TERRAIN - Dark Deeds Demo Table - Part 2

So, in the last post we went through the construction stage of the table, all fun stuff, and not without its trials and tribulations. Of course, good construction can only get you so far towards "Epic", so I knew that most of my time needed to be focused on the painting and detailing.

I sprayed the entire table with black primer. After I'd done that I realized that I might of got some spray in though the windows and obscured the LEDs. Quick check revealed that I hadn't. Phew! To make sure I didn't get any of the next spray on the LEDs, I stuffed paper towels into the windows ; )

...and masked off the back and sides.

I sprayed the table with a dark brown primer, looking quite glossy in this shot. 

This was followed by a spray of grey that I tried to keep mostly on the cobblestones.

Once the grey had dried, I went along and picked out various stones in lighter and darker shades of grey, along with various browns and bones. I then sprayed all the cobblestones with a gloss varnish and let it dry.

After the gloss varnish was dry, I painted a thinned wash of oil paints (black and brown mixed) over the cobblestones, making sure to get it into the cracks. Once that was dry, I wiped the oil paint off the tops of the cobblestones with a paper towel soaked in mineral spirits. It wasn't quite as successful as my previous attempt (on the Infamy Miniatures table), but I was able to salvage it.

I went through and highlighted most (75% or more) of the individual stones. I think it was worth it.

I then moved on the the other areas of the table, including drybrushing the timbers and shingles...

...adding some depth to the flooring in the tavern...

...and adding a bit of life to the facades.

At that point I started on the details, and testing the location of the cards on the table.

I also finished wiring up the LEDs and lampposts (above and below).

I mentioned this in the last post, but I wasn't too keen on painting the keyline locations for the Street Cards, but after talking with Mark Gibbons I changed my mind as he described the table as the "ultimate Dark Deeds accessory" rather than a terrain piece. Put that way, it was obvious that the lines would assist gameplay.

One of the final things to do was to paint up the Dark Deeds logo (custom cut by Alex at Ironheart Artisans). We settled on a pressed wax look.

All seemed finished until we talked about "filling" the space beside the tavern with little elements that told a story. Hopefully my impromptu butchery works well for you all.

Once again, thanks for looking. I appreciate it : )

Cheers
Dave

TERRAIN - Dark Deeds Demo Table - Part 1

I recently completed another fun terrain commission, this time for Games & Gears and with a bit of a twist. Rather than being a display or demo table for a miniatures game, it was a display/demo table for their card game Dark Deeds (created by some of my mates from the GW days). Rather than a "terrain table" per se, it was described as being "the ultimate Dark Deeds gaming accessory". My brief from Sam, the owner of Games & Gears, was "make it Epic!"

I spoke quite a bit with Mark Gibbons (artist extraordinaire) about the look and feel of the back streets of Anthrand. We decided on using the excellent buildings from Tabletop World, and - to reduce the encroachment onto the table - I went about cutting the buildings in half with a hacksaw.

The initial layout for the table. The mat from the game determined the rest of the dimensions.

We also decided we wanted flickering candle light in the windows, so I placed 

an order with Ron at Fallout Hobbies and received the perfect set of LEDs.

Rarely does a terrain project go by now without working with Alex at Ironheart Artisans. 

He does great custom work that is certainly worth the price. For this project he created the cobblestone streets, the front, back and side panels to enclose and tidy up the project 

(more on these later), and the great crate that you can see at the top of the page.

Once I had the street section in place, I was able to shuffle 

around the half-buildings and try different arrangements.

We needed a tavern area (where all the nefarious missions are dealt out), 

so I started building it with foam bricks and balsa wood framing.

The city of Anthrand is a dark and gritty city, full of depth and texture, which was 

added to the table with quite a bit of greenstuff to raise some of the cobblestones. 

We wanted the buildings to loom a little more, so I added extensions 

to the roof lines with scribed plasticard and greenstuff shingles.

Initially the tavern floor was going to be stone, so I had added 

some raised stones to create the outlines of the card positions.

These two buildings were joined together by filling in the space 

between them with foam blocks and coating them in PVA glue.

A look at the long curb stones sculpted from greenstuff.

The floor of the tavern was switched to a wooden floor and a large stone 

threshold was added. The floor boards are all scribed plasticard.

Each level of the buildings were pinned to the others, and then the buildings were screwed down to the base. After that, I used my Dremel to cut out the windows of the rooms that would be holding the "flickering candles". The next stage included priming the interior of those rooms so that there were no strange reflections etc. The rooms were then wired with the LEDs and sealed up with the MDF panels you can see in the photo above (sadly I forgot to take photos of most of this stage of the project).

The panels were all attached one at a time and given time to dry etc. As you can see in the 

photo above, some panels required a bit of encouragement in the form of clips sand clamps.

