Boarding Actions Terrain - Part III (Showcase)

 

Peekaboo.

The first piece of boarding actions terrain is for all intents and purposes, finished. If I can get more done then there could be some harmonisation with the top areas, but for now it'll do.

This first piece was really just for testing, and I mostly definitely have put in more effort than I intend for the rest. Not that I went all-out or anything, it's still quite a simple paint job, but future pieces will refine what I've done further simply to get numbers done and not focus on any kind of small details. Maybe.

The skulls here are Morghast Bone with Skeleton Horde over the top. Absolutely nothing fancy at all. Just enough to pick them out, but no fancy shadows, and not paying attention to the surrounding lighting - they're basically too bright and I don't care.

The lights themselves I considered for a while, and while looking at references and other people's work ended up trying the following for the reds:

• White Star (Two Thin Coats) across all the light. Two or three coats to build it up to a solid white.
• Yriel Yellow applied over the top. This was the reason for the white: to make the yellow brighter and cover better.
• White Star again, glazed slightly into the brighter points.
• Blood Angels Red contrast across the whole light. It shouldn't be allowed to pool too heavily, but some definition in the corners is desired.
• Doom Metal (Two Thin Coats) across the bars to aid in definition and increase contrast to make the light seem even brighter.
• Thin glazes of Blood Angels Red, dragging towards the light, for very small OSL.

This might seem many steps, but it never felt that way and the impact to the terrain is really worth it. The resulting red is very punchy, with the varnish later only minimally reducing the effect. The OSL is very subtle: just enough to be noticeable, but not enough to overwhelm anything. More of a hint than anything else to say that the lights are light sources.

For the blue light I swapped out the Blood Angels Red above with Talassar Blue, but all other steps were identical.

Warning: Space Marine beyond, with a massive gun.

Cables were highlighted with Incubi Darkness, which is again not terribly prominent but is still worth the effort. Metallics were highlighted with Iron Warriors and Iron hands, but only quite subtly. Really just small highlights on the edges and brighter reflective points.

Thunderhawk Blue gave edge highlights more strength on the wall and rivets. I could go brighter to increase readability, but also it's worth bearing in mind that these are terrain pieces which are there to enhance the spectacle of the models, not dominate the view alone.

It doesn't really show much in the photos, but I did add a little rust in places. I didn't want to go overboard with it, as despite everything the Imperium makes ships and installations which given the chance will last: and so their materials can't be terribly susceptible to just rusting on their own. I also didn't want to spend longer adding rust and dirt effects than it took to paint everything else combined. Ultimately I went for:

• Mournfang Brown, quite heavily thinned, and feathered out into surrounding areas where possible. Mostly on metal gratings, around pipes that have leaks patched, or deep recesses that might get moisture gathering.
• Skrag Brown, again quite thinned, within the previous step but not covering all of it.
• Deathclaw Brown sparingly added in the more heavily rusted areas. Less is more.

Afterwards I ended up using Purity Seal on the whole thing, and that was it. I did not go back with metallics afterwards - there just didn't seem to be any need.

Now I just need to remember how I painted the base coats originally and I can see about setting up more pieces.

-- silly painter.

Boarding Actions Terrain - Part II

 

...and behind door number one...

It's been quite some time since I last worked on the boarding actions terrain, and honestly there's not a whole lot done quite yet. It's been staring at me for quite some time, but I've never been able to figure out the style I want to go for.

Since the last time I went over just about all of it with a black ink (tending towards brown) mixed with copies amounts of flow improver to turn it into a wash of sorts, and then used a damp brush to clean up some of the surfaces. The inks I'm using reactivate with water sometimes, so this method is almost like an oil wash in some regards. The general idea was to add some definition to places but to allow the base to be dirtied up a bit more in general. I should have done a drybrush to highlight before then, or even some simple edge highlights - might need to go back in and do that later. The ink can leave behind tide marks if too much water is used, so I leaned into that for scratches, dirt, and general wear & tear lines by using Nuln Oil later.

The cabling took a long time to figure out that a base coat of Corvus Black is enough for most of it. Mixing in either Stegadon Scale Green, or even better Incubi Darkness, gives them a little more colour for highlights without making them too similar to the base colour.

Recently I've been finding uses for the Two Thin Coats range, notably Doom Metal, and that's now my go-to for junction boxes, access terminals, and the like. I'll highlight with something later (likely Iron Warriors), reserving final highlights after I varnish everything.

Most of the brass looking areas are so far Castellax Bronze (a layer paint but with good enough coverage to be a base paint) followed by Runelord Brass (the old layer paint version). Retributor Armour for some of the buttons on the terminal just for visual interest, and all of the above for the lettering on the panels. I might yet put a shade around the lettering to increase contrast there and make them stand out more.

Still plenty to go - the skulls, the lighting, the terminal screen, and rust in a few places would be suitable. I'm tempted to try a couple of things with the airbrush for the terminal screen for a cheap OSL effect, which will need to wait until I have the painting space setup again for that. Same again for the lights above the door maybe (one will be red, the other green, imagining it would show door status, pressurisation, or some such information) however I don't know if I want the OSL on the door itself. That door opens, and it would look weird if it kept some of the OSL when that was the case. I'll need to think some more about that.

-- silly painter.

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.