More Terrain

     Well I have managed some hobby time for myself and with it I created another piece of terrain. I had someone comment that they liked the start to finish approach so this one took me a few days to get all the pics I needed for the post. No other formalities lets get right to it.

     I start out with some sort of base for the piece. This happens to be a piece of 1/4" plywood. Since I have really liked what I am able to get by starting with some pink poly foam on the base I cut a few pieces from the scrap and arrange them on the base. I like using this on the base because it allows me to do some work below the floor. I can make craters or carve out parts of the side. Overall I just like what it does to a simple piece of ruins.

     The rest of the process is after the break.

     Before I glue the foam to the base I take a straight craft knife and carve out a bit to get the beginnings of a crater. I intend to add a bit of rubble and spackle to the edges so here I just need a basic out line. As you can see I added some tubes into the side to look like broken pipes. This is what I was talking about when I said working below the floor. I am able to sink a crater into the floor as well as add elements to show what might be underneath. You may also notice I added a few scrap pieces to the caps left where my two pieces of foam did not connect. You can not see it here but they are sloped a bit to add to the crater look.

     As I let the glue dry on the base I drew out some lines on the foam. By using a ball point pen to do this they will show up once I paint the piece and it will look like flooring. I also added a small piece of foam to form a step where I intend a door to be located.

     
     Here is a bit of a tool tip if you use the GW Cities of Death terrain. I can be a bit anal so I created a jig out of Legos to hold the walls at right angles while they dry. If you use super glue to glue them it really does not matter, but I am a firm believer in plastic glue for plastic parts as I have found the long term bond to be much stronger.

      Ok using my handy jig from above I created some corners to define my ruins. I am not always happy with the end pieces that GW has and I never seem to have enough. So, I make my own using intact sections. This has several affects. First it helps keep my buildings from all looking the same. It also allows me a bit more freedom in how big or small I want a wall section to be. Finally I can use the pieces I have cut off the section on the base to give it a bit more character. You can see the cast offs in a pile next to the piece in the picture below. 

      Now there is one down side to using foam to build up a foundation on the ruin. I have yet to find a glue that I feel holds the walls securely to the base. To remedy that I use some brass tubing I bought at the local hobby store and pin the walls to the base. 

    
     Before I actually glue the wall to the base I take some drywall spackle and fill in the crater. I also glue the cast offs from earlier into the areas I want them.

 

     
     Once the glue holding the walls to the base dries I move on to the sprue rubble. In case you don't know what sprue rubble is, sprue rubble is simply left over plastic sprue in to small pieces. It can be very time consuming to create as it needs to be fairly small pieces to look right. You can speed this up if you have an old meat grinder, but I would definitely recommend any grinder used for this never be used for food again.

     Anyway, I lay out some glue where I want my piles to be and sprinkle the rubble. I leave it set for just a few seconds and then shake the excess off. Immediately after I shake off the excess I sprinkle some sand on the base. This is not for the entire base it simply allows some sand to collect in the recesses around the rubble. this way your rubble will look like it fell at the same time as the sand.

 

    
     Okay, I am evidently missing a step here. I must have forgot to take some pics after I glued sand to the base. And by that I mean everywhere on the base as well as in the crater I lay down a thin layer of white glue and cover it in sand. Once dry it will give a rough look to the base. You can see how I do it here if you are interested.

     Once all that is dry it is time for paint. I have not covered the details on the paint, and if you are interested you can see a similar approach here. That link is similar to what I have done here. The main difference being that on this piece I completed the entire thing using my airbrush and dry brushing.

     For the walls I started with a dark grey, followed that up with some over spraying of a lighter grey. Once that was dry I used an even lighter gray and sprayed the edges very lightly with a top down angle so it gave it some highlights. Once dry I took an even lighter color and did some dry brushing with top to bottom strokes only. This is important as it kept most of the paint on the tops and gave the piece some highlights. The rubble got the same treatment.

     
     In between the second and third gray steps on the walls I sprayed the ground with a dark brown. I avoided the rubble piles but was not really worried if I hit the bottom of the walls too much. A small amount actually looks like mud that was splattered on the bottom during some rain. At the end I dry brushed the soil with a lighter brown to really make it pop.

     
     Anyway, here are the completed shots. Hope you like the way it came out. As a side note, while I was painting this piece I also repainted some of my older CoD terrain. The LGS owner painted it long ago and I never really liked it. I was not going to complain because he took his time when I did not have any, but I figured I could do it in a batch with this piece and I am definitely happy with the way it came out. I have three pieces that I will not have time to finish before next weekend, but for the most part it all looks pretty similar.