Terrain 4 Cake

Refurbishing Terrain

Posted on 17/12/2018 by Nick

My gaming club (ELG) has had two sets of the old Games Workshop ‘Cities of Death’ terrain for about 10 years now, and as you can imagine it has been pretty battered over the years. But to Games Workshops credit the terrain is still sound and it’s only the glue joints that have worn out, so my advice to people is stop dissing GW they make good product and its worth the price!

But anyhoo apparently the terrain requirements of 40K have changed over the past few years, with more favor now given line of sight blocking terrain (over ruins or area terrain), so this has allowed me to re-build these terrain sets into something more appropriate to the current game.

I’ve also taken the opportunity to make these sets pack more easily into our storage boxes by choosing two specific heights to rebuild these buildings to, and put them all onto lighter raised bases.

Hope these amuse

Nick

Posted in In Progress, Necromunda, Terrain, Warhammer 40k | Tagged Games Workshop, in progress, kill team, Necromunda, terrain, wargames terrain, Warhammer 40K | Leave a comment

And I’m back…

Posted on 09/10/2018 by Nick

So, after a couple of year hiatus (due to a small cute thing) I’ve come back to gaming at my local club, and for my sins taken back up the Caretaker post again. After four years away from the committee the club’s terrain is in worse condition than I could have hoped, however on the plus side their bank balance is healthy so I’ve got plenty to play with to turn that around.

Which begs the question when your supplying a regular attendance in the mid-forties what do you do first. My choice (maybe showing a bit of OCD) was to tidy and by that I mean open every box, assess each piece of terrain for damage, then sort & re-label the best bits into boxes for continued use & record a repair priority for the box. After an eight-hour stint of this I got through about two thirds of the club’s terrain, and realised two things. First: I have made an f-ton of terrain for [elg], Second and more usefully: This is going to take a while to repair/refurbish.

Also weighing on the club is that they’ve now moved to a new venue that hasn’t yet proved secure storage, and that the club’s gaming boards are now further away from the main hall than in the old venue also there a bit tired looking & very heavy (as my sore back can attest).

Hmm so lots to do… but on the plus side lots to blog about :)

Cheers

Nick

Posted in Setting the scene | Leave a comment

3D Blood Bowl Pitch

Posted on 22/02/2017 by Nick

…I’m alive honest! Finally go back to do some modelling after a long hiatus due to family illness, baby daughter & my bathroom trying to drop into my kitchen (note: hidden cisterns are a recipe for disaster!).

Anyhoo so my local gaming cafe (Tabletop Cafe – www.tabletopcafe-edinburgh.com) decided to run a Blood Bowl league now that GW have released the new edition (5th Ed apparently). So desperate to do some terrain making, and having the excuse that i don’t need to make up a team (Go Ponies:) I decided to make a 3D Pitch for them.

So i went with 35mm squares (5th Ed pitch has 34mm squares but i’m neither mm accurate, or can multiply by 34 in my head) as this seemed like the best compromise, and tried designing the pitch to be as small as possible. It took me about a month to build around life requirements (Work, Baby, PS4 Skyrim you know important stuff) but i’m pleased with how it came out, anyway in progress pictures here:

It all starts as a doodle, at least for me.

20x45mm Pine Frame

6mm ply added (i had three small sheets hence the extra framing in the pitch section

25mm pine strip edging

Marking out

Frame to pitch square position and height

Started inserting the styrofoam

Making out the pine for dremelling

Kept the pitch depth down by dremelling squares into the pine

Layout roughed out

Roughed out square depths

Squares all carved out of the styrofoam

Detailing the ‘river’ edges

Detailing the dugouts

Broken tiles made from thick card

Subtle pitch markings added with coffee stirrers (note: I did but don’t bother buying these)

Broken tiles coseup

BROWN blobs!

Couple of gravel test pieces to make sure i could still see the square edges after painting

Mostly textured pitch

Completly textured pitched, did the turn tracks in just sand so it would be smoother for adding numbers later

Brown!!!

I love how simple drybrushing makes terrain look

Detailing added to pitch

Dugouts with 3D printed coffins (as miniature coffins don’t exist)

Bloody docterin tables in the knockout section

Drawing in the numbers with a stencil & white pencil

Painted & washed broken tiles

Started the flocking

Painted in the numbers red as a base colour, then went over them again later in bone/white

And the finished article:

Finished pitch

Water effect on the broken tiles

Dugout 1

Dugout 2

Prancing Ponies setting up for a drive

And the team ‘staff’ looking on

Square heights down to the river

And from the front

The side line heights from the from

Dugout 2

Dugout 1 with the coach working out tactics for next drive

Cheers

Nick

Posted in Complete, In Progress, Terrain | Tagged 3D Printer, blood bowl, terrain, wargames terrain | Leave a comment

X-wing miniatures – Printing and painting

Posted on 18/05/2016 by Nick

I printed a few ships in the last days of waiting before Elenor’s birth, and I’ve been painting them in snatched 10 minute spree’s between doing parental type jobs.