Here's a shot of the first stages of the wiring, making sure all of the wires 

could be connected (after they had been green stuffed in place, of course).

A shot of the side panel with the gap being covered with greenstuff shingles : )

At this stage the build is almost complete.

The second stage of the lighting involved a little bit of testing, 

with everything being held in place with painters' tape.

And finally (for the build at least) we decided to add some street lamps. 

These O-scale lamp posts were pre-wired and really just needed a new paint job : )

Anyway, that's the first part of this look at the Dark Deeds display table. Next time I'll go through the painting process. Hope you enjoyed it!

Cheers

Dave

KICKSTARTER - Awaken Realms resin terrain

Yesterday a package arrived from Awaken Realms, a painting studio out of Eastern Europe that is now expanding into resin terrain. They are currently running a Kickstarter for their new range of objectives, totems, portals, and barricades. You can check it out HERE!

It all looks very cool. The resin is light and sturdy, with crisp details and not a lot of flash.

Cheers
Dave

Merry Christmas PLUS a teaser AND a podcast interview : )

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas, and thank you all for checking out the many meandering posts for 2015. I hope to see you all back again during 2016 (although I think I still have a couple of posts left in me for this year).

I've been slaving away on a few more tables for a client, tables that will end up gracing the pages of an updated rulebook. Pretty cool, eh?

I've been able to use excellent pieces of terrain from a variety of companies (along with scratch-built and hand-sculpted pieces) that include: Ironheart Artisans, Burn In Designs, Impudent Mortal, Secret Weapon Miniatures, and Mantic. On these containers (Ironheart above and Burn In below) I've used Sci-Fi Lettering decals from Fallout Hobbies. The decals themselves are nice and sturdy without being too thick, and the white printing is great, perfectly opaque. They worked out wonderfully for this project.

Speaking of Fallout Hobbies, Ron has just started up a hobby-focused podcast in which he'll be interviewing prolific hobbyists and geeking out about cool techniques and so on. I was fortunate enough to be on his first episode, which is now up on Soundcloud. I'm looking forward to listening to the upcoming guests (apparently Ron already has a wishlist of 20 guests he is keen on talking to).

You can, if you are interested, check it out HERE : )

Cheers
Dave

The Admirable Humility

So, at the end of last Thursday's post, I promised to tell you about the final day of gaming at WarGamesCon.

Apocalypse game four! After racking up a satisfying total of 1-1-1 for the first day, we entered the second with great enthusiasm. Despite losing our Plague-ridden friend Cargill, we gained two allies in the form of Andrew and his Kroot Mercenaries, and Ben and his Eldar. This created perhaps the most motley of collections manning that final Vraksian "palace" - Traitor Guard, Orks, Eldar, and Kroot. Our opponents (Dan, Eric, and Jason) were joined by Rex and his vast amount of mechanized Blood Angels.

We were allocated a Warhound and a Reaver Titan, whilst the Imperials were able to add a Reaver and a Thunderhawk to their arsenal.

To make things a little easier, we divided our forces to defend each end of the palace complex, my Blood Pact focused on the North Gate, and Pat's Ork Walker Horde focused on the South Gate. Ben's rapid Eldar played the counter-attack role, while most of Andrew's Kroot hunkered down on the objectives.

Despite a slow grind of really abysmal shooting at the North Gate, we held quite well, as the Imperial shooting was just as cursed. Outside the South Gate, Pat had to deal with plenty of IG and fiendish Black Templars, and things looked grim for a few minutes there.

The crowning moment of the battle though was when the Thunderhawk, that had just deployed Templar Terminators, was chopped up by a Kroot Shaper Council, and apocalyptically exploded (Strength 9, AP2, 15" radius)! Despite the bold move by the Imperials, this devastation prevented them from seizing any of the objectives and it was called a victory for the anarchic forces of destruction!

Sorry, no pics : )

What I do have though, are pics of a terrain piece I built for a friend of mine for a big Apocalypse game he ran on his birthday recently. Built from 3 Bastions, 1 Shrine of the Aquila, 1 Citadel Hill, 3 cool weapons from Quantum Gothic in the UK, and a bunch of plasticard and some bitz from Cities of Death buildings.

Named "Admirable Humility", the structure really is anything but, standing two stories tall, with a dozen heavy bolter emplacements, three massive weapons of destruction, parapets to shield other defenders, and the blessing of both the Emperor and the Omnissiah.

The striking paint job was aided immeasurably by John Shaffer, who helped me out by laying down the fade from black to red, building up airbrushed layers from Scab Red through to Blood Red. A beautiful effect.

I know my friend really liked the piece (using it to claim victory in his birthday bash), and I hope you do too.

More updates later this week.

Cheers

Dave