[EN] IJW's Infinitely Long Terrain Thread

Between going on holiday and then catching from being on holiday there's been another rather big gap, but this evening I got some more drilling done on the apartment building. After my order for 250 2x1mm magnets turned up...





That's five balconies done with another seven to do, plus something on the ends of the two 'bridge' floors.

Drill drill drill, magnet magnet magnet...



On the top you can see the first bit of sanding prior to undercoating.

The magnets are 2x1mm and I used a 1.9mm drill bit which just happens to make the holes a snug push-fit for the magnets, no glue needed.

I still need to drill four holes on the 'bridge' floors and cut/drill a bunch more balcony pieces but a big chunk of the magnetisation is done. Then I'll need to add some rectangle to the front of each floor for doorways.

I do need to cut out a few more balconies...

Meanwhile, while passing the newsagents I saw this attached to a magazine:



As you can see from the curious crowd of spectators it caused a lot of curiosity!

Open the packaging and it's a 1/72nd diecast Chinook:







This will get the same matte varnish and weathering technique as the monster dump truck and'll make a great addition to any Ariadna base. Possibly getting involved in custom missions as well...

Having grabbed a bit of time here and there between Autumn Challenge preparations, I got the Chinook varnished and weathered/shaded.

It doesn't show up too well in the photo but here's the untouched side followed by the done side:





It's more visible in close-up:





Plus a touch of rust on the rotor hub, done by blobbing some foundation orange into the recesses and then wiping most of it off with a tissue:



Finished:



Since that photo it's had a gloss varnish and another matte varnish to protect it during play and storage.

 

Over the weekend I sat down and cut out the remaining 30 or so balcony walls and made a jig to drill the holes:








Some quick-n-dirty jungle foliage:













Sand the tops of some 40mm washers.

Glue some thin card over the hole in the middle, this also helps with the next step.

Smother the top with hot glue, the card gives a bit of insulation so that the glue doesn't set quite so fast.

Jam the bottom of the aquarium plant into the liquid hot glue and cover the rest with a sand/gravel mix.

With a bit of luck some foundation brown around the edges will disguise the bits of bare metal, followed by a dark green wash onto the sand, a little drybrushing and then some varnish to help hold it all together will do the trick.

Anyway, some commercial scenery sprayed up for the demo table at PAW this weekend. Both pieces were given a solid black undercoat (the first photo looks lighter than it should), then overspray of grey and white. The food booth then got a few alternating layers of red and white.

I'll pick out some panels in different colours and add quite a bit of weathering, add the acrylic panels back on and call them done...














Having had the deadline of this weekend's convention demo table, I got the objective building mostly done, although it could do with some more spot colours.

Objective room wall before and after weathering/added shading:





Finished table:






Painting the text yellow was really fiddly as the walls kept getting in the way of my forearm. Worth the effort though.

 

Inspired by JohnnyM's table with it's lovely cherry blossoms I recently raided eBay for trees. Here's what turned up:







They should look good on the table, the palms will get some weathering/shading and then some will be put in pots for urban terrain and some will get put on sandy washers like the aquarium plants further up this page.

Very minor update, I made a protective surround for transporting the road tiles which means they're likely to see a bit more use again.






Image dump! Inspired by http://infinitythegame.com/forum/index.php?/topic/19565-paradise-ruinsmodular-and-portable-table/ I've started on my own container port version. As usual, bigger images (and more explanations) on the blog. Freight Port Table - Planning & Prep First up, the 'test' container to see if corrugated card wrapped around expanded polystyrene was feasible.




The answer being a firm YES.




Next I went out to the local builder's merchants and got 18 400x400mm sheets of 6mm MDF (a whole sheets-worth) plus about the same amount of 24mm expanded polystyrene roof insulation. I then jury-rigged my mini bench saw into a hot wire cutter table to start producing massive numbers of 24x48x151mm blocks of EPS.

WARNING - hot wire cutters give off toxic fumes if they get too hot or if material is left on the wire. ALWAYS cut in a well ventilated area and turn off the current to the wire when you're not cutting! See http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page173.html for more info.



First production container on the way, next to the test one.



Finally, a bunch of test layouts done before I got the MDF tiles cut.



I like the idea of the 'infantry-only' section in that last one, with one layer of containers it's still shallow enough to reach in and move the models safely.

 

There will be about 60 containers altogether but due to the stacks being made as a single piece there will only be about 25 items. Still a lot of cladding to do.

