All Quiet on the Hobby Front

Another big gap between posts but I do have somethings in the works moving forward.

First up my shipment of Chieftan MBTs came in and this week I've been slowly assembling the 2 troops. Hopefully they'll see some paint in the next couple of weeks.

Every year it seems to lure me back. 

Second the drums of war from the Grimdark future have brought me back to 40k once again. I purchased the new Dark Imperium box after following along with GW's lead up to releasing 8th edition. Having read through the rules I'm pretty impressed but I still need to try playing a game to make a final determination. I'm really looking forward to getting some paint on the new figures.

I'll need to pull that crystal flash off and finish these off with some of my new static grass. 

The return of 40k has seen me returning to my Red Planet terrain project that stalled about this time last year. I didn't like the way they were turning out then and put everything on hold for a rethink. I'm scrapping my overly ambitious original plan and going with tried and true plastic plants instead.

A selection of future vegetation  recently picked up from the local craftstore or unearthed from storage.

That's looking forward on the hobby end of things. I haven't been idle in the past months but I've found more of my time taken up with non-miniature gaming pursuits. A big part of it was helping my we ife stock up on inventory for some upcoming shows for her side business of needle felted birds. We've also started looking into expanding out into the wooly world of amigurumi crochet. I never really felt these side projects belonged on this blog but at the same time I do enjoy posting something about them so I decided to create an Instagram account to act as a miniblog/project log for these non miniature related projects. I expect the occasional miniature stuff will make it on there too. I want to update the look of this blog soon and I'll add a permanent link then but until then if you want to check it out follow along here.

Static Grass Applicator

This post really should of gone up a month ago but a combination of things including a couple of trips have kept pushing it off. Better late than never, so here it is.

I finally managed to knock together a bargain static grass applicator. It's nothing fancy just a re-purposed electric flyswatter. I generally followed along to one of the many plans you can find online they're all pretty much the same. I decided to not integrate the strainer into the handle as I thought it would give me more options. It might have been a mistake as you need to hold down a button to make it work. I ended up retrofitting it with a rubber-band to handle that task for me.

Not real fancy looking but it works.

I'm going to use it for static grass application on terrain and models but also for making some grass clumps. These are my initial experiments. I have three different colors so tried to make some with one color predominate but still mixed with the other two. 

Some early experiments

The basic method is pretty straight forward. Just paint some watered down glue on wax paper taped to the base plate. The applicator has one lead attached to the metal base and the other to the strainer. You just dump your static grass mix into the strainer and shake it through onto the glue. It initially looks kinda humped but after the glue dries it flattens out and you can just pop them off to use. I'm still experimenting with the glue to water ratio and how to paint it on to get organic looking clumps.

Close up on the clumps 

I've since ordered and received some longer static grass both 4mm and 6mm as opposed to the 2mm I had on hand. I think these will look better with different lengths mixed together. I'll try to make a few more with the new grass soon and then get to work actually using them on terrain. 

WIP: Scorpions in the Grass

Actually that's a Scimitar CVR.

Two separate projects that are both halfway done. I've completed the assembly of a pair each of Scorpion and Scimitar tanks for my Recce troop. I've also been prepping some tall grasses to add to my rough terrain bases. So I decided to combine the two posts.

First up the tanks. These are the Flames of War box set for Team Yankee and they're very nice kits. Since these are reconnaissance vehicles I wanted to model the camo tarps and foliage that they always seem to be covered in as in the picture below.

I put them together as standard and used some 1mm x 5mm rare earth magnets to magnetize the turrets. The kits are designed especially for this so it was really easy. I really wasn't sure where all the stowage should go on them. I couldn't find any reference pictures showing much of any stowage at all on the vehicles. So in the end I kept it fairly minimal.

The magntized turrets. I haven't glued the tracks on to make them easier to paint.

After reading some tutorials both on the Team Yankee website and scale armor modelling pages I formulated my plan. First step was to use some gauze soaked in glue for the base of the tarp. Once dry I glued a mix of marjoram and used tea leaves onto it. The marjoram was a little out of scale and probably would have worked better on a 28mm vehicle. I touched up parts with just tea leaves again (Earl Grey if you want to be specific.) Next up for these will be painting. I'm hoping to break out my airbrush for this so I'm going to have to wait for a day I can take them outside to work on them.

