieces of what might be considered garbage, and yet an awesome source of unlimited potential, when it comes to scenery making.
Before we start, some notes:
The story behind the idea is rather trivial. Years back I was taking a shower, saw my wife’s shower gel bottle and was instantly struck by a surge of inspiration. Colored, clear top element was just too cool to pass by. Transformation from a shower gel plug to a tiny console came natural. Just see for yourself.
I used:
Step one: Main Body
I started by cutting off the plug and pulling out the acrylic part. I then used a hobby knife to thin down the bottom of the acrylic part so that it went in and out smoothly.
Step two: Support
Back in the days I cut 3mm thick PCV and created four legs for the console. On the next attempt, being more experienced, I used an old Spray nozzle. Since then I tested a lot of random stuff, but given a choice I prefer the nozzle above anything else. One man’s trash is another man’s awesome Console support!
Step three: Detail
Thin pieces of PCV, lollipop sticks, Airsoft Gun ceramic balls, plastic miniatures bitz – anything will do for an awesome filler. The idea behind the console is a 3d hologram of a city space, or and enhanced molecule view. Whatever is put inside and sprayed white will look great. I leave this to your imagination.
Step four: Paint job
I painted entire console white to fit my own gaming board. Looking back I strongly recommend painting the inside white to take advantage of the vibrant color mounted on top. Other than that anything will do.
Final result:
Since 2016 I made few dozen consoles. These, being the first set, will always have a special place in my heart.
Bonus Pic: (different scenery piece)
I hope you like the article. If it ever inspires you to make your own Fa Shower Gel consoles, be sure to tag me at Facebook @scarhandpainting or Instagram _scarhandpainting so I can enjoy your work. Cheers!
Last time I wrote about how “The Colony” Special Project came to life. A road from a tiny speck of an idea to a fully developed gaming table is a long one and I just begun my travel. I have gathered almost all of the items required to build my terrain set. I have revised my ideas and made peace with some circumstantial decisions. I was ready to start the construction process!
It all happened so quickly. One day I was engaged in my usual activities, painting miniatures, checking out facebook, writing articles… The other I got up to find myself knee deep in bitz, terrain elements, empty glue bottles and with my hands thickened with too much of dried out glue. It was as much glorious as scary. I couldn’t stop. Half kneeling on the ground, due to my workdesk being currently occupied with THIS – I felt like a child playing LEGO. Well – when inspiration comes a man is gotta do what a man is gotta do – I let myself be swallowed by passion and worked till all the buildings were ready to enter next stage.
So – this is what I had to work with. My ‘white boxes’ in all their glory. So many different sizes, that excluding six thin ones, no two are alike! I really love these boxes. Thanks to them I was able to play a lot of Infinity games and they received a really good feedback from my oponents. Of course I adorned them with different smaller terrain pieces for the purpose of quality gaming. Still these are my favorites and I can’t imagine gaming at my place with a different buildings set. That was the main reason why I choose to expand their properties instead of exchanging the whole set…
Fortunatelly for me both ReyCast and Micro Art Studio delivered a variety of cool pieces required to evolve my ‘to be’ buildings. It wasn’t easy and took over twelve hours to achieve, but I prevailed – I sorted all the pieces, counted them, divided them into groups (a separate group for each building type), marked my ‘white boxes’ for their corresponding rooftops and started putting walls together. A single test building at first, then whole set. I knelt on the ground, surrounded by a gaming table comming to life all around me…
Test building,
Mass production,
Somewhere about twelve hours, five Army Painter’s Super Glues spilled on my hands, their fumes stuck firm in my nosdrils, thousands of MDF pieces put together, dozen back hurts, hunders sporradic insane scientist’s laughters and one sympathetic look on my wife’s face, later – I was finally done! Done both literally and methaphisically, as my evil slavemaster – the muse – pushed me into yet another task. Battered, with my hands dirty and glued, with my head being dizzy – I started to write the first part of this article. I wasn’t even sure if it will be interresting to other hobbyists – just needed to write it. Couldn’t stop. Some of you know this feel for sure. But I’m starting to miss the topic – My gaming table was finally taken one step further on a road to it’s ultimate form.
Base layering stage is now complete. The buildings are ready to enter next stage, which is external layering along with addition of some cool looking details. Unfortunatelly I can’t proceed before receiving my order from the Titan-Forge. I don’t mind it, as except for the muse nagging me to work on this project, there’s no reason to rush things. At least I’m able to game on my good ol’ gaming table, taking advantage of all these cool new features. I just can’t wait to test these buildings next week. I’m sure they will not dissapoint me! If I’m lucky – delivery will come right after next game and I’ll be able to proceed to “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT part three. Keep your fingers crossed for me 😉
First of all I would like to announce that this project is huge. It is wast on a scale not seen here at Scarhandpainting.com ever before. The genesis of this project reaches January 2015, yet back then, I didn’t knew how things will go for this particular concept. To think that it started with a bunch of hardboard boxes being sprayed white makes me wanna laught. Right now some of you may recall ‘white boxes’ from my Tutorial: ‘Do it yourself’ Gaming Terrain. That is the right course of thinking as that gaming terrain and this Special Project have a particular thing in common – “Infinity the Game”. The hero of this article is none other than INFINITY GAMING TABLE: “THE COLONY”.
