Part 6. Terrain Painting
OK. So now you know how the table was built and painted and you know
how the terrain was built. Let’s talk about painting the terrain. Since the
Hill was painted the same way as the table, we’ll skip that and start with the
laser cut terrain, working our way towards the blasted pieces.
Here are some links to the other parts of the series:
Laser Cut Terrain
Initially, my Wife popped all the pieces off of the sprue for the terrain
piece she was assembling and I tried to prime them that way. It wasn’t pretty.
The light-weight pieces wanted to blow away in the wind from my airbrush, let
alone a can of spray paint. So, for the next piece, we painted the sprues a
dark brown prior to removing pieces for assembly. For later pieces, we decided
to paint them a medium brown to speed things up. The final results were good
because there were no places that looked unpainted.
This process of painting the pieces before removing them from the
sprues did make it a little harder for me to assemble the terrain, since I felt
the burn lines were harder to see. However, my Wife did not appear to have this
problem, so maybe it was just me. J
All of the terrain pieces were painted in a similar way. I will
describe the process in general rather than cover each piece separately. Where
needed, I will single out specific terrain pieces by name.
Once assembled, a base coat of Vallejo German Green Brown was applied.
When dry, a mid-tone of Folk Art Honeycomb was layered on, allowing some of the
base coat to show through. A top layer of Screaming Skull was applied, giving
the piece a nice effect. (You’ll note that I skipped the Americana Buttercup
this time.)
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| German Brown green |
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| Honeycomb |
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| Honeycomb group shot |
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| Screaming skull |
It’s all in the details
In general, I used GW’s Zandri Dust as the base color for each of the
designs on the laser cut terrain. From there, I used shades like GW’s Seraphim
Sepia and Army Painter Strong Tone to make them stand out against the bone-like
color of the majority of the piece. Once or twice, I used the Secret Weapon
Green Earth/thinner mix instead. (Discussed in Part 5.)
The sanctuary of souls (Including the gun and comm tower) got
special treatment, as I decided to really tie it in with the themed armies.
Some of the panels on the outer walls were painted with the Alaitoc color
scheme (as defined by GW) using a base of Alaitoc Blue, then stippled Kantor Blue
and a watered down glaze of Guilliman Blue. The yellow was a base of Averland
Sunset with several thin layers of Yriel Yellow on top. All of the joins
within each piece were given definition using the Secret Weapon Green
Earth/thinner mix. The gold sections were done with a base coat of Warplock Bronze,
a layer of Emperor’s Gold, and a wash of Seraphim Sepia. Various gems were
glued onto the pieces in a repeating color pattern to make it really stand out.
Uridium Space Modulators- These were the first parts painted, so
I tried something with them that I did not repeat on later parts. I accented
some of the parts with blue and gold (just like the above.) It does not
detract from the pieces, but I felt it would look gaudy on the larger
structures. I used a blue out to white fading technique on the modulator’s
energy field using my detail airbrush.
The Goddess- Since the
goddess is a mixture of laser cut terrain and traditional techniques, I want to
go over what I did for it. The outer ring is the laser cut walkways and was
painted as above. The statue was primed black before a base coat of Americana
Milk Chocolate was applied, followed by a dusting of the Folk Art Honeycomb.
Finally, Screaming Skull was applied, but lighter than before to allow more of
the undercoats to show through. The gems
on the base were painted red using a silver undercoat with a Glaze of Tamiya
clear red X-27 (Not mentioned in the bonus post because I just remembered I
used it.)
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| Goddess before details were added |
Blasted Terrain
The three blasted terrain pieces were perhaps the hardest parts of the
entire project. They had to work with the table while being opposed to the
aesthetic. In other words, they had to look like they once belonged, but were
damaged. The color options were also a challenge as the entire table has an off-white
scheme that needs to be complemented. In a more traditional ruin, there are
more color options and textures, so I find doing them easier. This may be why
GW never produced very much Alien terrain and stuck with Imperial, which is not
that far off from real world architecture.
It is hard to make them look interesting. I feel that I succeeded.
I started painting the blasted terrain much like the table. I began
with Americana Milk Chocolate, then Folk Art Honeycomb, then Americana
Buttermilk, and finally a dusting of GW Screaming Skull. On the sides (the parts that are supposed to
look like bone marrow), I went back in with GW’s Zandri Dust and a wash of GW’s
Seraphim Sepia, followed by a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone. For the chunks
of destroyed building, I painted them as described above, but I added Secret
Weapon Green Earth/thinner mix where I thought it would give depth.
I then went in with my airbrush loaded with black paint and added some
“burn” blackening. I tried to angle the lines to look like explosives were used
and not a normal fire. I used Screaming Skull
to blend the lines and shape the blast marks even more. Lastly, I made a mix of
Secret Weapon Ash Grey and Slate Grey with thinner and applied it as a
highlight to the blast effects.
Blasterpiece Theater- In the
end, I decided it need something else. I recalled an article from a few years
ago about making blast markers out of stuffing and electronic tea lights and
thought that might do the trick. I went to the web and discovered that there
are a ton of videos on the subject. After looking at a few, I picked this one
out as the best: Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26imGXSbI6g
Here are the ones I made:
Up Next – the finished table!
Later
RGH
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