Boarding Actions Terrain - Part I

 

Let's look behind door #1.

For something different I've been experimenting with assembly and coming up with a painting approach for the boarding actions terrain set. I know I have a whole heap of other models to finish as well, but the past week has been a little messed up and I haven't had much in the way of spare concentration or motivation. Playing around with a terrain test piece was just something to be done very casually. I'm also away with travel once more soon, so it'll be another couple of weeks before I can post again.

I also make no apologies for the extra number of spelling and grammar errors. My head isn't in the best shape right now.

The boarding actions terrain box contains a lot of plastic. From the outset I knew this wasn't going to be something I could spend a long time filling in details on, performing perfect blends, etc. I'm also going to need to limit the colours used for the majority of it - I won't be giving individual colours to each key on the keypads for example, cables are likely all to be the same colour, etc. Mostly I need things simple, or I'll never get it all done.

To begin with: assembly. I spent ages scraping and filing down mould lines, and that just was never going to happen for all of it. So I've invested in a couple different grits of sandpaper and tried that on all the doors. A lower grit to perform some fast removal of mould lines, higher grit to smooth the surface later. It worked surprisingly well, and should work even better on the larger wall sections

There are small pieces that glue onto wall sections, mostly to hold the doors in place while allows them to swing open and shut. I considered for a while if I should glue it all together first, or paint the doors and wall sections separately. I opted for the latter, but the "door hinges" can be easily attached with pva glue for priming and airbrushing, and then properly glued in place when the door is ready. The catch with that is that if too much paint is applied on the door then it can cause the door to get stuck and not open/close properly.

Looking around for colour inspiration, I ended up liking those used by Duncan Rhodes. I didn't end up copying direction, but I was definitely influenced by the look. Starting with a black primer, I then used thinned down (a lot) White Scar to give a basic lighting scale. Several layers were used to build it up slowly, making it much lighter near the top; the floor area would accumulate far more dirt, stains, etc, and is going to be further away from light sources and so should be darker. Thin airbrush paints from Citadel, they do need it. I'm learning a lot more about thinning paints through an airbrush and basically building up just like with palette paints. After this step, Space Wolves Grey straight through the airbrush, and that's the basic wall background colour.

The doors I wanted to stand out, but not conflict with the wall. I thought about it for a while, and then while looking at recent bases painted for the MkIV Assault Squad and Azrakh, it just seemed a perfect fit for the doors. I haven't finished it yet, but it's the same basic approach: metallic (Leadbelcher here but I've done the rest of the doors with Iron Hands Silver, which is much darker), Incubi Darkness, and building up from there. The photo still needs some Rhinox Hide dirt and rust, and then probably Leadbelcher (or something) on corners and edges.

The little sign panels are so far white with Reikland Fleshshade followed up with Seraphim Sepia to give that rust stained look. Not sure how I'll paint the framing and symbols/numbers just yet. Maybe a bronze outline, and red symbols.

I did try an ink thinned with a hefty amount of flow improver to use as a wash over the whole surface, and then used a damp brush to clean up some the more flat areas. I'm convinced this can work, particularly because the ink and flow improver takes a little while to dry, but here I think it was thinned too much and didn't really show up much once it dried. I'm going to try an oil wash next, but not until I've painted in more cabling and piping. I've bought cotton pads to wipe off most of the oil wash, and might end up using a paint brush to be more precise in areas. I'll decide if a drybrushing pass to pick out edges is needed after that or not - maybe it would add some more, but it's also a time consuming step that could easily be carried too far.

I will very likely paint some glow around the lights, but deciding which light is "on" is another decision that will take time. In the photo above it would look out of place if the door was closed but included with any lighting glow, and it would look equally out of place if there was a glow while the door was open.

Finally, select few details will probably be done to a higher standard to the bulk of the wall and doors, because it's the details which stick out and catch most of the attention. Putting more effort into smaller areas might come across as counter-intuitive, but I find myself looking at them more than other areas and so deserving of extra attention.

-- silly painter.