RedRaven Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Hi everyone. Since the release of IA12 "The Fall of Orpheus" both myself and a friend have been slowly gathering our wits together to make a set of ZM terrain based on the FW tiles. Here I will chart our progress and hopefully be able to pass on some tips based on our failures along the way. Our reason for making our own tiles are two-fold. Firstly cost. While the FW tiles are drool inducing a 4x4 table does not come cheap. The second is that the FW tiles are all representing an Imperial construction. We wanted a more natural look of caves and tunnels for the majority of the tiles. Having made some large standing boulders from insulation board, pva and sand / ballast that are still standing and intact after about 10 years we are going to expand on that method with tips and techniques from several books and youtubers (mainly Terranscapes, that guy is awesome, check him out if you not seen some of his projects). So, here goes..... STARTING MATERIALS 8ft x 4ft x 6mm MDF board = £13 47in x 20in x 2.5in pink polystyrene insulation board = £7 5lt PVA = £12 Hot glue gun and 20 sticks of glue = £10 500 ml Polyfiller = £1 Went with the 8x4x6mm MDF for the base boards. The 3mm looked to be too flimsy and 9mm would cost and weigh more, this would give us 32 tiles from a single sheet. We called around our local big brand DIY stores and found one that offered a cutting service (if your in UK try a local B&Q, Wickes do not cut). The service was free too, which is a bonus. The guy in-store who did the cutting was very helpful and explained that we would lose a couple of mm with each cut due to the size of the blade. End result was 21 pieces 12 x 12, 4 pieces 12 x 11.25, 7 pieces 12 x 11.75. For the walls each sheet of pink polystyrene insulation board should give us 10 to 11 sections, each 20 inch long by 4 inch tall. This should be plenty to do 16 tiles. To shape them we attacked them with a rasp, screwdriver handle, keys and fingers. TEST PIECES https://imageshack.com/i/pnbc0128j At first we only used the hot glue gun to join the wall to the floor, but after it had dried it did not take much application of force to pull it off. Now we were both hoping the glue gun would be enough as it is a cheaper and easier option to using a 2 part glue, not to be put off we stuck it again and this time also ran the glue around the edge where the wall met the floor. In future I plan on using a silicon sealant. https://imageshack.com/i/1rb677f1j This made for a much stronger bond. https://imageshack.com/i/37f8134fj The next steps will be using PVA, Polyfiller and sand / ballast to start adding texture to the floor and walls before moving on to the sealing and painting. Here is the third test piece. https://imageshack.com/i/b35edac5j Although we are going for a stone / rock look with this set we have already started thinking on a Tyranid based set. https://imageshack.com/i/ovf49f73j These test pieces are just that. Our plan is to make 7 tiles based on the FW layouts and 9 with a less angular look, with some walls sloping down or up, small and large holes in some walls to sneak troops through. Small free-standing terrain pieces for cave ins and stalagmites etc. The last tiles we do will be a couple for each faction. Necron ones with metal panels exposed by fallen rocks, phase chambers and other such ancient horrors, and Imperial guard mine entrance, lift shaft and such. All I need to get now is a Hades drill for my engineers platoon. Aim to have some more done this weekend, will post pics as we go. All C&C welcome, Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathspectersgt7 Posted July 10, 2014 Share Posted July 10, 2014 Very Cool I'am slowly collecting bits and pieces to do a space hulk ZM boards. Will be watching closely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRaven Posted July 18, 2014 Author Share Posted July 18, 2014 Hi again, here is the next installment of our project. In addition to the above materials we have also purchased the following - Cheap Hairdryer £4 (argos) Large tub of filler £6 Tester paint pots £6 ( 4 colours) ADDING TEXTURE To add some simple texture to the flat wooden base boards we spread a thin and uneven layer of filler over the area and added sand and larger ballast in a some areas to add variety. https://imageshack.com/i/ew61f093j https://imageshack.com/i/f0ff1c3ej This was left to dry for over 24 hours then dilluted PVA was applied to act as a sealant and stop the paint soaking into the filler and softening it up again. I mixed about 2 parts PVA to 1 part water and painted it on with a large brush. As we had plenty of time to kill waiting for filler and glue to dry I began work on a smaller peice that would serve as an entrance / exit and could be placed on one of the larger tiles. Using a 3inch square of 3mm plywood I used the glue gun and some offcut bits of foam to get a basic shape. https://imageshack.com/i/nrrxej7j Within an hour or so the glue had warped the plywood (if you look closely you can see the shadow under the front right corner). Though not a disaster it was still a failure