Firstly are two YV-100’s printed quickly at minimal detail level (0.3mm layers) intended to replace the hideous looking Aggressor model (aka Brobots) produced by fantasy flight, with a basic grey & orange scheme I’m happy enough with them.

Second is a YT-2000 printed at best detail level (0.1mm layers) this was just for the fun of it as I played through X-wing flight sim computer games in the late 90’s and like its design. Painted with more care in the millennium falcon style of ‘flying scrap heap’, and I suppose I could use it as an alternate Dash Rendar’s YT-2400.

Also tarted up my token box, but anyhoo pictures:

YV’s pictured with ugly aggressor.

YT-2000 pictured with YT-2400

Detail level more notice-able side by side when comparing the smoothness of the central dish section

Anyhoo hope these amuse!

Nick

Posted in 3D Printer, X-wing miniatures | Tagged 3D Printer, X-wing miniatures | Leave a comment

Eleanor Anne Brigg

Posted on 11/05/2016 by Nick

And earlier today my daughter was born, weighing 9 pounds and 3.5 ounces (or 4.18Kg in metric) kinda tired so here is a place for family and friends to see pictures whilst i go pass out (no sleep last night :( for obvious reasons)

Prize winning marrow shot

“Ahh leave me alone dad i’m sleepin”

Mum is much more comfy

Snoozly

Cheers

Nick

Posted in Other | Tagged baby photos | 2 Comments

X-wing miniatures soooo many tokens

Posted on 06/05/2016 by Nick

Over the last couple of months I’ve been playing fantasy flight’s game X-wing miniatures which is cracking fun, however like all FF products it comes with LOTS of cardboard crack. So armed only with the freeware version of google sketch up, and some inspiration from other thingiverse designers, I’ve come up with the following token box to tame the card madness.

This prototype print works quite well but is a bit awkward to open, so I’ll make a couple more modifications before posting it back on thingiverse.

Cheers

Nick

Posted in 3D Printer, X-wing miniatures | Leave a comment

Necro-fun-da – Add on pack ;)

Posted on 20/04/2016 by Nick

So I’ve been making terrain now for… okay lets say Many years… and it still surprises me how good something as simple as a two coat dry brush looks. Okay so it’s the addition of the spray texture that really sets off the drybrushing, but still you go instantly from flat black blob to all the detail really popping out. Anyhoo pictures so you can see what I mean…

Before…

And after :)

So as were still waiting on our daughter turning up I guess I’ll try and get this add on ‘pack’ for the 6s2hit Necromunda terrain completed.

Cheers

Nick

Posted in 3D Printer, In Progress, Necromunda, Terrain | Tagged 3D Printer, 6s2Hit, in progress, Necromunda, terrain, wargames terrain | Leave a comment

Snowy Ruins – 40k Terrain – Pt5 Complete

Posted on 15/04/2016 by Nick

*phew* with two weeks left to go till Caroline’s due date just got this set finished in the nick of time ;) Anyhoo so i put another coat of just pva & bicarb paste over the snow patches then flocked with GW snow and tapped it smooth with a finger, this mostly seems to have solved the seep-age problem and the set is now delivered for use on an Urban Matz snow territory 6’x4′. But enough talk, pictures…

And the completed terrain set for use with a space wolves army

Wide shot left

And right

Stepped Hills & Trees, these generic pieces will be useful for other games systems

GW ruins & 3d printed storage tanks

Pegasus hobbies buildings plus bits

And pegasus buildings from the other side

3d printed landing pad

And the open landing pad showing the internal storage that all the trees fit into ;)

Bastion in a hill

And bastion reverse

Terrain set in its new home

I tried to match the terrain basing to be between the matt and the basing of his space wolves army but to show a bit more grey so as to not induce snow blindness

Hope this amuses ;)

Nick

Posted in 3D Printer, Complete, Terrain, Warhammer 40k | Tagged 3D Printer, complete, Games Workshop, Pegasus Hobbies, terrain, Urban Matz, wargames terrain, Warhammer 40K | Leave a comment

Snowy Ruins – 40k terrain commission – Pt 4

Posted on 22/03/2016 by Nick

Paint glorious paint… thuth I forgot how long it takes to base coat a terrain set, I spent 3hrs yesterday painting dark grey *snooze* anyhoo got a few more colours on this evening but it’s still looking pretty basic. But it’s a start and it’s worth noting that every terrain set goes through this dull looking part, it’s where you take it afterwards that makes people eyes pop ;) but here are I few in progress pics…