Summer Bo(a)redom 2: The Inconclusive Sequel

Hi and welcome to another installment of the blog. Wait, what is that you say? A blogpost this soon after the other one? Well every hit summer blockbuster needs a sequel, and as the second installment of a trilogy, it will be interesting but inconclusive. Given recent success of concepts including weather anomalies, sharks and plain old Bad Lizard versus Giant robot-movies I am sad to say that this blog will not be like that. Robots will probably be included at some point in the future.

Some work has been made on the table by this point, stick with me and read on!

The topography of the table is starting to take shape. The stream is there and... Just disregard the mess in the upper right corner, that will be sorted later.

Also included in this photo is a sneak peek of my Battle Mages.

 After the table got painted with thinned down layers of PVA glue to sort the surface of the foam, it was time for some wall filler to sort the gradient on the sloping parts. It's the really lightweight kind, thankfully. I don't want to end up with a table weighing the equivalent of a small car.

A second layer of filler was laid down after this photo was taken to make the gradient better.

So, the filler had to dry, and what was a man to do with the boredom that instigated? Well, I did mention a square, did I not? Well, let's bring out some tools, foamboard and... hours to spare.

Symbol laid down using a stencil, cobblestones laid down using custom tool and.... Hours of work

Alot more flagstones completed and.. Placings for eventual statues laid down

And here we go. Flagstones for this part completed. 3 kinds... Sure was fun.

 So, filler is all dry and nice, time to get back to work on the board and not just parts of it. The square was glued down prior to the photo got taken. I decided to cover most of the board with fine grit sand to give it some tooth when painting. Just need get to it and finish covering the board.

Note: There will be more work done to the square as well. No filler work yet and it needs more cobblestones.

TO
BE
CONTINUED

Summer Bo(a)redom: A table is born

Another blogpost, another groan-worthy blog title. This time we're taking a step away from the miniatures themselves and goes into recycling the left-overs from the project I had last summer, putting in new floors in my apartment. I thought it was about time to get a dedicated board to game on, and reading the Retribution of Scyrah force book for Warmachine I happened upon something inspirational. Privateer Press do these lovely bits of fiction in those books, and this bit got my mind spinning. The cult leaders of Eversael brining the city to ruins when they go too far and subsequentely gets... ehm. stomped. I mean, stopped. So, here's a table based on the Ruins of said city, somewhere on the outskirts. The Ruins of Eversael.

Since I wanted a fairly open but still characterful game board it is slightly gradiented to give the illusion of rolling hills, or at least that is the plan.

Materials used: Wood glue, Snap-fit floorboards, wooden corner beads, foam underlay.

First up we have the concept scetches I made with my tablet.

First draft. Never was too happy about these two.

What I finally settled on. No worries, the water wont hinder normal play... Overly much.

Here we have the floorboards and wooden corner beads that will make up the main part of the board itself.

Even though they are pictured in the image, neither the cans of liquid nor the tank of LPG for the grill are part of the build!

 After gluing the boards together two by two (there were six boards in total), this is where I almost lost my marbles (groan) I weighed all of them down to get a smooth fit while the glue dried.

Time to appply the wooden beads to the table, adding a bunch of stability, flair, dazzling elegance and...eh. No just stability and making the edge of the table less rough when handled.

 When the glue had dried the table was ready for the next step. It was brought back to the shade and it was time to lay down the first layers of foam.

The warping in this picture is an optical illusion. It's acctually fairly even in real life. For something made by me.

  

After the first layer and a half had been glued down, I drew the general shape of the table that will be as laid out in the scetch. The square is made separately in foamboard and will be added at a way later stage.

 Since these pictures were taken and edited there have been more work done on the table, and another update might be possible to expect soon enough. This sure is an interesting project to make, I just need to decide how decrepit it will look in the end.

'Til next time.
(And I really should settle for one or two sizes for images...)

Completing my Repent(er)ance before I get Wracked...

Well, this is good times ahead, acctually finishing a project I started! (In March.......) My Protectorate of Menoth Repenter is done! Since I did the prudent thing and actually somewhat kept photo documentation of the painting process I'll hand out the highlights. And now, you one to two enraptured readers, BRING ON THE FIRE.

Basecolours laid down, several thinned layers of Menoth White Base forms the "body" of the miniature (Ah Formula P3 paints, how I love thee. Privateer Press line of paint is quite decent.). Brown as a basecoat for the gold and  Formula P3 Pig Iron for the steel bits.

The reworked flail in action. Acctually most of the arm had to be rebuilt to change the pose properly, and make it look better,

 And then we come to the hot stuff (I can almost hear the groans now), the flame. The flame was slathered with a thinned down Sunburst Yellow from the old Citadel paint line. Several layers needed. The important bit here was not total coverage, but a need to fill the recesses to make the base of the fire that will be gradually built up from here on (no guide will be in this post though. Mainly since there are better guides out there than I can provide).

 After the second stage of white is laid down, Menoth White Highlight with a drop or two of Morrow White blended into it at the end to create the final highlight and complete the white part. The rest of the miniature got completed after this photo. The final pose of the miniature is also visible in this photo. Like the flail-bearing arm, the flamethrower-wielding arm had to be rebuilt some as well.

 And below, three pictures of the completed Repenter. The photos are lacking, mainly since I shot them early morning on my balcony without a lightbox or any kind of set-up. I do think the flame turned out fairly decent tho!

Also, no worries. The flame arm is removable to aid in gaming.

//Nevindar