Sunday 28 January 2018

Rubble and Scatter Terrain - Part 3 - Finished!

Christmas passed, I knocked off a few miniatures here and there, and then decided to get down to business and finish this terrain (as it had been sat forlornly on a box lid in the corner of the basement ever since getting undercoated).

I started out by basecoating the barrels red, a step so mundane that I apparently didn't even think to take a picture of it, and then decided that the barrels needed some markings. Having a dig through my supplies, I settled on using some of the old Imperial Guard numeral transfers:


However to make them look less recognisable (and give a wider variety of numbers) I decided to cut them down into two digit numbers:


And so on they went (in this example, onto a set of barrels that I'd already started weathering before I decided that I was going to add transfers):


Using these probably quintuples the amount of waterslide transfers that I've ever used? Unfortunately, when I went to paint around the edges of the transfers to blend them in, I discovered that they mostly weren't actually very well stuck down. Whether this was due to the age of the transfers, me not being patient enough when applying, or some other factor, I don't know, but this needed fixing!

I remembered Uncle Johnny telling me a while ago about the miracle of Micro sol and set for applying transfers; wondering whether it would work to help set the already applied transfers, he was kind enough to bring some round when he brought presents round after Christmas.


I painted some on with an old brush, and let it set for a while before dabbing away the excess with a clean piece of kitchen towel, before going back and reapplying where necessary, and it seems to have done the trick. Sometimes I got a bit carried away and the transfer started floating away, but I was able to nudge them back into position with the brush and then dab them down to affix them.

Health & Safety reminder - remember to open a window when working with things like this. I did not, and so was musing about the fact that Micro Set smells like the most delicious salt and vinegar crisps you could possibly imagine, before realising that that might not actually be the case, I'd just been inhaling the fumes for too long.

Then it was just a case of weathering (using blister sponge and some grotty brushes), washing everything with Vallejo Smoke, and then drybrushing the rubble with the same paints that I use for painting bases.


Note to self - seal cork better, or drybrush gentler. An additional step involved spending an amount of time going back over each piece fixing any spots where the bare cork had been exposed by my overzealous brushing...

And lo, the finished barrels:




I tried to make the bucket look like it had some dirty water in the bottom. I started out by dripping in a little PVA, mixed with some Typhus Corrosion (as I had it out already to add some streaks to some of the metal painted pieces). For the effect that I had in my head, Vallejo Smoke might have been a better choice, although as it took the PVA two days to dry, by which point there was almost nothing left in the bucket (bar a tide mark left by the Typhus Corrorsion) I don't know how much difference that would have made! Rather than continuing like this (which could have ended up taking weeks to get the bucket to look half-full) I settled for a shallower fill on the bucket, pouring in a little 'Ardcoat to make it look shiny and wet.

Here are the finished rubble pieces:


And now here are a number of posed pictures with various miniatures testing how multi-use this terrain set is...







Nothing off of the Tally for finishing these, but I do get to strike another item on the Challenge list:


2018 Challenge:
  • Finish something years old
  • Finish something pre-blog old
  • Finish a piece of terrain
  • Paint something from the stripping pot
  • Prep all of the monkeys in the monkey box
  • Build a wargames board
  • Paint all of the miniatures in a boxed game
  • Open Star Wars Imperial Assault and paint all the miniatures from it
  • Paint all the miniatures needed to replace the tokens in the Imperial Assault Core Game
  •  Paint a complete box of miniatures (either a full regiment or starter)
  •  Finish a complete skirmish force for a project (at least 16 miniatures, unless it's for a much smaller scale game like Batman)
  • Repaint something (either a miniature that I have previously painted, or one that was received painted)
  • Convert a miniature and show WIP pics
  • Finish a member of the Nextwave team
  • Average at least a miniature a week by the end of the year (so, paint 52 miniatures)
  • End the year with the Tally in the positive!

What next? I've got the majority of the scenery from the recent Necromunda rerelease cleaned up on my desk and awaiting spraying; I could start some of those terrain pieces that I was tempted to now that I've finished these; I've even attached the Wildlings that were converted around the same time as this terrain was started to bases (although they might get pushed back until I can get some more female miniatures - there;s a rather nice Frostgrave Barbarian Tracker that I like the look of, as well as the recently announced female soldier sprue...); - most likely though, I'll pick at a few odd, unrelated miniatures from the queue, until I've made space for the Goliath and Escher gangs from the new Necromunda...

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