Building Better Worlds: A Terrain Progress Log

[hd3]

35 minutes ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

I think @Grotsmasha did a better job of phrasing it than me - if you look in the top left (where the slot is), there's quite a hard outline of the edge of the sponge that would benefit from being softened out a little.

 

Yeah,  I was considering that but I thought it's probably going to be mostly covered up by the other wall that slots in.

[Tallarn Commander]

Excellent looking terrain! I will have to get some Gore Grunta Fur and try to replicate your pipes' color. It has a nice, subtle warm appearance that, as you note, does not overpower the other parts of the model.

[hd3]

Next, I've gone over everything with a watered down rattling grime to make everything look appropriately filthy. 

 

Finally, I've also started on the doors. I wanted these to look like real emergency doors and to stand out as a bright colour contrast to the rest of the model. But they also need to look appropriately bombed out. So I've gone over them, first with liquid mask on a sponge to block any more paint accumulating on top of those spots. Next In the hope of making a decent gradient, I've sponged on a bit of xorax white heavy in the top and a darker khorne red on the bottom. This looks strange now but I'm hoping once I layer on the final yellow colour for the door, it will really make the shading blend together.

[Firedrake Cordova]

Looks like it's coming together nicely

[hd3]

Here are the doors after sponging on Vallejo yellow. I'm mostly pretty happy with how the shadows came out. After that I did a quick glaze of the same yellow to tint the white though I had to stipple the paint on the fallen door because the debris next to the door makes the sponge really difficult to use. 

 

Finally, I used some balled up blu-tac to get the liquid mask off the doors to make some chipping. I'm really happy with how this effect came out. After a bit of clean up around the door frame where the yellow spilled, I moved onto the decals.  Im using the various campaign badge decals I will never use since I don't play adeptus astartes and I figure skulls and blood are fairly wide spread imagery even outside those first founding chapters.  I did do a quick pass over them with rattling grime though to make them look less freshly painted.

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I like the yellow doors - my only suggestion would be to pick out the oval "plates" on the top halves of the doors - in my mind, those are labels of some sort and would have been intended to be visible and legible to the doors intented users.

[hd3]

5 hours ago, Dr_Ruminahui said:

I like the yellow doors - my only suggestion would be to pick out the oval "plates" on the top halves of the doors - in my mind, those are labels of some sort and would have been intended to be visible and legible to the doors intented users.

 

Maybe a red to contrast with the yellow?

[Firedrake Cordova]

To my eyes, they look like plates to me (e.g. manufacturer's).

[Dr_Ruminahui]

I always thought they were identifying labels for whatever the door went to.

 

Red would work, though I think two colours would work better - one for the label and trim, one for the rest.  On my own terrain, I did them black with leadbelcher trim and white symbols - I don't seem to have a picture, but in the same way (without the coloured skull) as the plate in this picture - but that doesn't mean you need to do them the same way.

 

Edited November 1 by Dr_Ruminahui

[hd3]

I've finished adding the decals and done a quick coat of rattling grime over them to make them look sufficiently worn and filthy. I've also gone over the yellow doors with transparent orange from vallejo to give them just  a dash more colour, although it doesn't show up super well in the photos because its mostly in the recesses. Finally, a red to highlight the manufacturer plate on the door.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 1 by hd3

[hd3]

Taking a break from the STC-Ryza terrain because I am waiting for a special paint I need for the next step to arrive. Instead we will be focusing on my next pieces of terrain, a termagaunt and hormagaunt! Now, dear reader you may be tempted to say "HD3! Those are models! Not terrain! You've decieved us! I shall track you down on the island where you live and cut you down for such duplicity!" But bear with me, I swear this is part of the terrain project and the punchline will be well worth it. First though! I'm doing an experimental terrain even for me on the bases. I got this from the great zorg, who has made what I consider to be the best of all tyranid paint schemes, hive fleet zereus.  For those who don't know, hive fleet zereus colloquaially know as "zerg" was the first known tendril of tyranids to arrive in our galaxy some time before the age of strife. These Tyranids had a predominantly brown colour scheme and tended to secrete a bio-mechanical mucus called "creep" which helped process and digest bio-mass and made Tyranid units more effective reflex wise while in contact with it. I've attached a an image of creep with an extant tyranid "zerg" here. To create this on my base however, I decided to try something more out there. 

 

First, using a hot glue gun I layered heated glue over the bases then sculpted it a bit with some scissors to look like more textured. Then hitting with a black rattlecan from tamiya, I did a base coat of mechanicus grey and a heavy wash of druchi violet. The real bases are only sculpted but I have included my finished prototype.  I'm generally pretty happy with how close this is to replicating the original creep and also how easy and cheap it was. The next step will be beginning on my tyranids proper, which i've decided to do with a dull brown and orange colour, in lieu of the more common purple on the non-carapace sinews. Once I figure out how to paint that in properly, that is.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 1 by hd3

[hd3]

And here is the prototype with a dry rush of dawnstone. Which one looks closer to the creep on the screenshot?

[Firedrake Cordova]

The chipping on the yellow doors came out well

 

I think the base "stabby guy" is on is closer to the image than "shooty guy's" base.  

[hd3]

3 hours ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

The chipping on the yellow doors came out well

 

I think the base "stabby guy" is on is closer to the image than "shooty guy's" base.  

 

Yes, I will definitely be using this method on battle damage in future.

