Clearing the cupboard terrain…

Posted on 16/09/2022 by Nick

Over the years I’ve made… many… sets of terrain, and invariably there have been leftover bits & bobs which I’ve kept as they could be useful. So I’m determined to have a clear out by making a terrain set from these bits only.

This doesn’t mean hodge podge, I’m still mulling on a theme of Jungle world outpost for Stargrave or another small miniature count sci-fi game.

So a bunch of cork bark led me to craggy outcroppings

I’ve also been enjoying miniature painting, which usually i find the least enjoyable part of this hobby. Terrain painting is sooooo much easier, give me a quarter inch brush 🖌️ anyday over squinting at tiny details.

Chaos cultists for necromunda
Chaos for blood bowl (I’m on theme weirdly)

But the reason for the pleasant change is Army Painter Speed Paints (and some GW contrast which appear the same) making the process much faster, and so far I can only recommend them.

Anyway cheers, hope you enjoy. Nick

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Terrain within terrain – complete

Posted on 31/08/2022 by Nick

Finished off painting, varnishing & felting the undersides last night. Also pictured is my very old Necro-fun-da add on pack, some gantries & random small scatter.

Hope these amuse, cheers. Nick

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Lighting because why not…

Posted on 23/08/2022 by Nick

Okay so these boxes are turning into a bit of test bed for lots of old ideas that I’ve been ruminating on for a while. But the over hangs of the lids seemed like too good a opportunity to pass up, so lighting because why not… also base dry brushing and a bit of metal, more paint to come.

Cheers. Nick

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Terrain stored within Terrain

Posted on 19/08/2022 by Nick

This idea harks back to when I ran elg and we had a finite amount of storage space (which everyone does really) but we wanted the most variety of terrain for different games systems as possible. In an earlier post I showed you how I began designing terrain sets to neatly fit within a single box, maximising the amount of terrain whilst also minimising (see idiot proofing) damage from usage.

In the club we also did this with smaller shoe sized boxes to contain the scatter, trees & jungle bases. Which you’d then pile the larger terrain pieces on top. But I always wondered if we could use that space more efficiently.

So many many years and thinking about making terrain for my own amusement (and hopefully so I can get some friends over to game) I noticed this video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/06WEzB6cA6E and wondered why he made the boxes solid.

Any hoo pictures of the planning and detailing…

And base coated, along with some scatter terrain and the Necro-fun-da add on pack that I started many years ago whilst waiting for our first child to be born… Ellie’s just started Primary 2!

For scale our club used really useful 64 Litre or 84 Litre boxes for a 40K terrain set. All of this laid out covers 4’x3′ and fits into a 35 Litre box. Engage smug mode :) but hope this amuses. Thanks Nick

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Pandemic, children, life, arg…

Posted on 19/08/2022 by Nick

So I’m still alive honest… hmm seem to be starting posts here a lot like this!

Anyhoo like after our first child I’ve spent a couple of years mostly out of the hobby, and this time there was a Pandemic too which has made all our lives different. But here is Sebastian enjoying the post lockdown world.

Seb on the tractors at the Scottish Deer Centre

But getting back into the hobby currently trying to organise some friends for games in my garage hobby workshop/ man cave.

Currently finishing off the necromunda scatter terrain and working on an ages old idea I had of storing terrain within terrain, as I had the necromunda scatter it seemed a good time to resurrect this idea and it seems to be coming together.

Its nice to be back posting here even though I don’t expect anyone actually looks at this blog it’s good to put my thoughts down in writing and to be able to froth about hobby without bothering anyone. But more frequent posts coming soon I promise :P

Cheers! Nick

P.s. Started using phone camera & wordpress app. Seems easier to use so hopefully more updates, but will see how the formatting comes out.

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[elg] is dead… long live elg?

Posted on 06/10/2019 by Nick

I had the depressing experience of presiding over the death of my 13 year old gaming club last tuesday :(

The club had been loosing money every week for the last year (something which we the commitee should have combatted, however with only two out of the five volunteer positions filled & me getting my noodle throughly stressed out in spring this year the commitee was mainly Dale so credit should really go to him for keeping the club running at all), this was mainly down to a venue move a couple of years ago to somewhere was f’kin expensive (but to be fair every venue in Edinburgh is this price, and our previous venue literally fell apart because it was under charging for its space) and that the change in venue & week night meant a couple of groups left the club for other gaming spaces within Edinburgh. So looking back the economics make the clubs demise seems inevitable, but its still a shame.

Anyhoo moving forwards, so the club’s assets (no money left, i’m talking about terrain & boards here) have now mostly been distributed to the last year’s membership. With the 40K & Infinity players mostly deciding to re-locate to a store’s gaming space (Red Dice games – Facebook link – Tuesday nights) at the bottom of leith walk; and the Boardgamers mostly deciding to try out a new gaming ‘charity’ (Ark Games Club – Facebook link – Wednesday nights) which meet at the church at the west end of princess street.

