WH40K - Trukk Crater painted

Here's the Trukk Crater, with a slap of paint and ground cover. Paint as follows:
- light grey acryllic spray paint for the undercoat
- Tamiya Light Tan and Dark Yellow sprays
- Citadel Ogryn Flesh wash in the fissures
- drybrush of Citadel Rotten Flesh over the crater.
- Citadel Scab Red, Bolt Gun Metal and Tin Bitz over the 'trukk' pieces.
- Quick spray of Citadel Purity Seal (matt varnish) over the whole thing.

The ground stuff is the same material I use for basing most of my miniatures. It's a mix of stuff bought over the years, but mostly railway modelling 'gravel' or 'ballast'. I find that the light grey is a nice, neutral colour. However, since it is railway modelling material, it is a bit uniform. My favourite material, when I can be bothered to make it, is bits of concrete ground together. That makes a grit of differing sizes (less than 1mm) which looks a bit more realistic on the base of a toy soldier.

WH40K - Crater or Trukk Go Boom!

I didn't want or need six of the 'Moonscape' craters in the terrain pack from GW, so I bought a single crater from a stack of 'bits' being sold off by my FLGS.


I have made this: an Ork Vehicle Crater. Although I like the flame and smoke tokens I discussed previously, this piece is supposed to be what is left when one of my wonderful Ork creations goes 'ka-EXLODE!'
I just added a few bits of cut up plastic and leftover Ork vehicle parts to the crater. All the bits are polystyrene, so it is all glued together with ordinary model glue. That's the beauty of plastic models - easy to cut and convert.

WH40K - Fernvale Specialty Scenics

Another project finally makes it off the 'to do list'! I bought these resin scenery pieces a year or so ago. They are from Fernvale Specialty Scenics. (Although I don't see these pieces on the website; there are still some nice looking terrain bits for sale.)

They have been undercoated in cheap spray paint, then lashings of Tamiya Dark Yellow and Light Sand spray paint. I brush painted the rocks in Citadel Codex Grey, dry brushing in a mix of grey and white. I dry brushed some of the grey shades on the 'ground' but that looked a bit odd, so I touched it in with swabs from a Floquil Enamel Paint Marker (the colour is 'Earth'). This leaves a thin coat of 'dirt'; the markers are supposed to be used to weather AFV models, but once more I am finding that paint markers are the way to touch things up quickly. Also I find that scenery doesn't need the same level of care in painting as miniatures or vehicles do. Unless the dry brushing is too heavy handed, the only painting necessary is a couple of sprays of whatever colours are lying around. I used Tamiya Clear spray to varnish the pieces, but that turned out a little shiny, so I went over it with a dusting of Citadel Purity Seal, which seems to have worked.

The Ork graffiti is also done in paint markers, but it would be too easy to overdo that so I stopped. Sometimes the Finishing Fairy has to visit the work table and take your work away, letting you know that you have done enough and you can stop now.

28mm - Armorcast resin scenery: Dumpsters!

I bought two resin dumpsters (large rubbish bins) in 28mm scale. They are from Armorcast - the same company who make the Mega Cannon, although I purchased them from an eBay store called Players' Cove.


The dumpsters as they appear in the Armorcast store website.



The dumpsters scale well for 25-28mm, whether you are using realistic or heroic proportioned figures. They look like the type with big plastic lids, so they are probably suitable for settings from the 1980s to near future/cyberpunk. I would certainly recommend them for skirmish games or roleplaying games where you use figures and like a little more scenery. They are also detailed enough to suit a diorama or display.



The pictures show the dumpsters with 1990s Grenadier 'Future Warriors' miniatures, in 28mm scale, and a Games Workshop plastic Catachan Imperial Guardsman, for scale.

The surface of the closed bin had a lot of little air holes, which is not something I had found on the Mega Cannon. These will have to be filled with glue or putty, although the 'urbanised' paintjob I am planning will mean that they won't be as much of a worry as they would be, for instance, on the body of a clean looking car. The open dumpster shows a lot of garbage, some overflowing. Good for gritty city scenes. There was also a little flash or overflowing resin on both models, but it was easily clipped off and sanded back. You would have to do that anyway for large resin kits, so it's not a big problem.


Armorcast Mega Cannon as it appears on their website.

Note: I built the Mega Cannon back in 2008 but haven't gotten around to painting it yet. A tip for prospective Mega Cannoneers - the working parts actually do work, but only if you glue them together in the right places. I didn't :(

WH40K - Fernvale Specialty Scenics

I picked up some cast resin scenery pieces from Underworld Games in Ipswich, Qld.

These are made by Fernvale Specialty Scenics. I have found a number of miniature and hobby sites that sell them, but the designer's blog/website is here:

http://fss-resin.blogspot.com/

I bought five of the 'Rock' series and two 'Pond' series.

RF-001, RF-002, RF-003, RF-004 and RF-005.

WF-002 Pond and WF-001 Oasis.

These pieces are approx 10 - 20 cm wide and up to about 8 cm high. They are moulded in dark brown or black resin, with realistic looking rocks and a coarse, sandy/foamy surface for the ground. They look like they will paint up very easily, but I will add a little flock and dirt to the bases.

They do look as if actual rocks have been used as casting material, but I think this is perfectly acceptable. Nothing looks more like rock, and I don't have the time or the skill to find and assemble natural looking scenery and make terrain pieces from it.

The smallest rock looks like a good aiming spot for a firing squad.

The key reason I like these pieces is that they have been carefully arranged to allow WH40K scale (28mm) figures - with bases - to stand among the terrain without toppling over.

The rock pieces would look good in any desert or alien wasteland - add plastic aquarium or home-made plants to make them more like jungle scenes. The large pond could have a chemical tank and green paint added for that 'toxic spill' look. The small pond could easily be used to represent the horror of horrors, the nastiest place in any Ork settlement: The drops...

The smaller pieces in the Fernvale Specialty Scenics range were about AUD 5-6 each and the large ones AUD 8-10 each. Very reasonable in my opinion.