In come the other Madboyz

Oh dear, I got so carried away with other things, I actually missed the deadline for the painting competition I entered. A day late I did however finish the other two ancient Ork Madboyz I pledged to paint. A day late, or thirty years late? You decide ;)

Who you tryin' ta mess with ese? Don't you know I'm loco?

First fukushima kami-crazy Madboy finished

Painting a miniature that has suffered a few decades of neglect always feels special. This classic Space Ork Madboy is the first of three I've entered into a competition and I'm quite satisfied with him.

I just had to add a modern oversized Space Ork shoota to this model. In case of Orks bigger is better. 

Painting Ork Madboyz step one: Warhammer 40K style Industrial basing for impatient people

My hobby painting got slightly delayed by a major real-life project. I had to build a 1:1 scale shed after a fire wrecked the previous one. Aside from that activity I've got a lot of half finished projects (including some playing around with contrast paints) crowding my painting station and no real inclination to finish anything. Time to end this lazy attitude! Luckily a painting competition was announced on the Oldhammer Community group on Facebook. The mission: to paint Bob Olley sculpts. In other words a call to start a small project with a tight deadline (for painting purposes). Now that sounds like a lot of fun.

Joining a painting competition on the Old Hammer Community is a bit foolhardy. The best painters not actively working as pro-painters tend to hang out here (in my very humbly opinion).

Building Games Workshop's Shadow War: Armageddon terrain

Over Easter weekend I got to play around with the new Shadow War: Armageddon terrain that was released in the boxed set with the same name on April 8th. Insert some griping about lack of stock here and keep it at that. The terrain itself is wonderful stuff, highly detailed, completely modular and easy to integrate with other kits and your own scratch build terrain. GW has announced it will be releasing the contents of this box as separate kits soon and that we can expect more variant that add to this terrain as well (including apparently cranes). Also AoS terrain is to follow soon after. That sounds good, although I have to admit the current range of GW terrain is priced just above what I'm willing to spend. We'll have to wait and see if I'm going to invest in more of these terrain sets. On to the finished building first.

The new terrain will probably turn out to be very expensive as separate sets, but man it looks good.

Continuing with the Shadow Wars: Armageddon terrain

My hobby time slowed down a bit last week as regular life (and a quick digital visit to The Commonwealth wasteland) caught up with me. Also a bit of project fatigue is setting in, worsened by Games Workshop's botched launch of Shadow Wars: Armageddon. I was not aware it was going to be a limited edition game and its anemic supply sold out before I got a chance to order a copy. Luckily I managed to secure one through a friend. Apparently there is a rulebook in the works now that makes me wonder if I should've bought the box. That is not how I usually spend my hobby money. I will try to be more careful about getting hyped up on announced products before they show up (GW seems to be slightly off form this year, with the rather disappointing Shadows over Hammerhal (compared to Silver Tower) first and now this and to be honest what I've seen of Shadespire is not fueling my enthusiasm). I'm considering trying Test of Honour by Warlord Games because the rules look interesting and the game looks awesome (but it is also sold out, what's up with wargames manufacturing?).

But enough whining and on to hobby time. The second set of buildings has been built, including my first attempt at a polystyrene building with the new tools.

Another three rusty buildings are waiting a drybrush of metallic, a dab of grey and color (and a lot of Ryza rust) to be ready for use in Shadow Wars.

New tools to cut polystyrene with a hot-wire cutter

Although half the hobby from a terrain building perspective is keeping an eye out for discarded toys, boxes and other shapes to build with, the other half is translating an idea into something tangible. The material that would be most useful for this is polystyrene, not the shitty expanded kind (with the little balls that keeping break off even years after sealing painting and pouring holy machine oil on it) but the solid extruded sort. It is reasonable solid, lightweight and with a few easy measures quite durable. One thing it is not, is easy to cut. As with its cousin foam board I keep spare blades at the ready and an average build tends to eat up a full set of spare blades because polystyrene is dull (pro-tip: when given a last request at the guillotine, ask for polystyrene, quickly dull the blade and walk away with a sore neck ;) ).

Add to this problem that it is hard to keep cut edges straight a tool is needed. So a few years back I decided to invest in a hot wire polystyrene cutter. At first I attempted a few 'home-build' projects that all failed and finally I just forked over the cash for a 'real' machine. This is the one.

My hot-wire cutter, als known as my rather expensive mistake...

First set of four tiles for my Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 4)

Okay maybe I'm making slightly too many updates, but I have gotten carried away a bit here so why not... Using my patented quick and sloppy painting style I've decided to call the first four tiles for my modular space ship interior (or industrial) terrain set finished (for now). I'll probably add some more detail after expanding the set and painting more. Now for the big question, do I go for the fun of showing what I have, do I type an exciting tutorial on my own Typhus Corrosion mix or do I spend some words on salt weathering. Nah, finished terrain first, lots of words later (this week probably).