 

Yeah, the webbing came out better when it had the plastic rock to sculpt around. I think if I did this at scale, id glue bits of sprue to the base at random to create more varied texture 

[hd3]

Status update on my Tyranids: I primed with Tamiya matt black first for the nids and the creep, then zenith highlighted with matt white. I wanted to use wraithbone because it would have been perfect but my can finally ran out and I'm not buying another 4000 yen can of paint for two models. So my current plan is to jury rig it by doing zenith matt white and then washing it with agrax. I think the shadows came out better on the hormigaunt (stabby) over the termigaunt (shooty) which is a fraction too bright because i was too heavy handed with the white spray.

Edited November 8 by hd3

[hd3]

Finally started painting my zerg!....Tyranids, I mean. Well, talk about a distinction without a difference. Anyway, I considered a few different approaches to this, grotsmasha suggested snakebite leather and wildwood contrast for the browns but I didn't have either of those for just two models. I was also looking at the army painter speed paint range. I think a Tamiya matt black and zenith matt white spray priming coupled with satchel brown speed paint would definitely be my approach if I wanted to paint a real Tyranid army, given model count. In the end, I went with a base coat of rhinox hide since I had that paint. On the carapace segments, I'm layering on doombull brown but only from the mid point on each segment, leaving the rhinox hide untouched from mid to front. Next it will probably be skrag brown or mournfang brown from the mid point of the doombull to the edge of the carapace segments. Then I'm going to do a thin wash of either agrax or Cryptek gloss. Probably agrax. 

 

I'm not as sure what to do with the softer flesh and joints sections underneath. I was thinking doombull brown all over, then thinned jokaero orange all over with maybe straight out jokaero towards the major joint spots. I also still have some transparent orange from Vallejo which I might try layering over the doombull to see if that works better.

 

[hd3]

Just taking a brief diversion from my zerg/Tyranids to rave about these decals. I've always wanted to use more hazard stripes on my models, terrain especially. But can never find good ones of the right size. Yesterday, I found these beauties, perfectly sliced in different sizes and even inverted hazard stripes which would be a great motif for a loyalist iron warriors descendants.

 

Im gonna give these ones one more pass with the micro sol then scratch off a bit here and there to look more weathered and of course, some more rattling grime

[StratoKhan]

Looks like your project is coming together nicely.
 

Japanese mecha is a great source for a lot of high quality transfers, greebles , etc . 
 

don’t know if you were planning to do this, but a nice touch once decals are fully set is to scrape a sharp hobby blade over some sections, which can simulate wear and blend the transfer into the model. Paint is of course always an option. If you scrape some off just make sure you leave it to fully dry or you might detach the whole thing.

[hd3]

I finished the carapace segments on my Tyranids/zerg. I ended up using xv88 which I washed with agrax since my mournfang brown has had a weird reaction in the bottle of drying out while not actually drying out. For the softer muscle sections, I decided to go with doombull brown since that's closest to zerg flesh and contrast well with warmer softer tones against the darker browns of the carapace. 

 

I tried using the transparent orange from Vallejo but it just comes out looking a weird yellow. So I went with jokaero orange and I'm slowly adding casandora yellow for shading around the joints. I want to try glazing the orange on slowly more heavily towards the joints like zorg did but I think that level of transition might be beyond me.

I'm suddenly grateful chaos marines have nice clearly segregated sections of their armour.

 

Next step will be to finish the orange around the joints on both termagaunt and hormagaunt (I have to conciously stop myself calling these zergling and hydralisks) . Then after that, the horns and tusks and exposed muscle fibers which I'm planning to do with a bright red and druchi violet wash. I wish I could think of a way to get a bit more definition on the recesses and details on the doombull brown muscle bits, but agrax would dye it too close to the carapace. Maybe nuln oil?

[Rusted Boltgun]

Instead of the washes, have you got a contest or speed paint you could thin to add a different tone? Cygor brown or Wildwood, for example?

 

I don't know how different the effect would be, you have to test on an inconspicuous area first! That carapace has come out so well, it looks really natural to me.

[hd3]

1 hour ago, Rusted Boltgun said:

Instead of the washes, have you got a contest or speed paint you could thin to add a different tone? Cygor brown or Wildwood, for example?

 

I don't know how different the effect would be, you have to test on an inconspicuous area first! That carapace has come out so well, it looks really natural to me.

 

Alas no, that's why I went with these browns. I suppose I could use gorthor brown to highlight the edges and recesses of the joints?

[Firedrake Cordova]

I think I'd be inclined to go with Agrax Earthshade, but either apply it thinned or in a more targeted manner as a recess shade, otherwise you might find it necessary to drybrush the area to bring the colour back up.

  

2 hours ago, Rusted Boltgun said:

That carapace has come out so well, it looks really natural to me.

Agreed!

Edited Sunday at 11:38 AM by Firedrake Cordova

[Tallarn Commander]

Would a light Reikland Fleshshade work? Or would that be too close to the Agrax?

[hd3]

46 minutes ago, Tallarn Commander said:

Would a light Reikland Fleshshade work? Or would that be too close to the Agrax?

 

Reikland has a warmer redder tone over agrax right? I think I have some too

[hd3]

On 11/18/2024 at 3:20 AM, Tallarn Commander said:

Would a light Reikland Fleshshade work? Or would that be too close to the Agrax?

 

I used reikland to tan the flesh but the orange was still too bright so I broke and used nuln oil to dull it down a bit.

I've started on the bone and talons with Zandri dust and for the exposed sinews I've used evil sunz and druchhi violet wash. The browns still don't look quite right. Maybe some highlights or a dry brush of gorthor brown? A sort of borderline greyish brown.