Roads No Longer Taken

No, I'm not going to wax philosphical about changing lives and such. Instead this is about an experiment to make a flexible road for my alien world terrain. To fit in with the Big Stone Heads I wanted the road to look like ancient stone pavers that have been partially reclaimed by nature.

They won't break line of site or anything useful in a game of 40k but they help tell a story with the terrain setup and those really are my favorite type of pieces.

The basic plan is the same as all the rest of my flexible pieces with the addition of some stone slabs made out of pink foam. I wanted them to look weathered so they were sanded down then given a coat of wood putty. These were glued directly to the mesh base.

The roads are on the bottom right. The others are rough ground pieces that I worked on at the same time. 

The rest of the build was the usual except I've tried out some new material for longer grass. Going into the project I knew I didn't want to use my standard static grass or typical trees. I wanted to have a more alien looking flora. I have a plan for the trees which hopefully I'm finally getting close to starting but I was at a loss for grasses to match. Then while browsing through my flytying materials ( often raided for modelling) I found some crystal dubbing. I later bought several shades that I thought would work together and mixed up some grasses.

While its made of a similar material as normal static grass it's a bit shinier and sparklier. It's also a bit longer and more curled so I had to cut it up into shorter lengths. I'm not entirely convinced with the effect but I think it might look better once I have more pieces complete.

Tau Firewarrior and Pal

In the background of my other projects for the past couple of months I've been trying to work out a paint scheme for the new additions to my Tau force. This hasn't exactly gone smoothly but I finally figured out something that I like.

I painted up my original Tau force when they first came out back in 2001 ( I think, I tried to look it up online) I actually painted the entire army in about a month and a half to meet a deadline of playing a local Rogue Trader Tournament. The downside is that I completely burned myself out on painting them and never painted another Tau figure. Till now.

My concept for my new additions is that they would be a unit of specialized recon/assault unit tasked with tracking local Tyranid splinter forces. My original army would fill the role of the hapless local planetary defense forces explaining why they have some out of date equipment in their ranks ( the first release models some of which have now been updated by GW).

With that idea in mind I wanted to have a camo scheme but one that doesn't really look like a typical modern pattern. After some web browsing I picked out some ideas to try out.

The first was a German WW1 helmet pattern. I liked the heavy black lines between the different colors, not something you see anymore in modern camo schemes.

Image courtesy of the Imperial War Museum http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30091482

I also wanted to go with a modern dazzle scheme that you sometimes see on warships and planes. Here I was strongly influenced by the figure made by Fichten Foo who's work is always just amazing. I highly recommend checking out his blog at this link.

This is Fichten Foo's K-H.O.L.E. Gunner. I really like the way he did the camo pattern.

So with those ideas in mind I tried a couple of different schemes. I didn't finish any of the figures off as I was just trying to get the camo to look right. There was also usually a couple of weeks between each figure as I pondered other approaches.

These were done left to right. The final pattern took parts of each.

In the end I was happy with my fourth attempt which I tried out on a drone first as I was running out of pre-assembled Firewarriors. The last firewarrior I assembled just for the project so he was armed with a pulse carbine to fit in with the close quarters role I planned for the detachment.

Next up for the Tau project: Stealth Suits.

More Stone Heads

Two more Big Giant Stone Heads for the collection. Both of these are modelled after later generation hybrids and represent nobles, viziers or something like that. Anyways they're a bit more human looking overall. I really wanted them to give them that beatific smiling Buddha face that a lot of Khmer statues have but I just couldn't get a smile to work with the genestealer look. Of course GW art was no help I don't think they have a single picture of a smiling Genestealer Hybrid. In the grim future there is only scowls and people shouting. I settled for more of a frowning face and maybe a kinda disappointed guy?

For the first one I took some inspiration from a video game I played recently ( Torchlight II -  I'm about 4 years behind on my gaming) which had a ruined temple with a stone face sticking up out of the ground. So after sculpting the face I cut the back off at an angle so it would look like it mysteriously sank into the earth.

The second head is a bit more massive as I wanted it be be free standing. I wanted to give it a design that mimicked both the cowl that the genestealer Magus always seem to wear and the border that surrounds a lot of the Khmer statues. The teardrop design was pressed in using a plastic straw that was creased into the right shape and then I went back over it to firm up the lines. The back got a lot more DAS clay added to it to round out the shape of the cowl.

The rest of the build went as normal adding the flexible base. For the paint job I took some inspiration from the red rock formations from our trip to Colorado. In particular a rock face in Waterton Canyon that had some great weathering and color to it.