I've now cut out enough pieces of EPS for the table, here's eight of the nine tiles roughly laid in in interlocking pairs, although I've tweaked them a bit since then.



To save time, the bigger stacks of crates used some of the offcuts from cutting the rest of the pieces to shape. This is one of the big three-wide by two-high stacks upside down:



The first eight tiles have all been marked out ready for texturing - once I've got the tub of textured paint back.

Here's the fourth pair, with the most complex layout:





Each pair of tiles will 'fold' together to stack. I may cut out some thin sheet foam to prevent damage as the tops of the crates aren't as robust as I'd hoped and due to slight irregularities there will be wear points.

Including the slightly smaller pale blue prototype I now have six 'blocks' of containers done apart from highlighting and weathering:

Single x 3

Double x 2

2-wide, 2-high x 1

With a 3-wide single height block on the way. Once that one is done I'll have all the blocks for the first pair of tiles plus the first (2x2) block for the next pair.

These will be seeing use this coming weekend on my urban table at the PAW convention in Plymouth.










'It's behind you!'

Budda budda budda.





Also, I came across this idea for carved-in concrete-textured MDF which I might borrow instead of the original plan to use textured paint.

http://www.thelazyforger.com/tutorials/how-to-sculpt-a-paved-road-part-1/

 

Just found a shot of the door-end of the last two blocks under construction:



Lines scribed with the end of a nail-file, locking bars represented with plasticard strip.

Got a bit of painting done last night, my first attempt at using the sponged paint chip technique.

• Thorough undercoat of black spray primer.
• Base colour of Army Painter blue spray angled mostly from above.
• A light dusting of white spraycan.
• Using an artist's sponge, I lightly dabbed a dark grey-brown mix in place semi-randomly, making sure there were more chips towards the corners and adding a few side-swipes at the bottom.
• Some Vallejo smoke mixed with Coat d'Arms black was scumbled on along the lower edge to add a bit more tonality and grime. The same mix was used to shade the corners of the top.
• Edges were highlighted with some old Space Wolf Grey and then a little pure white.
• The upper edges of paint underneath each chip got highlighted with SWG.
• The top edge of each chip got shaded with some pure black but I'm not sure the basic chip colour was dark enough for this to show.
• Chipped edges were highlighted with silver instead.
• Some silver scratches were added in the areas the crate would be getting the most wear, notably the side-swipes.

The basic idea is to make the chipped areas look like they are slightly deeper than the surrounding paint layer and to have the 'metal' areas not metallic but dark, as weathered metal is very rarely shiny unless it's chromed - recent scratches on the other hand will show fresh metal.

There's a red one to come as well but I'm not sure it's going to come out as well.

A couple of park benches I knocked together quickly for the demo table at PAW this weekend:





3mm foamed PVC for the upright, 1mm for the seat and some plasticard strips for the seat back.

I added a couple of 2mm magnets in the uprights for transport purposes, not sure if they'll need something to weigh them down during games.

I took one of the spare 16" sheets of MDF and tried out the scoring method to make it look like concrete (see post #953) and it came out pretty well.









Tools used:



Plus a couple of photos of the containers so far, on a 'normal' table:





I grabbed some time yesterday afternoon to paint the test tile.

First it needed smoothing off as the spray primer raised some fibres off the surface. A hand hoover with brush attachment did the job but there were still a few areas that needed sanding down between coats - with the other tiles I'll need to make sure they're sanded down more thoroughly before undercoating.





Paint was applied with a sponge in three coats of successively lighter grey.





While applying the lightest coat I also added a little pure white in places and then blended it in with the sponge that still had pale grey on it.



The very tips of the edges got a lining of dilute white to make them stand out. I'll add some washes in places but apart from that and some varnish, it's done!




The single tile also worked surprisingly well when placed on a normal table:





Image dump! Texturing done on tiles 2 & 3.





Yellow lines added to the first test tile in several layers of colour.

 

Sneak-peek of a new dice cube idea:



Currently it's got two of the same ATM on opposite sides, I'll add some more Infinity-specific ones to the over sides, for example 'Tunguska, You Know it Makes Sense' and the Order of the Temple/Vatican Bank.

Tile two:





Containers glued in place with a hot glue gun (cue the usual warnings about not getting expanded polystyrene hot...):



The containers didn't blend in to the surface enough so I added a little bit of shading around the edges:



Assorted scale shots:







Some more yellow lines being added. I wanted to go for a more faded look. Note the two-pence piece being used to make sure each dash is about the same length:







Tile three, this time I remembered to mask out the areas for the containers more accurately and could shade the concrete a bit:









The two tiles neatly stacking:









Although I will place some bubblewrap between them as the full set will put quite a bit of pressure on the lower pairs.

The three tiles so far. Todd - the gaps between the tiles show up because I'd ended up with slightly different colours and highlighting styles, but it's pretty good.



And in use in a rather cramped game of Beacon Race:



In preparation for the local Legionary convention at the weekend I managed to get some scatter terrain done.



First are some planters. The planters themselves were from Antenociti's Workshop, as are the small clumps, while the cherry trees were from eBay.





First I drilled out holes for the trunks and some holes underneath for magnets (for easy transport/storage), then everything was washed.

The planters then got a black spray undercoat, grey overspray and then a thin white overspray. The soil areas then got a browny-green thick wash.

The trees were then glued in with a hot glue gun as superglue would probably have left fume marks.
Finally, foliage clumps were added on top of some of the soil and some of the loose cherry blossom foam foliage was glued onto the soil. Job done and they really jazz up a table.

In-game these are helping to add some much-needed low cover to our Infinity tables.


On a more industrial note, I finally finished off some pipe piles. These are made from till rolls glued together.







I undercoated them black but wasn't sure where to go from there so tried an experiment. They got an overspray of grey and then of Army Painter red, followed by very light oversprays of grey and white to dull down the red again and add a bit of texture.

A bit of weathering and rust and they're done. The dark stripes were Coat d'Arms Dark Brown Super Wash, the dark brown rust areas were GW Typhus Corrosion and the orange rust patches were the old GW Foundation orange.

In-game, the differing diameters aof pipe have worked well to hide different size models, with infantry able to take cover behind the two smallest piles and be totally hidden behind the two biggest piles.

There are now five complete tiles including the empty one, but photos of those will have to wait. In the meantime, here' a MAS Alien Objective I painted up as a dual-purpose objective for both Infinity and a certain abandoned 6mm SF game...



To give very vibrant colours but plenty of depth in tone and variation of colour I started with a white undercoat over grey and worked down from the palest areas with multiple layers of washes, glazes and thinned paint. This let me add lots of different colours while working down into the shadows, making it a very satisfying model to work on, emphasising the different forms. The pink areas then got a little bit of edge highlighting at the end. Overall I used something like twenty different paints/glazes/inks on this!

 

Some updated photos of the table so far. Even with only five tiles and some scatter terrain and buildings it's looking really good.



Lunch area, including ATM and Bacon Dispenser.



The double-height tiles can result in some really claustrophobic areas.



Changing the table between games is very easy, turning the four populated tiles around goes from this:



To this, without actually moving the tiles from place to place:



Scatter terrain in the form of lighting and crates helps break up the wide open areas. The light is on a 40mm metal washer which makes it very easy to add some of the small magnetised crates without them moving around all the time.

On the far side of the above photo you can see a bunch more pipe piles which have been working well in game terms, with some being short enough to take cover behind and some being total cover for anything Gecko-size or smaller.

Most of the same components set up differently. The tower on the near edge did give a very commanding view but the double-height tiles in the middle blocked LoF to a lot of the table. Placing the fan on the very top stopped anyone deploying up there and being able to see too much of the table.

The double-height tiles are making some really interesting spaces.

 

The blog then jumped by more than a year to the start of 2016, for assorted reasons...


Between assorted forum hiccups, being busy proofreading stuff and a bunch of other reasons, this thread died a death. However I'm using the prompt of my recently arrived Forward Base kickstarter to get it going again...

Just before Christmas a 19kg parcel turned up from Antenociti's Workshop, containing the Kickstarter stuff for Dom and myself.









Lots of resin to clean up, wash, rinse and undercoat:







Note that the semi-circular pieces are some MAS Elevators split in half and based for use as objectives.

Something that's helped a lot getting scenery done in the last couple of weeks was getting myself a compressor, cheap airbrush (free with the compressor) and a spray booth for Christmas.



Space for the spraybooth, however was somewhat tricky...







Resin internals base coated with zenithal white over the grey undercoat, then some weathering with airbrushed Vallejo black dip.







Way too many light fittings.



Resin internals done apart from the screen printouts.



To solve the usual problem of where to put the opened door, I decided to magnetise it.



The assembled interior, plus magnetised bits sitting on the ceiling for transport.





A quick trip to the local games store got me some more paints.



The external resin done.



Then it was time to add some lighting effects around the fittings, starting with a 1:1 mix of white with fluoro yellow.







In this one you can also see the detailing card pieces, with the edges gone over with a dark grey marker pen. I'd also given the light spill areas a second layer with more white mixed in to make the fluoro duller.



Finally, adding the printed screens.



And now I realise that I have no photos of the finished Hab. Oops...

 

Next up, Hab 7 - the control tower.



I decided to make use of the masking film on the control floor.





Masking film removed.





Some weathering added.











And Hab 10, the objective room.



Again, the masking film on the floor was used to add some black hatching and text.







Mostly black with a little bit of grey highlighting.



Film removed.



Weathering added.



A big pile of assorted resin cleaned up.



Where the MDF has been etched rather than cut, careful use of a wet sponge can remove a lot of the 'burn' marks.



Finally for now, Habs 3 and 7 & some unpainted resin in use in a game, plus some photos of Hab 3 in use on another table.









Then there was a detour into shipping containers...











Exterior panels for Hab 10.



Way too many little bits of resin and acrylic rod added.





Hab 10 just happens to have a rectangle marked on the floor which is the right size for Antenociti's Command Table, so obviously magnets were added, and will be painted grey at some point.



The doors also got magnetised on the edges, similar to with Hab 3, but not as cleanly. However when closed the ones in the doorframes are mostly covered by the doors themselves. I decided to build it with all the doorways facing in, as you can't actually see them very well if placed on the outsides - and doors for over-pressured rooms are supposed to open inwards anyway.

 

Then I started on some of the scatter terrain. Basic shading with the airbrush.



Chipping added by applying dark brown paint with a sponge.



Then edge highlighting.



The blue started off very promisingly with a mix of blue, brown and panzer grey for the dark tones, but I then made the mistake of using the blue unmixed for the main tone and it was far too opaque and blue.











Overall the blue one ended up OK, but not nearly as nice as the yellow one, partly because of the mistake with the main tone and partly because I wasn't as subtle when applying the chipping effect. On the other hand they both look fine as tabletop scatter terrain.



And now we're caught up on everything I've done since Christmas. Having got used to using a airbrush again, for the next two pieces I tried to use some of the techniques from Angel's painting book, with different colour undercoats, more airbrush shading etc.

So, two Forklifts, which go very well with the freight port table.

Using the experience of the yellow dumpster, I wanted to make the sides of the forklifts Caterpillar yellow or similar, with the rest of the vehicle in dark colours. So the panelling got a white undercoat followed by assorted shades of brown through yellow through pale yellow and very pale yellow edge highlighting.







The controls then got painted white before adding colour, and some of the recesses got a brown wash.



After this had dried for a full twenty four hours, the tricky bit came - masking the painted parts! I probably should have used liquid mask...



All visible parts of the models then got a panzer grey undercoat followed by a dark brown-green base coat that left some of the panzer grey showing.





Then a couple of successively lighter layers of blue-grey were added for shading, going for a slightly chromed look but not attempting full NMM.



The moment of truth!



Edge highlighting added.







With and without edge highlighting.





I thought I was finished at this point, then remembered that none of the running lights had been done.

OSL glow added:



Followed by a brighter glow and highlighting the lights themselves:



I went for a slightly cross-hatched effect on the lights, followed by a few glazes to stop them looking so pasty:



Quite a bit of progress since the last update, mostly on the tower.

However I got distracted in between, realising that the Silhouette templates also had masking film on...



The next batch of resin on the way:







Painting the consoles:











Consoles and locker in place:











I decided the landing pad needed a little extra something, so masked out the cross.

 

Some photos of the complete assembled buildings, note that the Objective Room isn't finished:







The airbrushed cross on the landing pad:



And the start of a new table layout, although it needs higher hills:









After several months of working on my Onyx I've finally had time to do some scenery again!

First some Customeeple crates:



Then some more of the @Antenociti Forward Base Kickstarter stuff - the alien fungi-sailplant things. These are cast in a very flexible rubbery material and I had partly left these aside due to concerns about paint adhesion - so it was testing time. After removing some mould lines with a sharp knife, I thoroughly scrubbed the test item with a toothbrush and soapy water, then scrubbed while rinsing off the soapy water, left to dry thoroughly overnight and then used an airbrush to undercoat with Vallejo Panzer Grey surface primer, follewed by grey and white.

I went with Vallejo Hot Orange for the base colour as it gives a nice orange-brown when added in a thin layer. Highlights were added by adding white to the mix, although this dulls down the colour. Shadows were added with Vallejo Smoke which was also sprayed over all the 'soil' parts of the base.



Some details picked out, and the bobbles on the edge of the sail were painted with a white basecoat. Tediously...



I then gve the bobbles a thick wash of Hexed Lichen, with the idea of oyster eyes as an inspiration.



Back view.

http://wargamingtrader.com/system/files/images/20161031_18-47-00.jpg[/img

This came out very nicely, and the paint hasn't shown any signs of flaking, even when the pieces have been bent strongly. A coat of varnish was then added.

As the test piece worked, it was time to do the other four, some of which were a bit more involved. Here you can see the panzer grey/grey/white undercoat:



Just Hot Orange applied, but the photo is slightly too vivid:

http://wargamingtrader.com/system/files/images/20161102_22-11-08.jpg[/img

Highlights added.

http://wargamingtrader.com/system/files/images/20161102_22-24-28.jpg[/img

Left - highlights added. Right - highlights and then shading with Smoke.



All pieces highlighted and shaded.



On the left I've added a thin glaze of Hot Orange to some areas to get back some of the warmth of the colour.



White bobbles and some of the base detail done.



Way too many white bobbles washed with Hexed Lichen.



The full set of colours (excluding undercoat) used on the pieces.



And being me, they're all magnetised for storage/transport...



Plus some photos with models for scale:







They block LoF pretty well once you get down to ground level.

And now for something a bit heavier. The Samsara utility vehicle.

First step, Panzer Grey surface primer underneath in in the recesses, followed by Grey and White in other areas.



VMA Medium Yellow base coat followed by shading with Gold Yellow.





Some minimal highlighting with Medium Yellow and white, black sprayed over the 'exhaust' area.





A thin mix of Gold Yellow and Smoke was used in the recesses and panel lines, and the exhaust grill was drybrushed Boltgun Metal.



The grill then had a series of black and chestnut washes and the tyres and windows got painted black. Theoretically I should have done the windows first with the airbrush and then masked them before doing the rest, but it'll probably do as-is.



http://wargamingtrader.com/system/files/images/20161108_12-25-45.jpg[/img



I also added magnets under the wheels - these aren't strong enough to hold it in place for transport, but they help a lot.



Oops, forgot the construction photo!



There are magnets on the two top sections as I have a grabber arm to add at a later stage. The front and back halves are pinned together for a really solid join, but due to sanding off slightly too much I added a thin sheet of plasticard between them to make another panel line.

The front bumper is undercoated but I'm not sure what colour to do it.

Ideally the whole vehicle needs a bit more weathering and paint chips added.


And that was the last post in the old blog, from late 2016. Next up, trying to add in some of the stuff I've done in the last two years...

 

Done! In it's own dedicated thread: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/ijws-aristeia-board-with-leds-and-pi.33586/

 

A table I set up for some games last weekend, prompted by having won some MAS walkways at the Warcors' Warparty the weekend before:









Obviously most of the terrain on this one is commercially made, but there are several exceptions:

In the first photo, next to the garage, is a cheap yellow green and orange desk tidy made of thick cardboard, with added shrubbery. This was very cheap to put together, and does a great job of breaking up spaces.

The hills are extremely old (late Nineties?) and could do with re-flocking, they're 40mm expanded polystyrene that was cut with a hot wire cutter. Once piled up they're pretty good for blocking LoF.

The river is also extremely old, on a base of thick cardboard with plaster for the banks and rocks for the edges of the water.

The shrubberies are on 40mm and 60mm metal washers for stability, and are a wide mix of aquarium plants hot-glued into place. Due to placing so many items on them, and reducing the height of the items towards the outer edges, the washers aren't visible until you get very low down, so aren't painted. Which helps make them pretty robust.

 

Construction of the second-gen MAS walkways. These are extremely flexible in terms of layout, but are deisgned so that you have to remove the walls whenever you change the leg positions (there are long and short legs). Given the long term effects this tends to have on MDF/HDF terrain (and especially on paint on that terrain!) I decided to glue the top 'hooks' of the legs in place, and glued most of the walls on.

Then, being me, it was magnet time...