Tag: Buildings

Warhammer 40,000 – MDF Industrial ‘Pringle’ Tower

WARNING: lots of very similar pictures…

The Pringle Tower.  Made from a Pringles crisp tube and some MDF.  A perfectly simple idea that can become a piece of scenery quickly and easily.  Coronasan has designed a whole range of Industrial Scenery around this humble crisp tube and expanded that range to include walkways, landing pads and even lighting options for the more technically minded.

Mine is a basic, early production prototype.  It went through a few basic design changes before the final design was settled upon.  Mine has all the basic parts of the final design, but the final kit comes with more guard rails and a couple of terminal points that can be fitted to the central column.

Designed with 28mm miniatures in mind (are GW still claiming their stuff is 28mm these days or is it more 30mm or even 32mm now?).  The floor plans can fit base sizes up to 40mm without too much trouble.

And there is plenty of room up top for objectives to be fought over.

Even my new Death Guard Helbrute can fit on the ledges, although you might argue he would have trouble getting through those hatches…

All in all, a nice simple kit that I should be able to weather up and fit in with my, slowly growing, collection of Sci-Fi scenery.

Warhammer 40,000 – Table Prep, An Old Friend Returns Home And Some Newly Finished Scenery

Last time on the blog I had mentioned I was out in the shed, setting up a playing surface for an up-coming game.  I also said it took me an hour or two to do all this.  In reality the table setup was just a half hour of rummaging in boxes and laying out a mat.

The remainder of the time was spent finishing off some neglected items that could then be used without too much personal embarrassment that they were still only half finished.

One feature of this table setup will be a landing pad (using my new plaza street blocks and stairs) with a flyer upon it.  Said flyer is a Forgeworld Vulture that I originally owned about 8 years ago…  Said flyer has just returned home as the lovely Veganman has been having a clearcut, and offered to sell it back to me. I suspect I may have mentioned to him, more than once, that I should never have sold in the first instance.  It’s nice to have it back in the collection.

The majority of the setup time was spent on the addition of a little flock and paint to these Martian Base Entrances. They have been sat in their silver base colour for longer than I would like to admit, so it is nice that I can actually use them now.

A couple of control panels cover a hole that was for a post box that I chose to use elsewhere.

These are from Antenocitis Workshop and come with little printed screens that can be added to the resin casting.  Nice easy touches that can be added to any wall, or entranceway, in this case…

MDF Plinths, Stairways And Plazas

As my current aversion to painting green Space Marines continues to settle, I have moved over (with the help of the good weather) to a side project that won’t side track me for too long. Playing about with a little bit of MDF should allow me to go back to painting GREEN again pretty soon.

Warmer weather, shorter drying times and ultimately just a little too hot to paint anyway (the inside of the shed was up to 49 degrees C when I ventured in last weekend…) As no brush work would be worthwhile, I guess a little trimming and gluing would have to suffice.

A bit of base colour spraying is always possible on warmer days too.  A little bit of weathering may need to follow when I am all done with these builds…

These are TT Combat Venetian street blocks and canal stairs.  The reason I bought a few sets of these recently was to see if I could get a bit of height difference on to the table. Each kit in the range makes up a 25-30mm high plaza square or street section.

As always, MDF is an easy medium to work with, and although not as fancy as some of the textured and 3d resin out there, it remains a staple in the shed as it is robust and fairly easy to store away between games.  I have a larger pack with about 8 more base plazas and streets in it but these had a slight fault on them so I am awaiting replacements for those kits.  When they arrive and get built up I should have enough from this range to allow me to stack smaller sections onto the larger bases, layering up the plazas to create higher and lower areas on the table, eventually…

More MDF Houses

So, a while back I started a new MDF kit. Surprisingly, I managed to get it almost finished in a single evening.  The second kit was ready to start but I never got around to it as I was quickly drawn into something else…  As usual…

These kits look like a lot of bits when you start but they are easier than you would think.  Especially when you remember to paint (or ink in my case) all the parts before you put them together.

They are both now completed to nearly the same stage and I really need to start thinking about how I finally finish them off.

The different kits are made up from many of the same parts. So sections like the roof are effectively interchangeable

I still need to paint the second roof, paint the window frames in a contrasting colour and add a door knob or two.

I should also try to add some weathering as they look a little too clean at this point.  My dirty paint water pot and a small sponge should give me the right level of grime without getting too many brush marks or tide lines.

A Break In The Weather And A Day To Spray

Its not often that we get a day to consider undercoating something in the UK, especially in mid February.  Moisture and temperature can play havoc with spray cans.

This week we did get the window to spray for one afternoon and I took it while I could.

Silver for robots…

Lots of robots…

Silver for some of Coronasan’s MDF Gaslands gates.

(and silver for the Martian underground base entrances…  but I forgot to photograph them in the mad rush to get so many batches out on the BBQ)

And, just to mix things up, black and grey for the MDF house that I started a few weeks ago…

Lets hope I can get some real painting done soon.

A Terrain Day On A Rain Day

Coronasan does not only design Industrial Terrain in MDF.  He has also done a number of other styles for the interested gamer.  One terrain style I don’t have very much of is the Fantasy Medieval type of setting.

