Box Castle I

Before I was even completely finished illustrating my horribly documented BOXVILLE TOWERS terrain project, I already had the beginnings in my head of the idea for a fantasy version.

Because I live in an apartment and usually have to drive somewhere else to game, I've long been focused on portability and modularity in my terrain. I've also always wanted a castle.

"Hmmm..." methinks. "What is a castle keep but a big box, mostly? And what if all the pieces of a castle terrain set could be made to fit into that box? And what if I illustrated the surface instead of modelling it, so I wouldn't have to worry so much about it getting damaged?"

That was the concept for this design, which I started almost three years ago now. The next few posts will show some of the details of its construction.

The build uses this 30-ply chipboard, which is very heavy duty indeed. Almost certainly overkill. Cutting all the pieces for this thing definitely took a toll on my knife arm.

Above you can see the pieces for the modular walls. They are designed to slot into each other like vhs tapes, with enough room inside to store peripherals.

The full set includes: 4 full-length wall segments; 4 half-length wall segments; 1 large castle wing/freestanding tower house; 1 large roofed tower; 1 large battlement tower; 1 small battlement tower; 1 small tower topper; 1 tiny tower topper; 2 outbuildings that can double as hourdes; 1 gatehouse; 2 stairs; 1 roof section for the top of the keep; and the lid of the box which can either be used as a raised court or as a footprint for the interior of the keep.

You can see an early assembly of most of these pieces here:

And here's how they fit into the keep box:

Once I had all the pieces together, I slapped white acrylic on everything as a base for the illustration of the surface textures. Then I started laying in shadows using fountain pen ink and water.

By floating this specific ink in pools of water (similar to wet-on-wet watercolor painting) you get beautiful granulated textures.

Using a spray-bottle gives you even more interesting textures.

Letting pieces dry on an angle let's you manipulate the shadows to the bases of the structures.

They dry like this:

I can, and have, hypnotized myself gazing at these textures.

Here's the whole set, as well as some terrain storage boxes I made as tests, in white with shadows:

 Next post, I'll show how I added colors!

I'm Painting My Damn Leadpile III: Some Finished Figs in Action

So I never really took final photos of a lot of the figures I've posted in-progress shots of in previous leadpile posts. I DO have some shots of them in games, though, so I thought I'd slap 'em up here. I really like how they came out.

Above, you can see the besuited figure which was actually some kind of batman figure. I have no clue from what range. I sculpted on some scifi nonsense and a goofy hairdo so he could represent corrupt Tanjaran official, Ludo Kranx. He's pictured here with his smuggling outfit, the Kranx Industrial Freight Syndicate.

Here are several of the eldar from previous posts, but with their finishing touches done. Pictured here as a space pirate gang raiding an abandoned orbital arcology in a game of Space Weirdos. I wrote an exhaustive battle report as well as a game system analysis based on this game for the CSW blog.

Karl broke out the club subway terrain set, which makes for some wonderfully atmospheric gameplay shots.

And above you have Ludo Kranx again, as well as space ork Hank the Tank, and the freight beast Megadoxalon. All three painted with oils over a blue-green spraycan gradient.

Hank's buddy, Gormy Driv, looking for targets to slag in a game of Planet28. Below, in that same game, Hank gets an energy sword to the back of the dome while trying to climb into a spare tactical battlefield mech. 

 

Classic Eldar Sculpt

Holy crap was I thrilled to find this sculpt in a bin at Adepticon 2018 for a couple bucks. I utterly adore old Jes Goodwin Rogue Trader Eldar. This paintjob was done in 2019, shortly before the fall.

Not much to say on the painting process—just classic ink glazes over a grayscale underpainting (aka slapchop before it was cool) and none too careful nor precise. But I LOVE the finished look. And I made a cool animation!

May you also stumble across your favorite miniatures :)

 

Giant Mechanized Fighting Robots II and Other Vehicles

 

Continuing on now with the painting process photos for my kitbashed votoms, as well as several other vehicles and things.

After priming, I used a "poor man's airbrush", aka a Mouth Atomizer. I first discovered this tool when I was reading about the illustration techniques of Ralph Steadman. It's something he would use for the chaotic splatters which give his works their incredible energy.

Turns out Blick carries them for like 5 bucks, and you were born with the air compressor.

I used liquitex inks more or less straight from the bottle. Umber and Sienna first for the rust effects and bases.

I used some silly putty to mask certain areas. The only kind they had at the store was the stinky kind. Would not recommend.

You can see the pieces of destroyed robot in the foreground here.

I also splattered some white ink with a toothbrush for additional chaos.

Here's the robot "in repose". These were to be objective markers for one of the games. Characters could take control of a robot by seizing this objective and successfully powering up the charging array.

This is a fun one. This was an "Eggplane" kit from, I think, Hasegawa. I really like the look of super-deformed stuff, and I think with some creative augmentation, they can make for great stylized far future models. And by "creative", I mostly mean I glued this one to a superglue bottle. I opted not to mask the cockpit glass, since the masking wouldn't be very precise. I decided instead to scratch away the paint to get a dirty "been through the atmosphere a few hundred times" kind of look. (This model was meant to represent a private surface-to-orbit shuttle craft.)

Bots unmasked.

This was an old build from a CSW scratchbuild night. Also another entry in the "where did Mattias hide the pieces of his guncannon kit?" scavenger hunt.

All the pieces after mouth-atomizing. Next comes the brushwork.

Went for complimentary schemes on these so that the bots could be fielded as either the same force or opposing forces.

Used lots of drybrushing to desaturate the colors and give a weathered look.

The 'plex on the shuttle is probably good for at least a few more re-entries.

And finally some glamour shots of what I think I have already mentioned is now possibly my favorite model in my collection: