Dwarven Mine blast off the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (SITCBH)

Back in August Chris from the Periodic Painting Table and Stuart from The War Crow contacted me to join in the First International Townscape Challenge. It was a lot of fun and we all earned a few self-applied pats on the back at the end of it. Reason enough for a second edition. After a bit of a break we launched the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human (STICBH) this month. The 'Beyond Human' part of the challenge refers to the fact that we're going to be building a non-human piece of scenery in the style of the Townscape. For my part, I'm going to be building a Dwarven mine.

I think we have the beginning of an interesting new building here...

Quite a while back I built a few mineshafts, planning to replay the Grudge of Drong campaign. I actually finished painting these too, but never gave them their own blog post. You can the finished versions over here holding three Stormfiends. For this Townscape challenge I wanted to follow an old school tutorial I've been meaning to try out since 1990. Hey it only took me thirty plus years to get started on it :). Its one of those older Dwarven mine sets they built in White Dwarf 132. I used the venerable White Dwarf Painting & Modelling index to find out the proper issue and then opened my direct link to the warp to find a scan of the old White Dwarf issue. Bu at that point I thought: the hell with it, I'll go really old school. I opened my own collection of decaying old paper and took out the issue in question (somewhere inside me there's a librarian on a power trip). My issue of White Dwarf 132 is still in quite a nice condition after all these years of drooling over it, if you ask me.

Remember kids: never throw out your old issues of White Dwarf, you may want to follow a thirty year old tutorial after all.

Following along with a classic tutorial is fun. You always learn something new and at the same time you spot things that can be improved upon. We (in the hobby as a whole) have learned to do some thing slightly better. For instance this tutorial advices you to use expanded polystyrene for the hill. You can follow the suggestions and strengthen it with plaster, but in the end it will disintegrate into while globes during use (at least in my experience). I've switched that step out for extruded polystyrene. It is way denser, slightly harder to work with, but hey, that's what the hot wire cutter is for. 

Gathering random hobby stuff whilst checking the tutorial, also know as 'having fun'.

Gathering my materials (and a humongous cup of tea) I read the article and formulated my plan of attack. I decided on a high hill that would block line of sight nicely. It would look nice and dwarven with the mineshaft sticking out from the side. I picked an MDF base I made for some (forgotten) other project (saves time) and got to work with the hot wire cutter. Oh at this point I should of course mention the rules guidelines for the SITCBH):

THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL TOWNSCAPE CHALLENGE – BEYOND HUMAN

AIM

To build a Warhammer model in the style of the Townscape appropriate for a non-human race.

RULES (more sort of guidelines really)

• The building may be based on one of the Warhammer Townscape models or may be designed from scratch, providing it fits in with the Townscape style.
• Other sources may be used (e.g. the 4th edition scenario packs, Grudge of Drong etc).
• You have until the end of December 2021 to complete the model.
• You must post one blog post before the end of November demonstrating progress.  Otherwise blog your progress however often you feel appropriate and link to each other’s blogs.
• The challenge is designed to inspire and encourage.  There is no prize apart from the congratulations of your peers, both in the challenge and on our blogs and as many pats on the back (self-administered) as is deemed appropriate.

GOOD LUCK

Looking back at this picture, I can already spot its a bad idea. But maybe that's just 20/20 hindsight.

There it was, the basic hill shape. That's not a lot of text for a paragraph. I'll fill it with some bla bla about my workspace. As you can see I've cleaned out my work area and window sill. Ah fresh space to work in (and cover with hobby rubbish again). I've also drilled holes in my countertop. I can't translate the Dutch word to proper English for this phenomenon (koudeval). If you attach a countertop to the entire length of a wall it forms a barrier between the windows and the radiator. Because of this cold air from the windows pushes into the room, sealing the hot air from the radiator beneath the countertop and leaving you with a cold room (and warm legs). This can be fixed by making holes into the countertop allowing hot air to rise directly in front of the windows. I did not believe this was a real thing when someone pointed it out to me, now I have real life experience with the phenomenon (and another subtle pointer to drop my stubborn streak down a few notches). On the bright side: an actual DIY tip on a hobby blog, who'd have thought ;).

One of the things I love about terrain building: it's not always all that subtle. 

After I'd (sort of) solidly glued the two bits of polystyrene together I remembered I needed to dig out a mine shaft first. I made a half-arsed attempt at it. Then I stuck a pencil into the cliff at three strategic points to push my balsa wood mine shaft entrance frame into place. At this point disaster struck. I have to say it was a quick strike, in most projects disaster strikes much later.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Sharp eyed readers may notice a slight discrepancy between the size of the project's base and the front side of the entrance. This would not do. Sticking sand, rocks and rails to thin air is a feat I haven't quite mastered yet. To fix it I quickly ripped of the top half of the mountain. Learning from my mistakes I made an actual mineshaft this time and redid the project with a slightly lower mountain.

Now there's a more appropriate start of the decrepit mine entrance.

As I was reworking the concept anyway I also decided to go for a more old school plateaued mountain. I want to put angry Dwarves on top of my mine and they won't be able to stand on angled slopes. I roughed up the sides of the polystyrene with a metal brush. I vaguely recall this makes stones look beter, but I have to admit to some trepidation at this point in the project. I'll just keep going and hope I'm right when the time comes to paint it all...

Plasticard: it's awesome and awful at the same time.