Watch out where the Space Wolves go, and don't you eat that yellow snow.

Rattlecan gun-fu on my Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 3)

Yesterday saw the start of Dutch spring with temperatures reaching a scorching 20 degrees (Celcius which equals 68 Fahrenheit. Yes, I'm not a summer person so don't get me started on 30C+ peaks in high summer! Anyway with a late-afternoon hour to waste I had a chance to do some rattlecan gun-fu in the garden instead of in the shed. Who can say no to an escape from poisonous fumes (although my paint filtering mask helps there (hint hint to everyone not owning one of these)). As an added bonus working outside adds a chance of unwanted sand and leaves falling on your terrain. A chance at some chaos! Nice! I went for it. For the curious here is the end result of an about an hour of spraying with rattlecans.

Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only rust.

More test buildings for my Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 2)

After a successful start on the first tile for my modular space ship interior for Warhammer 40K and most likely the upcoming game Shadow War: Armageddon I spent a large chunk of my Sunday filling more tiles bringing the total to four.

With a bit of imagination this is starting too look like something sci-fi.

Materials, plans and a test building to build a Warhammer 40K modular space ship interior or industrial terrain (part 1)

White Dwarf magazine had a beautiful bit of space ship terrain a few years back. A complete 28mm scale half-open Ork Kruiser for toy soldiers to fight over. At a glance I would guess it to be around 120cm x 60cm x 60cm big. I want to build something like that but, as my mansion is currently in the 'aspiring to one day maybe live in one'-stage, I don't have the room to store or display a model of that size (don't get me started on the storage of my vampire castle). So I have been planning to build the next best thing for quite some time now: modular space ship interior terrain.

Yes this modular bit of 40K terrain still needs some paint...

Mysterious door

What is behind this mysterious door? What was above it before war struck the building? No one knows, but it's there...

Building a huge Warhammer 40K Manufactorum

I managed to find some spare time to invest in finishing this long project. I started out airbrushing the entire building with consecutive layers of Shadow Grey, Fortress Grey, Skull White. I like Shadow Grey and think the combination has the right concrete look to it. After this job I airbrushed a rather astonishing amount of wash around burned out and bomb-shelled windows and other features (and where fancy took me). All I can say is long live Vallejo for supplying these huge barrels of wash (black and sepia for those keeping score).

Making a cargo elevator platform

Another day, another bit of hard labor on the Manufactorum. I made a little inset today to put behind the door as a raised factory floor. The PVA glue is still a bit wet on this pick, but it will dry up nicely I expect. Also featured on this picture is the grounded and beveled base of the building.

Making concrete walls for Warhammer 40K buildings

Today was very productive. I started out getting Gesso, a few new spackle knifes (I forgot to clean the old ones, may the emperor forgive me). I started out by applying a straight layer of filler over the brushed on layer (which is a lot easier that applying filler straight to foamboard). This was the result:

Experimenting with Warhammer 40K concrete

So work is steadily progressing on this building and with a bit of luck I might actually start painting it around Wednesday. Anyway here goes the next bit.

I put in the rear wall section here (on the left side):

Building the walls of the manufactorum

So I have been cutting and pasting another number of hours to get ahead with the manufactorum and got to the first hurdle. Turns out that no matter how much time you (well I) spend in Sketchup reality has a way of catching up. As I was cutting away at the walkway (on the cutting mat here):

Cutting foamboard for a manufactorum

Today I worked out how to cut the building from 5mm foamboard using some printouts and I adapted the doorway to fit in a leftover 'eagle door' from the Sanctum Imperialis kit. I also cut the major parts and glued what I could. Now to wait for the glue to dry. Here is a short update on the first step including one showing a space marine (to give an indication of the rather massive scale):

Using Sketchup to design a manufactorum

I really like the manufactorum on page 27 of Cities of Death so I'm going to try to build one to use as a centerpiece.

As it is always hard to see the back of a building on a 2D photo (har har) I've started this project on the computer using Google Sketchup. This way I can make a basic plan for cutting my foamboard (it is exact to the millimeter and I have used 5mm and 3mm foamboard as my building blocks, the little perons at the front is scaled to Astartes height). Also it gives me a chance to consider if the building will work on the tabletop. I am still in doubt to be honest, it is rather high so climbing it during a battle will cost allmost the entire battle. On the other hand it will block line of sight and if succesful it will look great. It will also give me a chance to use a lot of pvc piping I have lying around after a major home renovation project. So there we go.

Storage Tanks

This is a bit of terrain that I build. A couple of big storage tanks with some barbed wire on top. A quick shopping list: