Combining Sets

Played a big game this last weekend, and man was it a blast.  The only downside?  As soon as I setup the terrain, the darn camera battery was dead.  That silly thing takes a few hours to charge, so all I got was a few shots of the pre-game setup, and then all my buddies decided to change the setup completely anyway because the only guy that brought tanks had no chance of really using them in this setup.

I just wanted a post to show the initial setup using the combined lava flows and platforms and catwalks of the urban set.  If you look closely you can see the finished flows of solid magma... they now have a glow effect on the edges to showcase the brightness of the lava all around it.  Follow the jump for more pics.

Liquid Hot Magma.... Lava Mat - Now with Magma flows!

Couldn't resist the blog title.  As any of my friends know, I was obsessed with the Austin Powers movies from the 90's.  Liquid Hot Magma... ok, I will stop, I promise.

So I took the pics from the earlier post a bit early.  Technically I was only half done with the mat when I posted those shots.  Sue me, I was excited to post about a new shiny thing.  I added a black wash to the mat, and it added that much needed flow to the mat.  putting in the curvy hill/obsidian hills puts some movement on the otherwise static color.  The best thing though is it really makes the yellows and oranges pop way out of the red.  I did a LOT of painting today, and while I had these hills reserved for an arctic set I am building, they looked WAY better cracked and black.  So I decided to flesh these out for the lava mat instead.  Gotta say, these look REALLY good.

"Classic", "Vintage" just plain old crap... First attempt at Hills

I think I keep saying things like.. "My first terrain was X..."  Well folks, I lied this right here was actually what started it ALL.  I did these up in an afternoon orgy of burning foam smell and inhaling super glue fumes, and have been building terrain ever since.  As you can see, I had no clue what I was doing, and even so managed some not entirely terrible hills.  Hey they are functional, and when painted, made a semi-reasonable playing surface to match my table top at the time.  Having done a few sets of hills since, I see all the little things I did wrong here, but for now, just enjoy the blast from the past, and try to learn from my mistakes.  Pics comparing the old set to newer ones after the jump.

From Trash to ....well still trash, but Terrain too!

What would you do if you liked to make Terrain but had a shoestring budget?  If your answer was prostitution, you are looking at the wrong kind of blog.  If your answer was dumpster diving, look no further!!

I made a small set of pieces for a monthly build contest, the theme of which was "Terrain from Trash"  Rules were very open ended, but each item must be made in the majority out of trash or recycled materials.  Gotta say, the number of entries in that month's build was absolutely CRAZY, but I learned quite a bit, mostly through trial and error.  Pics as usual after the jump.

Building a Gaming Table - ver. Karate CHOP

The way I saw it at the time, the only thing preventing me from playing a game of 40k in my own home was a gaming table.  When I realized that, I set out to make that happen.  A thought occurred at the time however... I play most of my games with friends at their places... is there any chance of us needing a 2nd table at one of their places?  Could a table be made to be modular?  

Answer after the jump.

Ruins. Quick and Easy.

This set was quick and easy.  Nuff said right?  I have been building for a while now, so this set when handed to me was a very fast turn around.  I immediately saw the potential.  I got handed a set of brick walls made by Tamiya, and they were already red brick plastic.  I knew some finishing touches would make this set pop and it would be really painless.

Mounted on foamboard, and then flocked with a mix of sand and turf, then I just added some grass and foliage.  All I did to the bricks themselves was wash heavily in brown and then lighter in black.  Gave it a worn and dirty look.  Hit the jump for pics of the set.

Urban Set - Game Pics - Black Legion vs Daemons - 1500 Special Mission Arena

  Finally got a game in using the new urban tile set, and I gotta say, this was one of the most entertaining games I have had in a while.  I wanted a massive punchy fight, and that was exactly what I got.  A friend and I were getting tired of the same old bad guys vs Tau, so we decided to mix things up with a special mission.  Using the recently acquired Black Legion Supplement we did the Khorne Arena fight.  SO MANY MC'S AND WALKERS!!  I used every single MC and Walker model I had, and we still had to proxy a Blood Slaughterer.  It was grand.  Many pics after the jump...

Hills and teaching yourself how not to do them.

My very first foray into making terrain, like many others I am sure was to make a set of hills.  At the time I thought I was super slick and the hills I made would be game changing.  Oh how quickly that illusion was shattered.  I thought it would be simple enough to top single level hills with the matching AstroTurf mat that the table used, and it would be done in an hour.  Having completed the set, and looking back, I see just how uncaring of the details I was and just how much more I wanted to rush the build to get to play with it instead of making it great. 

Urban Tile Set

This project has sat on my shelf half finished for nearly a year.. It was primed black, and at the time it felt like it was taking FOREVER, so I put it down.  If I am not enjoying my hobby, I set it aside, and find something that sparks my interest.  In going through my basement storage area a few weeks ago in an attempt to clean and hopefully find more room to store terrain... I am finding that I had half a dozen half finished projects in various places.  That led me actually winding up said half finished projects, and TA DA!!  I finally got a great working compressor for my airbrush, and now I get to breeze though applying paint on a massive scale.

This tile set is a layer of foam-board topped with a 1" thick polystyrene foam cut into 1'x1' squares.  Yes, it is still a work in progress, but with a little color, I wanted to show my progress on it.  All of the "Sewer" tiles match up and as usual my rule of infinity configuration was my inspiration in this set.  I wanted a set that could really make a wide variety of setups, and with 40 tiles that always leaves me with extras to play around with.