So the community still exist and games will still be played in awesome spaces with lovely terrain (yeah i know im bragging here stay with me), and I’d like to think that if elg has a legacy that it still lives on in facilitating the gaming community and helping these places inspire great games to occur… any way that is my hope :)

On a personal note I’ve found that being able to draw a line under elg has released alot of pressure from me mentally that I hadn’t realised i was under, but i suppose that the slow death of something you loved and felt that defined you in some ways will do that to you. So elg is dead, but long live the community and may your games forever be awesome :P

Nick

P.s. I woke up this morning with a terrain idea thats been part formed in my head for a while now, and realised I can just make this for my own amusement and don’t have to justify the expenditure to anyone (well maybe my wife;) which was quite a liberating experience and inspired me to potificate the above. Anyhoo should now go get our toddler up out of bed :)

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Refurbishing Terrain – complete

Posted on 04/09/2019 by Nick

*phew* so six months later than I’d planned but here are these two finished terrain sets. Unfortunately I’ve had some mental health issues caused by my work :( which have kept me away and meant that I’ve missed some planned posts about – Laser Cutting (really enjoying my new toy), Airbrushing terrain (god send more on this at some point), Rubble/detritus (or how to make a build look more natural and not just stuck on a bit of wood), Textured spray (or how to make painting a less trying process) *sigh* missed opportunities but i’m sure I’ll swing back to pontificating on these topics at some point.

So probably not my best work but i’ve enjoyed the results & have learnt some new things about incorporating custom made Laser Cut bits, but anyhoo pictures:

And here are some closer pics of my favourite buildings in these two sets, they are all mechanicum buildings which probably says something about me.

These two sets though similar in look are very different in average terrain piece size & number of pieces per set (one has fourteen, the other nine!), so it will be interesting to see how these differences impact on gameplay (& yes terrain should impact on gameplay otherwise why bother with it at all!).

Hope this amuses,

Nick

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Refurbishing Terrain – part 3

Posted on 07/02/2019 by Nick

Woo for it being tetris-ed into the boxes but *pfft* there is alot of bloody terrain in these two sets. It’s been taking me an entire evening to do what I see as a small step which has been taxing my enthusiasm (that an a grumpy 2 year old is exhausting). So anyhoo now got the terrain to the slightly depressing black undercoated blobs stage (i.e. matt black so you cant see all the detail i’ve spent months adding) so last night, even though i’ll probably have to redo it later, I put a dark grey drybrush over the bases and its nice seeing the base detailing come back.

This was also a suitably brainless task that I could do whilst also running off some Terraforming Mars player boards on the Laser Cutter (more on these when there finished). With laser, water pump, extractor fan, laptop, tumble dryer, bike battery charger & IPad playing music it was quite a loud room last night but very productive at least :)

Hope these amuse

Nick

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Refurbishing Terrain – part 2

Posted on 12/01/2019 by Nick

A thing worth noting about Laser Cutters (or 3D printers for that matter) is that they are a tool, not unlike my old fretsaw or a craft knife. They make the creation of more things possible but they don’t actually make terrain for you, and there is still the requirement to put all the components together and finish the terrain piece… that being said new tools are fun.

So for the last month i’ve been slowly making edging & floor tiles to add onto these two terrain sets, and i’ve got to say that they look kinda good. The next job is to snip the remaining Cities of Death bits and glue them on as debris, then add some sand & gravel texture all over, then paint. Heh sounds like i’m almost done when i say it that way ;P

Anyhoo here are some pics of the sets so far:

Hope these amuse

Nick

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Chinese 40W Laser Cutter

Posted on 19/12/2018 by Nick

Yay! So my new toy of a Chinese 40W laser arrived a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been trying it out doing some Christmas labels. For anyone considering buying one of these I recommend doing lots of online research as there are lots of resources out there from other hobbyists more skill than I (so I won’t be badly repeating there advice, but will add some links), my only addition is that for a precision instrument they are really crappily put together so be prepared to dismantle & reassemble some parts to make them work properly.

However, that said the level of cutting precision is frankly rude; I was doing a test piece for setting the laser focal length of 50.8mm but when the piece cut and I measured it with a caliper it came out at 50.3mm I was grumpy for maybe a whole second before it occurred that the error was less than half a millimetre (about the thickness of a finger nail!). Incidentally this also told me that the cutting width of the focused laser is about half a millimetre, which is interesting fact to store for later.

So after a bit of design work in Inkscape (and some replacement control software – K40 Whisperer) I’ve started creating edging and floor tiles (whoop will never have to cutout cardboard tiles again!) to go on the GW terrain sets that I’m refurbishing at the moment. I’m unsure whether the bricks detailing will come out after painting but we’ll see I suppose.

Cheers

Nick

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