My girlfriend got her box of a Tau starter pack. She's a lot slower to assemble/paint her models (she doesn't have the burning passion I have, but I can't blame her), so I started doing some terrain, while waiting for her to catch up! And, as stated, I started small, experimenting on a simple piece of ruined wall...
Runied wall corner
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| "Knock knock, motherfekkers!" |
So, I started looking around online for how to do it... My brother has an old bunker, made out of an old ice-cream jug. It's perfectly octagonal, quite okay height, so he just cut a hole for a door, and slapped on a ladder, made out of model-frame-sticks!
Starting small, yeah! But I wanted to create something from scratch, something of my own... So, I looked online, and found a nice site! Thought I'd make a small piece of ruined wall, the corner of a building, with tile flooring, and some sand/overgrowth to show it's wear-and-tear. Me and my girlfriend had just bought a new computer monitor for her birthday, so I had an abundance of two-layered corrugated cardboard for the walls and the base. I had tape, glue, scissors... And I even found some concrete-filler, from when we painted our living-room wall (fill in some old screw-holes), which. Is. BRILLIANT!!! Using an oblivious Blood Claw here as a measuring-stick, just to double-check the height of walls as I go. Small markings in the cardboard to mark which side is in contact with which piece where. Oh, the Blood Claw? I think I shall call him Nick.
Holes and "dents" easily made by ripping out the top-most layer of cardboard, with the help of scissors and a pencil. Adds a little "war-torn" kind of a feel to them.
After
checking online for ideas on how to fill in the top and side –areas of the
cardboard (the corrugated stuff), and reading about using masking tape (and
then maskin the ENTIRE piece with filler), I decided to just fill the tops and
sides with concrete-filler I had at home. Ended up quite neat! I used filler on
the holes and dents as well, to make it feel more realistic in some areas,
whereas others were left without it, to show inner pipes/workings of the walls.
I’ll have to try some day with using filler on the entire wall with a brush, to
create that crusty feel to them...
Walls and base, glued together, using a standard paper-glue -stick.
Spray-painted with everybody’s favourite Games Workshop black basecoat,
and it looks quite nice, if I may say so myself!
Tiles for the floor! I’m going for floor-tiles that are a bit worn, due
to overgrowth and battle-damage. Cracks and missing bits where the craters are
in the floor, and going to glue sand inbetween the floortiles. How? Painting
the tiles, putting a layer of glue on the floor, tiles and sand in
simultaneously. Boom. Done. The tiles are made out of thin cardboard, from a
cereal box.
Time for the glue! Who wants a sniff? Heh... Painting the floor-tiles and the inner walls before bringing
out the glue, though… BUT FIRST! Dark grey on the walls! Turned out WAAAY
better than expected, aaaaand I put a BIT too much color out… Note to self: use
VERY little paint. Oh, and the paint? Some random acryllic dark grey I bought at a hobby-store, WAY cheaper than GW's paints...
That corner is mostly filling. The glue holds the cardboard temporarily together, whereas the filling, once dried, will REALLY hold it together.
In hindsight, it would've been a better idea to paint the tiles glossy side instead of the cardboardy-side. EVERY small imprint on the thin cardboard is visible, but oh well. The sand glued on quite well! The color here was a random acryllic light-grey, bought at a hobby-store. Much cheaper than GW's paints!
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| ...aaaand Nick's in trouble... Told you he's oblivious! |
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| What would YOU do, when you're chased by 3 terminators? |
THOUGHTS, and what I've learned:
- The walls look a bit "plain". Insert bolts and thick frames here and there?
- Drybrushing the dark grey and leaving the black in the dents/holes is a brilliant idea.
- Filler makes for EXCELLENT fill-in for artistic stuff!