I started painting them a dark brown then mixed in orange and green into it for more color. Then worked my way into the grays. When doing rocks I always stipple on the paint as it tends to give a more natural textured look. They ended up much grayer than the actual rocks back at the canyon but I like how they came out. With a much richer tone then my first stone head.

I have plans for at least 3 more heads but I might do even more as they are really fun to make.

Big Giant Stone Head

With a new set of terrain I'm once again indulging one of my pet fascinations. I got a chance to make some gabions which I had been trying to do for years and now the Big Giant Stone Head.

Why massive stone heads? Not sure. Partially I've always liked the mysterious look of the statues at Angkor Wat and other Khmer sites. Or it could a weird hold over from the resin stone heads that were put out by Dreampod 9 for Heavy Gear. (which of course indulged my other long time fascination of giant robots.) I've made some previous attempts at making stone heads before but they never really came out right.  I was never satisfied with the faces that I was able to make for them.

This time I decided to draw on my recent experience with polymer clay and sculpt the face from scratch. I wrapped a chunk of foam with aluminum foil so that I could separate the face, bake it, and then glue it back on.

At this point I'm sure the question arises "Why a screaming face with pointy teeth?" Well I like my terrain to tell a story. It might be subtle and probably a lot of people wouldn't see it if you don't point it out but it's usually in there. In this case I wanted to create some history for the planet we would be fighting over. In the distant past it was once colonized by humans on the edge of Imperial space. At some point the civilization was taken over by a powerful religious movement causing a regression in technology and the eventual fall of the planet. The statues were erected to honor the new "demigods" that now controlled the planet. In reality this new religion was controlled by a Genestealer Cult and in this case the stone head is of a 1st or 2nd generation hybrid who I would imagine would of been seen as a semi divine warleader or protector. That's also why this head is built into a defensive wall. Maybe a bit much back story for a piece of terrain but when you are spending a couple of hours making a giant stone head you have time to think of these things.

Back to the actual construction, after sculpting the face I carved blocks into the foam and added two pieces to make the remnants of the wall. After gluing the face on I blended it together using some DAS air drying clay.

Next it got a coating of wood putty mixed with gesso to hide all of the different materials. It them got a flexible caulking base which is gonna be a standard for all of this terrain.

The base was painted the same as the mat. For the head I went with a simple grey. Although I stippled it on mixed with browns, greens, and purples. I might try a more brown coloration in the future but I wanted something that would contrast with the red colored earth. I also got in some yellow turf that I mixed in with my previous turf and added to the head to finish it off.

Finally a couple more shots of my Tau hanging out with the Big Giant Stone Head.

Detour to the 40th Millenia

There has been a bit of a delay since my last post. I had been working to get some more gabions and a few pikeman painted when my wife suggested she'd like to paint up and play some 40k again. This was an opportunity not to be passed up. She decided that she would play with her Tyranids again and look into adding some new figures. I looked over the armies I had stored away and choose my Tau to once again see the light of day.

One hurdle facing the project is that I really don't have much terrain for 40k anymore. I have a few Imperial buildings that I kept and an old 4 x 8 board but it needs some serious refurbishment. So the first step would be making something to play on. While I really like big set boards whether modular or not I don't have the storage space for them and they take too long to build. Instead I'm going to make a flexible mat borrowing techniques from the flexible pieces I've been making recently.

Since I've never made a play mat before I decided to make a sample piece first to work out any kinks. I purchased a canvas drop cloth to form the base. For this piece I cut down a piece from a 4 x 5 cloth. I also got a 6 x 9 to use for my final mat.

There's a mix of different colored and size sand and fine gravel applied to the caulk. 

Next it got a coating of caulking. I worked this into the cloth using a drywall tool to get a fairly thin even coat. Then the sand went on for texture and was pressed into the caulk. This was left to dry overnight.

It was painted a red brown with a dark brown wash and then i picked out the larger stones with black and a grey dry brush. Everything then got dry brushed up through a brick red to tan. After that Earth tone fine turf was applied. I think the turf is a bit too green overall so I ordered some yellow grass to use with it on the actual mat.

With this sample piece done I'm ready to move onto the main event. I'm also working on some terrain and trying to figure out how I want to paint my additions to my Tau forces.

The mat is very flexible and easy to roll up for storage. 

Some of my Tau scout out the new terrain.

One of the nice attributes of the mat is its easy to make rolling terrain by simply sticking objects underneath.

Future projects: A test paint for my Tau reinforcements and some more terrain.