That is soon to be remedied as he had donated two new houses to the shed that I have promised to build and paint.

To anyone new to MDF kits these might look quite complex.  In truth they are fairly simple to build.  Lots of pieces, yes, but as you work through them it is often easy to work out where they go without referring to any instructions.

A good job really, as these are pretty much prototypes, so didn’t have any instructions with them.  I only had to make one phone call to the designer when putting the first together.

Two storied and fully usable inside on each floor.

A simple, paint it while building it, approach saved me lots of time and effort. Artists inks, I find, are the easiest things to use on MDF kits. In this case I used a flesh ink a red brick and a cream.  Wood work was subtly darkened using some of GWs Sepia Shade ink.

The roof is yet to be painted as I wanted to darken the underside and also to try out a grey tiles effect on the top.

One down (almost)…  One to go…

Steam Wars – Martian Underground Base Entrances

The builds on these kits were finished, to this stage anyway, back at the start of December.  Due to me having a bad month, along with the usual family commitments that Xmas and the New Year bring along, they haven’t progressed any further so far. I do have all the needed plans and parts ready for when I get a good day to spray a base coat on them. After that they should be quite quick to complete.

These two smaller entrances will suffice as the access points for cephalopods and their slaves.  They are, however, really not a realistic size for allowing access by any Tripods or other vehicles. I therefore need to find, or design something, to represent these entrances in any narrative games we play.

Currently I am open to all ideas but I have played with the idea of a sloped hangar style opening with a set of sliding doors, or a pop up style lift tube (to keep things in line with the ’round’ look of the other scenery items, like my craters).  I need to get a few sketched ideas on to paper and then see what Coronasan can design and cut in MDF…

First Foray Into A Neglected Shed Space

After sweeping away the cobwebs at the door, and running the dehumidifier for a while along with a small heater. All I had managed to do was awaken the hibernating lacewings and other crawly things that share the shed with me. In hopes of maybe evicting them before they start to annoy me I thought I might have a tidy up and check the state of play of the ‘To Do’ pile.

Unsurprisingly it hadn’t gotten any smaller while it had been neglected…

As I had been off my rhythm for some time I thought – start simple – so I grabbed a couple of scenic items from the shelf and sat down to try to get my mojo back.

Bronze dry brushing over silver base coat (why I didn’t just paint them bronze at first is beyond me at this point). Oxide green wash in some creases here and there.

Dirty up some MDF plinths (supplied by the talented Coronasan) and I have my first successes for this new push at getting back into the swing of things.

One an Alien hero (the pilot from my martian flier if I recall correctly) and the other a simple space marine in a suitably static pose.

Well, Its a start…

Steam Wars – Fair Weather Undercoating The Crashed Airship Scenery And Some Plinths

As the weather was holding up this week I decided to spray a few pieces with a base colour.  In hindsight, which is always 20:20, it was slightly too windy at the BBQ for spraying and I suspect more paint was blown into my neighbours yard than onto any models…

I did manage to get the Airship base coated in silver though.

Army Painter, like most sprays these days goes onto MDF well, with no real loss of colour by the base materials absorption of the moisture.

As I had my silver spray can out, a couple of figures that have been slated for use as statues, got done at the same time.  Along with a couple of Coronasan’s new MDF plinth designs.

These were test pieces, knocked up quickly, to see if the builds were fitting together correctly. He handed them to me, to paint up while he was on holiday, in order to see how they finished up.  I popped the base off one to get a different base colour onto it. The other was too firmly stuck to paint separately.

One plinth is designed for a 25mm base the other for a 40mm base (sods law says I based these two figures on 32mm bases just before he gave them to me.  All these bits should get some more attention over the next few days…

Steam Wars – Martian Scenery

With the Martian red earth craters now well under way, I have been looking at other items that might be usable as Martian scenery.  I have a few ideas lined up, including some bunkers and shaft tops, that I might get Coronasan to draw up for the laser cutter. However, before these get done, an item that has been in a drawer for a week or so has to be made up and prepped for use…

The item in question is an airship frame from an MDF kit maker/ Steampunk Art site that I discovered recently online.

The kit was more complex to construct than I had expected, as the few parts that make it up all need to be held together while the others are added. You probably need 15 fingers or a couple of rubber bands (I used rubber bands as I could not find any spare fingers…) It is worth the effort though as the resulting airship is a good size and has a nice traditional shape.

A spare yellow Space Marine is used here for scale. As per usual, I had just put all the Steam Wars figures away.  Thankfully I had just gotten out all my unpainted 40k stuff in order to either box it up or sell it on.

However nice this airship is, I had other plans for it…  A few brutal snips from my clippers and the job was done…  One crashed airship ready to be strewn across the surface of Mars. A reminder to all other earthling invaders that they will not be tolerated on the Martian home world.

The question now is, do I base it, or leave it unbased so that it can be used on normal ‘green’ wargames table?  Suitable as cover for small units (perfect for the 5-6 man Steam Wars units) but not blocking line of sight too completely that it obstructs gameplay.

What ever I decide this is now ready for the undercoating pile, which should be quite high up on the list of things to do, before the weather starts to fail me again…