and means we will have to re-think what to use as a base for smaller insert peices of terrain we had planned on. We thought it a good idea to show you our failures as well as successes as it is all part of the learning curve. PAINTING THE BASE COAT Before I show the pictures I thought I would take a few lines to explain what we are using and why. We are using an airbrush for all the base coats and some of the other layering with brush work in areas to bring out details and some drybrushing where needed. For paint we have gone for tester pots of paint from an interior house paint range heavily diluted with acrylic thinners (we will be trying it diluted with distilled water but had none to hand so far but got plenty of thinners). While this main seem like an odd choice of paint we have decided to try it out because if it works well we will need alot of paint, the tester pots are £1.50 for 50ml and need to be diluted with at least 100ml thinners, maybe more with water. The regular pots are 1 lt I think and retail for around £6 making alot of thinned down paint for very little cost. Colours. Where to begin? The simple option would be to flat black coat everything then drybrushing dark grey then a lighter grey over that, simple. But stone does not look like that. We decided on trying to get a dark sandstone look. Using a black and brown tester pot we mixed a dark brown that looked a little sludgey in the pot. Here it is on the 3 test peices. https://imageshack.com/i/ey8e39bcj https://imageshack.com/i/ip981d4aj https://imageshack.com/i/ex30944cj The last image looks shiny as I had added a second layer of PVA as another layer of sealent. As I was painting it on it started to wipe away some of the paint. At the moment I am unsure as to why, we had been spped drying first coat of PVA with the hairdryer and this worked fine, also used it to dry the paint. Maybe the paint had not dried properly in tose areas, maybe the brush I was using was too corse. I knew we would have to put a varnish coat on at the end stage but it maybe needed in several stages. Here you can see where the filler has been wiped clean of paint https://imageshack.com/i/hj374638j Its not a disaster, yet. By that point it was time to pack away and get some food so will keep you posted with how we fix what I got wrong. Will be looking in to what Matt varnishes can be run through an airbrush. If anyone has any tips feel free to share. Cheers. RR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRaven Posted August 13, 2014 Author Share Posted August 13, 2014 Hi all. The past few weeks have been full of work and family so have been unable to get anything done until Monday this week. When we pulled the 3 test pieces out and straight away noticed the 2 boards with the straight walls on had warped slightly, only a couple of mm but when placed together on a table it was very obvious. Not the result we wanted. A few minutes of head scratching and we came to the conclusion that it was caused by the filler, as we had both been a little over enthusiastic in its application. All is not lost, we will use those 3 tiles as painting tests while we wait for a couple of new test tiles are started. This time we have used much less filler and rubbed some fine sand into it before it dries. Will get a couple of pics up in next day or two to show our failures and the new test tiles. Cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRaven Posted September 1, 2014 Author Share Posted September 1, 2014 Bad News Everyone. The second set of 3 test tiles have warped, only slightly but enough to make it a failure. Not to be deterred we have decided to abandon the `tile` set up and go for the simpler option of making free standing walls and areas. We have noticed that where we stuck the foam to the board is still nice and flat. This means each 12 inch square tile can but cut down to make 4 walls of 12 inch long by 3 wide. The foam is approx 2 inch wide so we have a little area to work on and blend it to the floor. This will actually give us a lot more usable terrain from the starting materials we have but will require us to be more precise with some of the wall ends so they can be matched up neatly to other wall ends and corners etc. Apologies for lack of pics, will get some up as soon as remember to get batteries for the camera! Until next time..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slips Posted September 1, 2014 Share Posted September 1, 2014 Ah well, such is the risk of working with such large resin pieces. Glad to hear you're sticking through it, can't wait to see it when everything is said and done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathspectersgt7 Posted September 1, 2014 Share Posted September 1, 2014 Resin gotta Luv IT!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muggs Posted September 1, 2014 Share Posted September 1, 2014 I'm sorry to hear that your boards warped, I think if you sealed them with a gloss varnish or paint it should stop the water in the PVA and filler warping the boards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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