It's not Weathertop

About to head overseas for a week, so although I w
as hoping to finish it off this week it'll probably not be for another week or two (or three - as I have another major assignment to do when I get back).

Instead you'll have to interpret how it might look when painted...

As you can see, it's assembled and this last week it got a black coat of paint...

I'll do a full WIP everything after it's done, but I've taken some of the advice from last time and added more rubble around the place. I've also broken it up into lots of segments to make it a larger terrain piece rather than just a single ruin.

Update-ya-later!

Hirst Arts Scenery - Ruined Fieldstone Tower

Well, I finally finished! 

For my birthday, mid March, my wonderful wife bought me some bags of bricks. Unfortunately I was too dumb to take photos of all the prep work as I was just having way too much fun putting it together!

These things are so awesome and I've got another kit to go yet (the Weathertop type one). 

It takes a bit of practice to get the hang of using them and I haven't done a particularly good job of it. The walls are a bit crooked and there are some ugly gaps. Still, I think it came up quite well in the end! There were several times I dropped bits and had to re-do things as blocks went breaking here, there and everywhere. Once I finish the Weathertop one I think I'll just order a whole bucketload of bricks and go freestyle =)

Anyway, here is the test fit of the different sections.

And here's the same structure after adding some ruiny bits to the tops of the smooth walls.

I wanted a sort of bluestone look to the ruins so I had a look at the bluestone bricks we have around our wall heater. There is an underlying brown tone, then a blue-grey colour followed by some lighter grey drybrushes. Hopefully it will distinguish it from the board while still looking as though the stones came from the same area.

Here it is all looking muddy and blue-grey...

With one more coat of blue-grey you can see the base colour I'm going for.

And now there's another drybrushing of grey...

Not sure the picture shows it, but the left hand side has a lighter tone than the right.

And this is as above, but showing the last highlight layer on the left compared to the right. In all it was a spraypaint black, paint all brown, then heavy drybrush blue-grey, then a still pretty heavy drybrush of medium grey, then a lighter drybrush of light grey and finally a tiny brush of almost white. It sounds like a lot but takes a lot longer to dry than paint in this weather! Plus, because you're not worried, like on a miniature, about perfection it's really pretty simple and quick with a big brush!

Next I had to get the board ready. I put it together loosely, then marked off where the building was. Smeared glue all over the rest of the board, sprinkled sand over that and some small stones then waited a day for it to dry.

To cover up one of the larger cracks I decided to use a vine (gratefully given to me by my brother). But how does a vine grow in my wasteland? I needed a water source so added a well in the courtyard. Then I did a big heavy black paint over the whole thing.

Next step was some simple drybrushing of the sand in just the grey colours (no browns or blue-greys). After that was dry I reconstructed the walls, applied a ton of glue and propped it up ready for another day of waiting.

When that was dry I needed to add some sand around the base of the wall where I had gaps...

You can see a few more wall bits, some stairs and stuff added with some miniatures as I was so excited by this stage!

But after that was dry it was a simple matter to do a bit more drybrushing, glue in a vine and ta-da! Finished! It took me a long time, but that's because I haven't got too much hobby time at the moment and because in this weather each coat of paint or application of glue took about a day to dry!

Here are some shots from different angles. Stairs help archers access the top levels.

The troll is pretty big, but could get in through the big archways.

I think the bottom fits in well with my board, though I may need to "grey up" the very edges.

Oh, and there was a large hole for some reason in one spot, so I decided that my Ruined Fieldstone Tower needed a permanent resident, Rattus.

I tried to make it so that some of the crenellations on the top were only partly ruined. This lets archers still pose nicely and look a bit castley from some angles, giving a hint of what the unruined structure may have once looked like.

Similarly for this side, you can see that the central tower on this side isn't too ruined compared to the rest of the building.

Oh, and for 40k players out there, the keep still looks pretty cool =)

This shows the vine in a bit closer detail.

And perhaps a wraith makes this place home for the weekends?

Anyway, there you go! I had a great time building it and look forward to doing more!

