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Chromedog's log of terrain and stuff.

Discussion in 'Scenery' started by chromedog, Oct 26, 2018.

  1. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    I've been gaming for about 31 years now, so naturally, over that time, I've accumulated a collection of g̶o̶m̶i̶ terrain for various games along the way. Infinity was only the last in a long line of games stretching back to the "playing battletech with actual terrain" thing.

    Recently, a friend had to reluctantly get rid of some warmill terrain he'd bought and never got around to finishing, so I grabbed it off him. It would make a nice table centrepiece, I thought. Then I saw how large that piece actually was. Make no mistake, this is not a small piece of terrain.

    The Warmill "Lo-Rise" from their C*a*s*h*stak line. It comes with 1 small and 2 larger modules.
    [​IMG]
    Rather than the large/small/large format they used for their shots, I thought the small with doubled larger modules over the top would make a better looking setup. Only one issue. The larger modules are "front" heavy and will tip without encouragement. So I had to come up with a way of propping them up without it looking like it was JUST a prop.

    Enter the Adcube idea (downloaded from IJW's page).
    [​IMG]

    Now, you may not be aware of this, but these little dice boxes come in at least 3 different sizes (due to the differing types and sizes of dice put into them). This one, was a 27 x12mm d6 box, is a little shorter and fatter than the art is designed for, but is the PERFECT size to act as the support. Resizing the art to fit wasn't that difficult.

    The terrain box also came with some elevator modules and acrylic holo signs (which are being worked on).
    Also in the lot were a set of helix stairs (not shown) and a box of fire escape modules. The Holo ads will be LED edge-lit for a soft glow and should still be visible in daylight.
    [​IMG]

    I've started painting it, now. And glazing it (prevents shooting through the buildings, as "transparent and semi transparent terrain elements block LoF"). It's slow going since my compressor committed pneumatic seppuku and it's an Eastern australian "spring" here, so humidity is up and down like a yo-yo, and alternates with too windy and too wet.
    [​IMG]

    Including adding some graffiti to the walls to break up the expanse of white.
    [​IMG]

    The elevator modules allow access to separate floors if required - like most of the stuff from this line, they are designed to slot into the building at various places. These are capacity 1x25mm base sized.
    [​IMG]
    They've also had clear acetate added to them to add some measure of protection to the occupant (blocking LoF).

    After adding the elevator, I wanted to add a rooftop "greenspace" garden area as well. So I had to add a structure for the elevator module to clip into. the "grass" is a piece of Noch grass mat cut to size. the benches are from BPLaser (an small australian laser cut terrain maker). There will also be either planters at the wide end or some of the acrylic holo-ads, once again to break LoF up to the rooftop. The benches have yet to be painted. Going bright orange for those.
    [​IMG]

    Everything comes apart for transport or storage (except the small module and dice cube, which are glued to the base and can still be used as a separate terrain piece.
     
    #1 chromedog, Oct 26, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
  2. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    Next building (Weather wasn't conducive to painting for a few weeks, so this was being worked on at the same time).
    A more usual square block building from BPlaser. It's going to be the "Star Helix" precinct house (logo is being done up and will be put onto the doors).
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]


    Just like the warmill one, graffiti has been added to make it look a bit more "lived in".
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
    #2 chromedog, Oct 26, 2018
    Last edited: Oct 26, 2018
  3. Anonymous

    Anonymous Guest

    Looks nice, a friend has loads of warmill but it's just primed and doesn't show it's true potential. Good job :+1:
     
  4. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Warmill makes nice stuff!
     
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  5. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    Rookie.
     
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  6. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    I didn't know about miniatures gaming until AFTER I turned 18 - literally didn't know it was a thing. Went to my first games con and saw the wonders there.
    I knew about D&D, but nobody used figures back then (some friends played it in the library at lunch - but I was the chem nerd swotting in the corner or the guy quietly reading. In a library, IKR?). After I turned 18 was when I had my own independent source of income, and could do stuff like this.
     
    #6 chromedog, Oct 27, 2018
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2018
  7. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    Ah, maybe I should have ended my post with the appropriate emoji, which seems to be absent from the currently available set. The one that indicates the post is a bit of light-hearted ribbing. You are one of the few people still on this forum who has been gaming for about as long as I have. We are a vanishing breed.

    How did you seal the MDF? A fair number of people seem unaware that this is a thing to do.
     
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  8. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    Understood. Post modified to remove any implied hostility. :D
    Also, since I didn't start gaming as a "kid", most of my usual peers experiences have zero in common with me. They started with 40k in high school. I started with it AFTER I'd finished high school. It was my 3rd or 4th game system by that point.

    I use a Rustoleum 2x sealer/primer - it's an enamel sealer and primer. 2 light coats with a couple of hours between those coats. Then I give it 2-3 days before I touch it again (in this case, do the other sides and wait again) or weather dependent - up to a week.
    Then edges that are meant to be in contact get sanded to cut the paint back. Then it's glued up, clamped where needed and left for a week or two ( a couple of days in fine weather, but this time of year, it's usually a week or two between those fine days. So this sort of thing takes forever. The Warmill building was picked up in early September. The other building, the beginning of october. )
    Then I go over areas that were missed with a light spray of matt white (rattlecan, since my compressor killed itself). The trick is getting better nozzle caps.
    I have a graffiti supplier around the corner from me with a nice range of caps with different spray patterns (tighter sprays, linear sprays, etc) and I swap out the stock caps with these.

