Tale of Only Two Gamers: Terrain Ready for Paint

After a few more days than I had planned, the terrain is ready for some paint.  I spent an evening of sanding and adding spackling paste to seams.  The next day was more sanding.  I then decided to add some mdf board to the terrain pieces above.  I also cut some more shapes for use as forests and swamps as you can see below.  I then beveled the edges and glued down the hills I had made for towers.  After weighing these down with pots/books overnight, it was more spackle, more time, more sanding.

Finally, on Sunday it was time for adding sand.  I mixed up white glue and water as normal and added sand. Letting this dry I then covered everything in a really watered down glue to seal everything.  The Skullvane Manse above caused some trouble with foam pulling away from mdf, so as you can see it took an extra day to get to the same point(did the sand last night).  See below for more.

Above are the four hills with sand attached.  They are sealed and ready for paint.  I plan on putting static grass in all places where there is no sand.

Above I made four forest bases and added sand and sealed with glue.  I will have static grass anywhere sand is not and just place Woodland Scenics Trees on these for mobility during gaming. 

Above I also made four swamp bases.  These will be same as forests, except I am going to pour the rings of sand with Water Effects after painting.  These will have a tree or two placed on them, also removable for gaming.

I added a few skulls and rats and bits to the two main terrain pieces to give a little extra to look at.  I will probably use a little Water Effect around this guy for a little sewer rat action.

It took a little longer than expected, but after some paint time and static grass we should have a table full of terrain.  The hills, forests and swamps are built with the plan to use in any games of 40k, Warmahordes, Old West, etc.  This will be nice to have a big set of varied terrain ready to go for many game systems.  I'm not sure when I will get around to painting.  Hopefully, get some primer down this week and then some quick spray painting and drybrushing, it should be a pretty quick finish for everything except the two tower pieces.  These will involve lots more painting time and will have to wait until a game day, so I will have some help.

That's all for now.  I'll get some more pics up as these progress and some more shots of the Stir River Patrol.

Tale of Only Two Gamers: Hills WIP

I have a little time in the evenings this week without the family and have turned some attention to our Fantasy terrain collection. We still have a lot of work to do if we want a table full of decent painted terrain.  So, I decided to add hills to our GW terrain and build four other random hills.  The hills will also pull double duty in our 40k games.

Sunday evening, I cut out the shapes with a hobby knife and glued the layers together using Elmer's White Glue.  After applying the glue I grabbed a bunch of pots and books and weighted the layers for a few hours.  Last night I got out the hot wire cutter and roughed the shapes some more, tapering the edges and getting some cliff sections made.

Tonight I plan on doing a bit of sanding to get everything smooth and ready for basing material.  After the initial sanding I plan on using some body filler to fill any gaps between layers.  After this dries I will sand once more and add white glue and sand on most of the surfaces.  Next will be another watered down layer of white glue to seal the sand and any exposed foam before painting and static grass.

I know these are pretty rough now, but I hope to get everything except the painting done on these before the end of the week.  I am also painting furiously during breaks at work and making progress on the Stir River Patrol.  I have completed the 10 Handgunners and have a decent start on 15 of the Halberdiers.  I will get some good pics of the handgunners and get them posted soon.

Tale of Only Two Gamers: Empire Handgunner WIPs

I took a few quick WIP shots of the Handgunner unit I'm working on over the weekend.  The first 3 pics are of my test model.  I have since purchased the new GW Base: Ceramite White and have redone the white on this guy.  I also purchased GW Base: Averland Sunset and repainted the silly looking feather on this guy to a darker, dirtier yellow, more indicative of Stirland.  I have also brightened up the green on the uniform to match the unit below.  He was a little darker than I wanted.  

Since these pics were taken I have finished the feathers for entire unit and put the first coat of white on left side of all uniforms.  Ceramite White is awesome, if you haven't tried it, get some now if you have any white.  I am covering black undercoat with only 2 coats for full coverage.  I should finish them before the weekend.  My only obstacle now is figuring out how to paint white without making it so flat.  Any ideas on this would be greatly appreciated.  I am tempted to just dirty them up a lot, to make up for flatness, but I will entertain any ideas.  I will get out the lightbox for better photos once the unit is completely finished.  

I have found my only painting time to be on break while at work, so I get about 40-50 minutes per day(broken up into 3 - 15 minute sessions).  This is way more than I would get at home without being disturbed, so I think the goal of painting up 2,000 pts by the end of the year is very possible.

If you can tell from the pics I am taking the easy route on these guys.  Most parts are just basecoat, highlight, wash, then move on.  Even so, I am happy with the results so far and think the army will look good on the table.  I will add another layer of highlighting on front rank models and do a more intense layering technique for characters, while keeping a cohesive look, I hope.  Warm machines and crews will also get better treatment.  If everything goes well, I'll be jumping into the Halberdiers next week, hoping to complete unit in two to three weeks.

Tale of Only Two Gamers: New Terrain Built

Saturday, we got together for our second monthly game day.  No gaming this time, just building terrain for Warhammer Fantasy and some painting lessons for reklawsj.  I built(well partially built) the Tower of Sorcery.  My box was missing one of the 4 pieces for top, so it is incomplete, a call to GW Customer Service will hopefully fix this.  Jeremy built the Skullvane Manse.  He left the top part interchangeable.  We also have plans to add mdf bases and styrofoam hills to give them an even taller presence on the field.  The Temple of Skulls below was already built.

I put an Empire Handgunner on the bridge to show immense size of these terrain pieces.   They are huge, really, pics do them no justice if you have never seen these in person.  

 I also purchased the Woodland Scenics Trees shown below as well as some Water Effects.  I was able to get the 38 trees for less than 50 bucks online(Hobbylinc).  After we make some mdf forest and swamp bases, these will bulk out the terrain on the board.

The first part of the day was spent working on reklawsj's Marauder color scheme and doing a few paint lessons.  He has now completely painted his first ever model.  We did basecoating, highlighting, drybrushing, and washing.  Now he has all the tools he needs to get his guys painted up, and hopefully some pics up soon to show the first couple test models we completed.  Next I will go over some basing techniques to really make them stand out with minimal effort. 

We are both trying to get our first 500 pts painted up and on the table in August.  In a couple days I should have my first 10 Handgunners completed and have a good start on the Halberdiers.  Next game day will be more terrain stuff to get ready for first games.

Not much in this post, except the great deal on the trees that is.  Next time, real painted models, I promise.