I've tried several different ways to make tall grasses before. While I've used deer hair and other fibers ( usually only on dioramas or miniatures bases) I generally use sisal twine. Previously I've made it with clumps of twine and while it's quite durable and looks OK I wanted to try to up the realism.
I already had some pieces of sisal that had been glued into clumps for a long abandoned previous project.

Some tall grass growing near my work. 

Actually the taller grass is probably some feral decorative grass. The shorterish grass is what I ended up seeing all over in overgrown fields. 

I cut up the clumps into much smaller ones usually just a handful of strands. This helped to solve the problem of the twine clumps tending to be twisted together. Next they all got a wash of thin brown ink.

A progression of the steps I took left to right

Next they were roughly dry-brushed with a bleached yellow color. It might seem like extra work to repaint the grasses back to pretty much the natural color of sisal fibers but I've always fond that using natural materials right next to painted ones makes them stand out. The final step was painting glue on the top parts of each grass clump and dipping them in some yellow turf to give the look of the seeds at the end of the grasses.

I just wedged some of my clumps in amongst the rocks to see how they look.

I made several different heights of grasses and stored them away to add to the rough terrain pieces. I'm planning on gluing them together in mixed clumps once I have everything else I need ready.

Rough Ground Ahead Part 1

These pieces are my first experiments with making a set of modular, flexible terrain pieces. The idea is to have terrain bases with magnets embedded in them. These bases are kept relatively simple and can be used as areas of rough terrain or just to visually break things up on the board.

Bases laid out with the most important bit: the magnet template on the left to keep the polarities correct. 

The bases caulked and textured.

Separately I'm making smaller pieces again with embedded magnets that can be put on top of these bases. These pieces will have more specific terrain pieces such as trees, rocks, brush etc. Combining the two will let me have woods, rocky areas, brush or whatever. The smaller pieces could also be used by themselves alongside the bigger ones.

Smaller bases. I should have actually made them slightly smaller in hindsight. 

In order to try to get things vaguely standardized I'm using a 40mm base as a guide for how big the removable parts should be. So I marked out the "holes" where the removable parts would go and tried to keep them clear of any bigger material.

I'm also experimenting with using cork bark for my rocks. Normally I like to carve rocks out of styrofoam but having seen people use cork to good effect I thought I'd give it a try. It's a little harder to get free standing rock formations to look the way I want but I figure the inherent texture will make them much easier to look like sedimentary stone.

I forgot to take a picture before I primed everything. Recce troop under construction in the back. 

Painting was pretty straight forward to keep with the style of the rest of terrain and most importantly the mat.

The bases

And the smaller toppers.

In the second part I'll add all of the flock and vegetation that will really bring the pieces together. I'm still collecting everything I want to use for this stage. The plan is to take my flocking up a step from what I normally do and add a bit more character to the pieces.

A sample of how they could be put together with Merlin hanging out.

A Little German Countryside

I've jumped back into terrain making trying out a couple of ideas I've had recently. My plan is to build up some terrain that can be used for upcoming Team Yankee games and further afield maybe some Pikeman's Lament. So I'm basically looking at a West German setting separated by a few centuries in time.

First up is the basic mat that I'll be using for taking pictures. One day I'll make a full sized mat but for now I like making these smaller 1' by 2' ones. I'm also using it as a test bed to try out a different technique for flocking.

The construction was done the same as the one I did up for my red terrain previously.

For flocking I wanted a more natural fade to edges of the vegetation so the entire mat was painted with a thinned white glue mixture with a touch of brown ink in it. Then the flock was sprinkled on through a sieve held about a foot over the mat.

After this dried I knocked off the excess and used a hand sprayer to hit the whole mat again with the same watery glue mix. I let it really soak in to hopefully hold everything on. I also sprinkled some secondary layers of turf in patches to give more texture.

The extra glue has really fixed the turf in place without any unforseen problems. I was a little worried I might get a shine or discoloration from the glue.

I covered the left side pretty completely but on the right its more sparse. This way I could use each side for different looks in pictures. 

The mat with some of my TYW terrain and Shotte.

Closer up shot in the lightbox. 

I also got in the start of my Team Yankee British so work on the Recce troop is up next. Also some more terrain pieces. 

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.

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.