    If you don't use a sealer, a building this size will easily drink a full can of regular spray paint - and then the surface fluffs up, as well, so you have to sand it back smooth. MDF sucks down paint.
     
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  9. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    I may have to try that! Wonder if the auto paint supply store has different rattlecan nozzles?



    Quoted for truth!

    I used an entire can of Testors Flat Red (ok, an entire minican) on the Warsenal Torii Gate. Must have taken 6 coats of paint before I started getting even coverage, and I gave it two more coats after that just to make sure.
     
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  10. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    My Torii arches (warsenal) were only spray primed, I brush painted the red and black on them. Then carefully glued them together.
     
  11. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    I built mine, then painted. Lord, how the exposed edges sucked up paint!
     
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  12. andre61

    andre61 Well-Known Member

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    Very cool!
     
  13. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    Older terrain made from the stackable "really useful boxes" (tm).
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
  14. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    The BPL building exterior is now finished. A couple of interior walls to go into the upper level is all that's left for it.
    [​IMG]
    A friend asked for some freehand graf on the building, so I copied a "bubble" style of graf with his initials.
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
    #14 chromedog, Oct 30, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2018
  15. Red Harvest

    Red Harvest Day in, Day out. Day in, Day out. Day in, DAY OUT

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    Here's where I say that I like the fact that you highlighted the door frame with a good contrasting color. I see too many painting buildings where the doors just blend in with the walls. Also, blue doors rule! ;)

    A quick edit to add that I think that it is important to be able to spot building entrances easily. it makes the terrain more playable. Fewer, "Oops" moments too.
     
    #15 Red Harvest, Oct 30, 2018
    Last edited: Oct 31, 2018
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  16. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    More work done on the Warmill "Lo-Rise" building.

    Edge lit holo-advert for the bottom level ripperdoc surgery. Excuse the dimness of the shot, they're only 40mcd orange LEDs (which glow a more ruddy colour) and the low light helps show the "glow" better. They are still visible in daylight, but not as strongly.
    [​IMG]

    Lasercut acrylic pieces are nice, but the nice "polished" edges make it hard to get a nice lit effect because most of the light leaks straight out the opposite side -So I've had to sand back the edges to reduce the "light tunnel" effect.
    [Tech specs for the curious. 50mcd orange 3mm LEDs (x2), 2.2 Vf, powered from a 3v lithium button cell,with a 47 ohm current limiting resistor and a small slide switch. They just glow on the red side of the spectrum for some reason, but they're brighter than the reds I have so they work well.]

    The upper floors will have acrylic edge lit signage just like this, but different colours.

    In addition: A Warmill "food booth" that I picked up along the way. I think it was a "grilled water snake" signage one - but those pieces got lost somewhere.
    So, I fabricated up a new bracket mount for a spare sign from the pack that came with the Lo-Rise.
    So, it's now the latest franchise from the "Dolphin shack" chain of food-shacks. Guaranteed Varuna-Fresh.
    [​IMG]

    This one uses 2 blue 1500mcd LEDs to edge light (base) the acrylic (you can't get them any dimmer in that size without going SMD and I don't have the facilities to do SMD LEDs yet). Blue because it is the complementary colour to the orange of the building facade and works with the grey as well. Powered by a switched 2xAAA cell case with a 82ohm CLR.
     
    #16 chromedog, Nov 2, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2018
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  17. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    Try lightly sanding the edges of the acrylic to take the polish off. It should help reduce the amount of light shooting out the end.
     
  18. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    Yeah, I did that to these signs, that's how they get the glow as it is.
    I also sanded the blue LEDs flat at the ends (removed the "dome" lens end - which also diffuses the output a bit more and allows for better contact between the LED and the acrylic ).
    The Dolphin shack sign visibly glows in FULL DAYLIGHT. The issue with the blue ones that I can get easily is that they don't come in a <1000mcd in anything smaller than a 5mm LED (can get a 600) unless you go to SMD, but I wanted 3mm so that I could fit them into the housings because 3mm acrylic). I do have a 23500mcd blue LED (it's the harnessed supernova I've mentioned). It'll have you seeing spots in full DAYLIGHT. That won't get used on any model terrain. It's floodlight levels of illumination.


    But yeah, well aware of the relative placings of blue and orange on the colour wheel. Art theory (High School level) may have been 33 years ago, but some of it has stuck with me. :D

    Final update for today.

    BPL LMP police call box (lasercut mdf) with LED for the light.
     
    #18 chromedog, Nov 2, 2018
    Last edited: Nov 2, 2018
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  19. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    Finished "glazing" (adding the windows) to this Lo-Rise building this morning.
    Also added in a callback to my favourite rpg of all time.
    [​IMG]

    I will be adding a light source inside the ad-cube as well. Just need to get another button cell holder.
     
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  20. chromedog

    chromedog Less than significant minion

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    Home stretch now. Planter for the rooftop done. I like the way the angles complement the triangular window arrangement that almost forms a stylised "W" ("Warmill: Building better worlds"?)
    [​IMG]
    The glazing is all finished, one more lighting rig done (the ad-cube) and I have to go to the hobby store to get some thin masking tape so I can finish the detailing.

    That'll be three buildings out of my collection lit up. The first was a landing pad (also by Warmill, when I didn't have any other of their buildings to link it to) so it got combined with a plastcraft building instead.
    [​IMG]
    Ah, good. Agent K is back for his baseline.

    [​IMG]
    Showing the pad lit up. This was a simple 8-LED static array (the central yellow was added afterwards, to highlight the "H").
    [​IMG]
     
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