OGGG

Although I wasnt particularly happy with with the way the greens on my larger terrain pieces blended with my mat, I was determined to carry on with the momentum I'd built by finishing some more terrain.

This time it is a set of highlands-style terrain pieces which are FDM prints from The Printing Goes Ever On. They are described as hills, but even after scaling them up to 125% they arent very big.. but at that size, they fit my needs perfectly as small Rohan-style outcrops. Of course, they would need to be 2 - 3 times larger to really look like the terrain of Deer Park Heights in New Zealand but these should be perfectly adequate for a 4 foot board!

I started with a heavy application of airbrushing, but quickly hit the expected problem when I put them on my mat off cut:

I used desaturated greens in the middle of each piece, and on the high points, but the colour I used on the outer edges just isnt a good match. This is the same problem I had with the woods until I hid it under static grass, but as I'm not planning to use static grass on these pieces, I really needed to find a colour that matched better. And then it hit me - it was so obvious!

So, one quick application of OG Goblin Green, and then a mix of Goblin Green and yellow later..

Much better! Then, it was just a matter of applying a copius amount of tufts. To be honest, I ran out of green ones so I might have to come back and add some more around the outer edges.

The Grass Is Always Greener..

..or sometimes, yellower. But it is never quite the same, dammit!

In a classic example or a first world problem, I decided about a year ago that I would get rid of a bunch of different gaming mats and replace them with a small number of the same mat but in different sizes. The theory was that I could then finally get off my butt and start painting (or finishing, in some cases) my collection of terrain projects and get them to match the colour and texture on the mat. It probably doesn't bother most people when the hill is a different shade of green to the mat it was placed on, but it sure bothers me!

So, last year I settled on a mat (the double sided Highlands in War mat from Gamemat.eu) and got myself a 4x4 and 6x4. After a bit of cutting, I ended up with a 4x4, 3x3, 2x2 (and, er, 2x3?) mats all in the same style and pallette.

Six months and one trip to Salute 2026 later and I was suitably inspired to resume this project. I dug out my box of linear obstacles and painted them up, along with some market stalls from Victrix and Wargames Atlantic.

So far, so good. Some amount of green paint on the base of a wall will go a long way to making it 'fit' but because the base of a wall is very small, it isnt apparent that the paint.. or the flock.. or the static grass.. isnt the same shade of green as the mat. It looks fine with almost any shade.

You can't get away with that so easily once you start needing a base to mount the terrain on, so the MDF bases for the market stalls were already starting to reveal the problem. But it was when I did a test scheme for a 3D printed hill that the colour problem became really apparent.

Indoors with natural light. Not bad. The hill looks a little saturated, but it's still pretty good. It doesnt look so good once I turn the lights on.

Outdoors. Not good. I think the satin finish of the mat doesnt help, but here the texture looks a lot more desaturated than the hill. 

I tried with just paint, then with woodlands scenic flock over the top, then with some different greens airbrushed over the top of that (pictured). Nothing looked right.

This prompted me to dig out a spare MDF base and try static grass. Indoors it looked great. 

Outdoors it looked okay, still not as good as I would like, but still less jarring than the effect on the small hill. So, looking at the pile of terrain I wanted to get through, I decided to get myself a static grass applicator. It arrived, and I got to work. Not on the hill, but instead I went back to my trees which I was never really happy with. Tufts were glued down. A mix of static grasses were applied. More tufts were purchased and glued down. And while the finished trees looked better.. the static grass effect didnt look as good on the tree bases as it did on the standalone base above, despite using the same static grass on the outer part of each tree base.

Outdoors. Looks okay from this angle.. but from above? Nope. Still not doing it for me.

Back to the drawing board, I guess! Right now I'm experimenting with different paints that i can spray onto the static grass on the edges of the bases to achieve a better transition. But if that doesn't work? I may have to accept that the only way to get a good match is to create my own base boards and cover them with the same static grass, just as Chris over at Ash and Stone does.

I still have a half dozen small FDM hills that need to be done yet in the same style, plus some of the re-released GW large hills and corner hills. But once thats all done I will have a good selection of finished terrain that can be used for a variety of different games on a variety of game mat sizes..

Have Time, Will Paint

One of the many (many) projects that I have had on my desk for the last year are a set of rocks - two sets, actually - that I wanted to have painted up for use as scatter terrain. Because the sets had three different styles between them, I had the idea to paint them up for different terrain types. The desert and ice rocks came together quickly but the woodlandy rocks have been in a partially undercoated state long enough that I had to wash the dust off them before I could finish priming them.

But with the four day weekend, some good light and the right mood, things aligned so that I could finally get them finished.

..of course, I probably don't have enough icy rocks for scatter terrain for a game of Frostgrave and I certainly don't have enough rocks for Fallout or Dracula's America so I will probably have to get some more. Mind you, I forgot to write down any of the paints I used.. 

September Sun

September is a tricky month. The kids go back to school (or if you are reading this in the future and are currently enjoying Covid-22, maybe they don't) but you can't appreciate it because you are still paying for that time off work you had over the summer.

The days are cold in the morning but still bright and warm in the afternoon, and for about half the month you still have some daylight in the evenings to get things done. And then autumn sneaks in, the rain comes back and you are soon huddled around a fire by 6pm, waiting for the wolves to come and eat you.

When it comes to tackling projects in my hobby closest, I normally need to wait for the perfect storm of need, desire, enthusiasm, time, materials and space in order for that project to miraculously transition from "Something I will do one day" to "Holy cow it is done!". But in September, all of those things can be substituted for desperation.

And so here are some trees, designed to match the mat I will use for Fallout and Gamma Wolves. And some billboards, also for Fallout, though now that I have painted them I've decided I will put them on bases so they aren't really complete. Now that It Is Dark Again, they may not be completed until 2022!

The trees are Woodland Scenic armatures stuck to MDF bases covered in sanded polystyrene and Sculptamold. I messed that up by making too much, so while two of the tree bases are relatively smooth, the other two ended up being clumpy and difficult to work with because it was drying by the time I applied it. I will make it in smaller batches next time so hopefully I will avoid the same mistake.

Also shown is the base for one of my Gamma Wolves frames because I wanted to make sure the colours and style of the tree bases matched. The images I used on the billboards are by Charlie Wilcher and I found them at his ArtStation page here. 

Horses! and.. more terrain.

On the back of painting five (!!) whole miniatures last month, I managed to finish two more that have been sitting on my painting desk since January.. two horses for use in Frostgrave. Can I use two at once? Nope. But you can upgrade your horse and I wanted a model for the basic horse, as well as a model to represent the horse after a few upgrades.

And of course, who will ride this horse but a captain. Might as well put all my gold coins in one basket..

..and then since 7 models is more than I painted in the last two years, I figured it was time to get back to more terrain. First up, some 3D printed craters off ebay (because those GW moonscape craters still go for more money than I'm prepared to pay..)

They will be for one of my many planned Warzone tables, but also here is a clearer picture of them. In.. the sky? 

..and finally, my TTCombat Iron Labyrinth Ultima set. I love making MDF terrain but oh boy was this a chore to get through! Half of the set has been primed brown (and then I ran out of brown spray paint) and then sprayed green from above and I'm testing out weathering techniques on a few of the pieces to see what looks the best for the least amount of effort. 

Thank goodness for paint pens! 

.. and speaking of terrain

Another project finished. Some tiles for Walking Dead, Zona Alfa and Fallout. These TTCombat harbour tiles are 1x1 so six will be enough to create a harbour section on a 3x3 water mat. But in most cases I will probably only use two or three of these on an asphalt / rubble mat. The smaller, angled sections and the stairs are from TTComat's Carnevale line. There is a piece of 0.5mm plasticard on top of each tile section to hide the original texture that was there.

Mind you, you can make a good 'base' for a 2x2 table with these. This is slightly too big for Walking Dead but eh, bigger deployment zones. 

.. and a fountain. Sadly I only had Vallejo water effects on hand, so I expect to be disappointed by the water results in 2 to 3 days..

Terrain Snob

I've had some Infinity card buildings sitting in my office cupboard for the longest time. Since.. the USAriadna pack came out, which was in the heady pre-pandemic days that seem like a distant memory. I got a second set with the Ariadna vs Aleph box, though it languished alongside the first.

It's not that I hate pre-coloured scenery in general or cardboard terrain in particular (I have plenty of Battlesystems stuff and what you get in those Infinity boxes is an excellent way of getting started) but.. the lack of geometric detail, the concerns about stability, the concerns about durability.. not to mention the fact that I have dozens of 'normal' MDF and hard plastic terrain kits (some even painted) meant that I always had a "better" option. I was a terrain snob!

Until tonight.

I've been meaning to have a go at the Dead or Alive supplement for Stargrave since it came out; I have more than enough minis assembled and this evening I had the opportunity to play it.. but ferrying boxes of fragile terrain to and from storage just to try it out seemed like a chore. Besides, I didn't have enough pieces finished in a consistent style to fill a 3x3 board and I knew it would bug me if I mixed and matched the styles (plus that would mean even more boxes).