Aside from my mountainous endeavors I also needed to make a little mine trolley. For this project I took a bit of plasticard. One of the most important things to know about working with plasticard is that you score it and then break it. Do not try to cut through and through, that just leads to bleeding fingers and ugly edges. 

Looks like the start of a mine cart, now keep find Indiana Jones away or he'll ride it like a rollercoaster.

After a quick bit of scoring and snapping I had a topside and a bottom bit. Its not as neat as a true Dwarf engineer would make it, but the older school Dwarves aren't quite the craftsmen they became in later iterations of the Warhammer background. So I figure I'm good. 

Adding wheels. I've learned from a long list of failures not to even attempt cutting four round shapes myself. It just never turns out right.

I shifted around with the bottom bit of the trolley, finally figuring to put the upper bit into the hollow part of the bottom bit instead of on the solid side. I like how this looks. I borrowed four wheels from a Hotwheels car (the joy of having bits leftover from making Gaslands vehicles). To make these wheels look a bit more 'trainlike' I put them on inside out. 

Need rivets? Get a tub of quinoa, it'll last you a lifetime.

With most of the cart finished I decided it needed some over the top looking rivets. Just to reinforce the bolted together look of the entire scene. Luckily I have a special recipe for bolts that doesn't involve cutting bits of plastic rod while trying to hold onto whatever's left of your sanity. The trick? Quinoa seeds. Yes its a superfood, mostly for hobby purposes if you ask me. I glued the quinoa on with PVA and used it to add rivets to the sides and front. I've used this trick years ago when building my Space Ork walls and it works a treat. 

Now that looks like a wonderful start to a new set of terrain (I don't have room to store it after it's built, but that's a worry for later).

The two shacks that come with this project where already featured in the background of some other pictures higher up, but here's a quick shot with a proper view of both of them. These shacks will be covered with coffee stirrers and bits of balsa if I stick to the White Dwarf plans. As wood is quite sturdy of itself (and I was in a very creative mood) I decided not to use foamboard for these, but just take old tea bag boxes and cut the basic shapes from those. Now that's recycling at its best I say! 

I think the fact that captain Picard has to keep stipulating he wants his Earl Grey tea hot, shows a rather depressing lack of UX design in the Star Trek future. Aside from not remembering defaults, who drinks cold Earl Grey tea? Orcs? Depraved followers of Slaanesh?

As the rather weak cardboard wouldn't hold its rectangular shape to my liking I added a few coffee stirrers to the inside of the shack with the lean-to. I also added a small corner made from 5mm foamboard  and a bit of masking tape. Now the shape is ok. All that remains to be done to these buildings is adding coffee stirrer and balsa wood. 

When I think of the hours wasted cutting stirrers to size before applying. Sigh. Watch and learn a better and faster way...

With this all done I went back to my mine shaft. I'd already dressed up the polystyrene hill with a first 'once over' of decorative rocks. I'll be going back over the base and hill in the next days with extra layers of rock and sand to further embellish it's polystyrene nature. In my experience layering rougher bits of terrain works better than globbing on PVA in one go and just going wild. Too much PVA with sand and stones will just start to slide into ugly sand and rock puddles.  

Always cut slices of bigger balsa bits, it'll look better painted. 

The PVA holding the balsa wood giving a basic shape to the entrance had dried out by now so I had a chance to add the wooden covering. I apply planks by snapping coffee stirrers by hand. this gives a natural looking, worn, bottom part of the 'planks'. I covered the frame with PVA (not too much or it will fill the gaps between the planks. Then I just glue the stirrers into position. Only the bottom side has to line up properly. I let the top side stick out (as you can see clearly two pictures above). 

 

With a few deft snips from a diagonal cutting plier, the planking is cut to size. 

When the PVA has thoroughly dried, I take an old electrician's diagonal cutting plier (the sort I use to snip plastic parts from sprues). I use that to cut the top of the planks to the right size for the roof. These cuts look way too neat for the rather derelict looking mine, but that doesn't matter. The roof itself will block sight of this. Speaking of roofs, I used a bit more (Lady Grey) cardboard to give a basic shape to it. I need to add roofing when this has dried. I also took a scalpel to the balsa supports still in plain view. You need to snip of bits of balsa otherwise these will look way too neat and new. 

It still needs a lot of work before paint is applied. I'm also wondering if I shouldn't give it a Skaven theme instead. Or perhaps 'the Skaven have taken over'...ah I'll see.

And that is the point I'm at. I still need to add a lot more sand and stones to the base and the mountain. I need to figure out a way to make some interesting looking railroad tracks (I'm not saying these will be made from balsa, but they will be made from balsa (its an older meme, but it checks out)). The cabins need to be dressed in wood and the old White Dwarf tutorial has a very interesting take on making a roof for the one with the lean-to. I'm actually looking forward to doing that as well. Last but not least I have a small grip bag with dwarven tools that was part of Ral Partha's Dwarf Kickstarter years ago. I need to find that and paint them up for this project. Last but not least I need to make a decision about the terrain at some point. Right now I'm leaning towards an overgrown jungle look as that would tie it in with a few other bits of terrain I have. Another contender is a more badlands look. I'll see later.

Meanwhile, languishing besides a horde of 20mm zombies, there's a rather large gathering of Dwarves in my hobby room. 

Last but not least I might need to actually paint these poor fellows that have been languishing in primer for about a year now. But that's another story. Lets first get the SITCBH built finished. On the plus side I have until the end of December. On the downside I also have a 1:1 scale project going in the house that is not quite finished yet and eating up a lot of time...