For those interested the details are:

Hirst Arts Scenery - Ruined Fieldstone Tower (http://www.hirstarts.com/ruinfld/ruinfld.html)

They were bought from Griffin Grove here in Australia (http://www.griffingrove.com/)

As addictive as lego building...

Just in case you're all wondering what's happened, here's a clue:

http://www.hirstarts.com/ruinfld/ruinfld.html

Image from the Hirst Arts website and much nicer than mine!

Arriving a week or so after my birthday were bags of blocks from my wonderful wife! Since then I've been sanding, gluing and am just about ready to start painting. It's my first go with Hirst Arts blocks, so probably won't be as amazing as the ones you see on the internet. Actually, I KNOW it won't be as I've not managed to do it particularly cleanly and straight.

Still, it's so much fun that I'm looking forward to making a lot of these, budget allowing. Slow work though, in this weather and with all the other paraphernalia of life. 

I'll post some pics when it's all done =)

** EDIT: Just dropped it when I was spray painting it. SMASH. So now it's back to gluing again - **sigh**

Awoooo

Here's my second Mark of the Wulfen guy...

As with the other I've chosen to have him dual wielding guns as in close combat he goes berserk and I couldn't really model that. I figure he runs forward shooting then launches into a raging melee.

From front on...

From the other side...

And from the back...

That's it for today, another troop done, four to go in the squad...

Feel it hot, hot, hot...

So, over the last couple of days I've polished off the Melta armed Grey Hunter...

He has a melta gun in one hand and a sword in the other. The sword had runes etched into it, so I thought I'd try and do some shiny rune type things in it.

And from this side you see the red and yellow canister on the side of the meltagun in keeping with the other such guns in my force.

Quite happy with how the sword turned out, it's not quite so shiny really.

I quite like the pose too, I tried to make it look as though he were balancing the weight of the two weapons.

And here's my army as it stands (well, all the painted parts except the drop pod, which is at my brother's house at the moment).

Hoist the Banner

Yay! Another guy done!

My banner bearer for pack 2 of grey hunters, nothing particularly fancy here. I'm really pleased with the eyes, though the resolution isn't good enough in this shot, I'll try taking a better one tomorrow maybe. I think sometimes these milk bottle camera shots are great for visibility in terms of light in our dark house, but not so good for getting the angles you'd usually see when playing.

In keeping with the rest of pack 2 he has a bolt pistol instead of a boltgun.

I'm pleased with the shading on the back of the banner too, also the gem thingy on the backpack.

The pack markings are really hard to do, they seem like simple two red triangles on a black background, but due to the curvature of the shoulderpad, it's quite hard to paint them in such a way that they look like triangles from different angles.

Anyway, now Pack 2 has a leader, power weapon, banner bearer and a normal trooper. Lots more guys, but those are the tricky ones out of the way (except maybe the wulfen guy, perhaps I'll do him next).

Power Spear

I know I'm on a roll! One of our inconsiderate neighbours (actually a block away) had a VERY noisy dog barking for an hour and a half last night. In an effort to not get aggro I popped downstairs and did some more painting instead of sleeping =)

This is the power weapon grey hunter from my second pack, I decided to do the spear as a power spear. 

Same old shoulderpad...

Back shows a slightly different backpack for some interest...

The second pack has horizontal stripes rather than vertical ones.

And here's a close-up of the spear so you can see it in all the blobby goodness. Looks better at a distance huh! It's just my standard blue colours, midnight blue background, regal blue with a 10/0 brush, enchanted blue over the top of that, ice blue with a 20/0 brush very slightly on top of that (trying to keep inside the older lines) then some white at intersections and on the "bolts" on the spear where the lightning originates from. For those of you who haven't tried this effect before, why not give it a go, remember that it's from a distance that is most important, doesn't matter if it's a bit blobby up close!

Because he's just a trooper I haven't done as neat a job as on Loki (http://simbattleboard.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Loki).

Working on the banner bearer now, but the munchkin is now awake so it may be a few days before he's done =)

**edit, just noticed that I haven't done the writing on his purity seal on his leg! oops!