(A store photo for one of the Precinct Sigma kits from MAS. Looks perfect for Judge Dredd, Realities Edge / Hardwired.. or Infinity, of course) 

Even so, I might not have considered the cardboard Infinity stuff if it hadn't been for the recent videos I watched showing off pre-coloured MDF terrain from Micro Art Studios (I particularly like the graffiti-strewn Precinct Sigma stuff) as well as the previews from Multiverse with their upcoming pre-coloured MDF products. It had warmed up to the idea of simpler, more robust buildings and there was no denying that the finish was far more detailed that I would ever achieve in paint.

(Preview from the Multiverse FB page. I'm getting a Fallout vibe from this!) 

So I opened up both packs, filled a 3x3 with rectangular buildings and shipping containers.. and since the art style fitted the mat, it all looked really good and played well enough. I'm certainly considering the hard card terrain sets from CB now and I might even pick up a few of the pre-printed MDF kits to see how I feel about phasing out my TTCombat sci-fi terrain..

(A humble card building from the Aplekton scenery pack. Humble, but useful. And 100% more painted than the robot)

No Entry!

Painting progress continues slowly but surely as I make my way through a pile of stuff that is heaped up on my painting desk. I managed two sets of Jersey barriers from Micro Art Studios plus all the barriers from my Walking Dead boxed set (and some of the bits I have from Mars Attacks), plus the GW Mines of Moria columns (some of which will be used for Frostgrave / Elder Scrolls, but most of which have been kept plain) AND I finished off the other four doors from Dungeon Saga. 

All in, that adds up to 40+ pieces of scatter terrain in about a month which is basically 

unheard of for me! 

One of the weird things about having my TWD scatter finished is that I can now setup a fully painted table! Not with painted miniatures of course because that would be crazy.

Deadzone. Finally

When I backed the original Deadzone kickstarter, it had always been my intention to use the hard plastic scenery to make terrain for Warzone. While this did indeed happen, I have had a large pile of the stuff sitting in a plastic tub for the better part of six years. One of the members of my local club expressed an interest in finally playing Deadzone since we both had the game, but had not played it, so I set about making a table's worth of Deadzone terrain for use in..er .. Deadzone.

Impressively (for me, at least), I started painting it on September 3rd and as of today, October 16th, it is finally finished. The barriers and scatter were the last pieces to be done and they were also the first things I have painted with the GW contrast paints. Overall, not bad.

Now all I need to do is actually paint some of my Deadzone minis..

More bits..

A few more bits and pieces finished off in April and May - some nice plastic terrain from Drakerys, comprising of Scenery Set A and Scenery Set B. I also painted a Mantic Dungeon Saga door because.. why not?

Even I finish things. Sometimes..

Hobby butterfly that I am, it is inevitable that I will occasionally - and often by accident - finish a project that I started. That has been the case in Feburary and March of this year where I finished off some terrain pieces primarily for Rangers of Shadowdeep. The excellent Gloomburg Tower from Warcradle and a bridge and walls from Warlord..

Hobby Butterfly

So.. things have been busy these last two months and I have completed two new projects that were not even on my list two months ago (naturally).

I have a draft of a new Rangers of Shadowdeep mission, At Any Price, which is complete and uploaded, but needs more testing before I post it to the Facebook group, and a new Warzone mission, Storm Warning, which I already posted to the Warzone forum.

Now I am taking a break from the writing to do proper hobby stuff; namely I am painting up my TTCombat Sector 3 stuff which I need for my "Mars" Warzone table. A few panels still need masking and spraying white and I haven't decided if I will paint the hand rails orange or yellow yet, but the sponge chipping and washes that follow shouldn't take too long and then it will be complete.

I also ordered some more Forward Base buildings from Antenocitis. My original layout called for only two, plus the garage and two connecting corridors. However I picked up the hub at some point and now I have another three on the way. With 7 buildings I will at least have the option of filling a table with them, or splitting them between two 4x4 tables along with my GF9 and Sector 3 pieces.

As an added bonus, I should be able to use some of this terrain for Gamma Wolves. Having been inspired by the many great mecha models in the Facebook group I have dug out an old AT-43 Red Blok walker for a heavy frame and have purchased a few 1/144 Gundam kits that will be kitbashed into medium frames. They won't get painted any time soon, but I look forward to completing the models so that I can try the crew out.