At first it was supposed to be, a cheap and easy to make, gaming terrain set. Me and my friends were hyped for Infinity and needed a proper table with a variety of terrain pieces. I am a man of action so in few days I had my first Infinity Gaming Table fully thinked through and half way done. The terrain set expanded steadily throughout the year to finally crystallize into a fully developed and densely packed gaming table. That was the end of stage one and a beggining of an entirely new concept. In the late 2015 I was pretty much sure that my gaming table is very playable. I got a lot of feedback from more experienced gamers and got to know Infinity as much as to make a final decision – I decided to use both my financial and material resources to transform my gaming table into a new and extraoridinary form. Once again I was overwhelmed by the need of creation and started to work…
The easiest and most effective way to improove my existing terrain was to prepare a template for basic pieces and then use them to decorate my ‘white boxes’. The ideas came to me one by one and it took less than two hours to cut a sample for each type of piece needed. As they say – “One’s man trash is another’s man treasure” and that is more than true as I supported myself with some trash left out of Micro Art Studio’s bridge set. All the basic pieces you now see, were made using just a couple of HMD leftovers and a hobby knife. This way I prepared two major templates:
Walls: Designed as 7/11cm pieces to let me decorate each and every ‘white box’ from all sides. Some additional fillers were also designed, to fill the space, if a box happens to be too long for a certain number af wall pieces. I hoped to keep wall pieces separate to let players position their miniatures in selective cover, move with causions movement etc. Once these were done I used some Warhammer 40,000 bitz to see how the overall will look before painting. It passed the test.
Bridges: It seemed that all the bridges in the market lacked something. In my opinion they were either cool looking and not very playable or playable but ugly. Left with no other choice I designed my own bridge to fit into my new gaming table theme and provide a good cover.
Now the only matter to attend was to copy these templates a dozen times and more. At that moment I knew that to achieve my goal I will need some help…
1 REYCAST
I went forth and back through Facebook in search of possible allies. An obvious choice appeared in form of ReyCast.pl who evidently had hype for Infinity terrain and seemed to be an honest guy. Not only he prooved to be just that but also joined me in my quest for glory. Once I provided him with my prototype he took the burden of drawing and then producing a Bridge. He also designed roofs that would later be used for my ‘white boxes’ and all for a really fair price.
My initial drawing and prototype:
ReyCast did a magnificent work for me and I was very satisfied with the results. The one thing he couldn’t provide was quantity. I required only couple of bridges and roofs but the walls – pieces varried in quantity from thirty up to four hundred with a total of over one and a half thousand pieces! We both decided that it would be better if I try and find another provider for these.
2 MICRO ART STUDIO
Thus I went straight to my good old friends from Micro Art Studio. We have a history me and MAS – For long time we gamed Warhammer 40,000 together at many tournaments. At some point I used to order a lot of different things from them including gaming tokens, bases and designs ‘for demand’. The final product they provided was always of the best quality and good price. Now I wonder why didn’t I go to them in the first place – but, spur of a moment – ReyCast was there, he was eager to cooperate and I was in the middle of my creation battle rage. I do not regret it as ReyCast did a hell of a good job for me and hopefully not for the last time. So I sent my project to Micro Art Studio and well… must say that they delivered in a crazy, fckn’ awesome way!
My initial drawings and prototype:
Final product:
And the package… I felt like if I had my tenth birthday. Let’s say that the guys from MAS bought my eternal loyalty and gratitude.
3 TITAN FORGE
For the final set of pieces – an enormous quantity of ventilators, electric boxes and other stuff used to decorate, I went to my friends fom Titan Forge. They possess both the technology and expertise needed to provide me with such quantity. Unfortunatelly I’m still waiting for this gargantuan order to be fulfilled – but hopefully I won’t be waiting long.
In modelling you never know what you will need unless you stumble upon it by accident. For me it happened during a local Infinity Tournament where I stumbled upon a gaming table designed by Zen Terrain. Soon after that, I purchased a set of sweet looking Neon City Signs and Planters. Surely I could have made my own but Zen Terrain has a unique desing that I just fell in love with.
I also ordered a set of plants to use in the end step of decorating my gaming table. As it happened the courier delivered these in less than two hours after MAS’s package came in. I was just finnishing a test building which can be seen in the picture below 🙂
After two months of waiting I was finally able to lay my hands on most of the items needed to continue my project. I managed to wall-up all the ‘white boxes’ which from now on are no more boxes, but buildings. All bridges are also done. I’m eager to share some pictures, but it is really late and I’m weary after over twelve hours of terrain making. “This projecs it huge” and it deserves at least three entries as much as I deserve some sleep. Let this building be a glorious end of the first part of this article. See you soon in “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT part two 😉