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Marco does something

Started by MarcoSkoll, November 18, 2009, 12:38:40 AM

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MarcoSkoll

Firstly, I'm going to crudely plug the fact that I've finally posted something on the blogspot address I nabbed years ago, some thoughts on what Specialist Games are doing to re-expand GW's creative range, inspired by the new Necromunda bounty hunters:

http://everythingyouhavebeentoldisalie.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/thoughts-on-forge-world-and-necromunda.html

Thoughts on a postcard.

~~~~~

Secondly, apparently I've failed to take pictures of the whole thing, but the lift shaft for the roundhouse is getting into some state of completeness.

Ground floor doors:


With some miniatures for scale, you can see that the doors are hefty cargo doors at 28mm scale and a bit more of a cramped rabbit warren at 54mm scale, but with the tall vertical handles, hopefully will look plausible at either scale.


And as this is a MarcoSkoll(TM) build, it comes with moving parts, and the doors can be opened to see what lies within:


The lift itself does not move, partly because that would have been a stupid amount of effort (and difficult to do "safely", without risking it dropping models), but also because the lower compartment was made smaller than the top to facilitate collapsing the terrain down. (It is, however, staggeringly difficult to actually notice the size discrepancy, even looking from angles where you can see into both compartments - it seems that there's an optical illusion where your brain assumes the back edge must be a straight line).

However, I've built a copy of the lift cage at both the top and bottom of the shaft, so you can get action shots as characters rush into/out of the lift.

The main difference with the top compartment (apart from the slight size difference) is some nice hefty hydraulic rams so there's actually something to do the lifting. Technically the rams would be too short to move the lift through its full range, but they look good enough. (Apart from the fact they're not actually glued in yet and need proper alignment, but whatever).


S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

cymrilian

wow. looks great. the level of detail for the doors and lift is amazing

Van Helser

Going above and beyond with detailing here.  Very nice work.

I really like the aesthetics of the new Necromunda range.  The bounty hunter with the vampire thirst is a great model, that reminds me of quite a few artwork pieces from the Dark Heresy sourcebooks.  I'm excited by the development of new 41st millennium models, that don't really fit with the armies of the Imperium.  A hive is a big place, so there should be plenty more where that came from.

Ruaridh

maglash1017

Your eye for scale and dimensions seems unparalled among those that build 54mm terrain. Also, you get bonus points for the diamond studded textured plasticard.

MarcoSkoll

#634
The main roundhouse is getting close to complete, but has hit a hiccup in that I seem to have run out of my smallest size of brass tubing (which I'm using for the door handles). An order has been placed, but it'll take at least a couple of days to arrive.

Some progress has been made on the chemical tanks instead, but it got late enough that I couldn't keep drilling without keeping other family members up, so I've instead started looking at the rest of the board.

I've cut enough building shapes to fill a reasonable amount of a 4' x 3' coffee table. It's not staggeringly dense, but this is entirely without considering the large roundhouse and chemical tanks, which should give it reasonable coverage of a 4' x 4' table.



As part of the plan of this terrain is to make it compact for storage/transport, these were all marked out on to two sections of foam board measured to fit one of my wheeled suitcases. Although I may have to make adjustments to allow space for ladders, ultimately, all of this should pack into said suitcase pretty efficiently.

S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

MarcoSkoll

#635
Although this isn't exactly how it's supposed to pack down, these pictures I took earlier broadly demonstrate the "table in a suitcase" strategy I'm going for - all the smaller buildings can be packed into one case, but can fill a large portion of a 4'x4' area, without it being too blindingly obvious they're designed to nest together.

(There's also room to store smaller chemical tanks and scatter terrain inside these buildings, butt he roundhouse and larger tanks fit into a second case)



S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Van Helser

Genius. All those weirdly shaped buildings are a sure sign of chaos in the architecture.

MarcoSkoll

Well, maybe. The weird shapes aren't intentionally Chaotic on my part, as I want to keep the terrain fairly flexible, so any explicitly Chaosy features will be optional/removable.

However, it is what the original articles did, and it is certainly more visually interesting than just doing a load of square boxes, if a bit more of a chore to glue together.

S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

maglash1017

Simply amazing. I can frankly say I have never seen a terrain project that makes better use of packing space. I'm interested in seeing what the oddly shaped buildings will look like in the end.

MarcoSkoll

I'm pushing on with the Paraelix Configuration rebuild, and have laid it out to get a sense of how many oil tanks and gantries I'm going to need to make up for a decent coverage of the board.



Currently, this is a 4'6" x 4" area, about the area I play most of my 54mm games on.
For 28mm, you might not use all of this area, but with my standard house rule* that actions succeed on 3+ until the characters start trying to inconvenience each other, it's not unthinkably huge.

*Or the permanent rule in my Revised Edition, where ALL actions succeed on 3+, but characters generally won't want to use all of their actions once other characters become a threat. (Actions can be kept back to use as Reactions, such as to try to dive out of the way of incoming fire).

~~~~~

On a similar note, but a different table, this is a forest table that I'm starting to put together, and I'm checking tree coverage (which I want to be a lot denser than you'd see on most WH40K boards).



There's a few more small trees to add to this (they hadn't arrived when I took this picture), and I'm considering getting maybe five pretty big (15-16cm tall) conifers to add some more variety.

The plan is also some rocks and rivers, but those are coming after the Paraelix Configuration on the priority list.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

Cortez

It's looking good so far. Can't wait to fight over it. I think I'll be using Isabella and her brother again as it seems like there will be much power and knowledge to be gained from this structure.

MarcoSkoll

After a complete attack of rivets, I think I have finally finished detailing the plasma generator that will serve as an alternative centrepiece for the table.



As iconic as the roundhouse is and as many uses as it should have, using it all the time would as one old WD article said turn it into "Inquisition Central", so this plasma reactor is intended to be used with the more generic buildings in the set to allow the terrain to be used with a different centrepiece/objective for games.

However, on the note of the monolith:

This is going to have to be an uncorrupted version for now, as I'm currently short on both the time and bitz for that job, but that does mean I can try experimenting with something else, and I've put in a rush order for a bottle of superblack paint to experiment with a "black hole" effect.

I'm not sure exactly how well this will work, as I've seen mixed reviews of the paint - it seems that the matte finish may well not be as shape-hidingly black as I'd really like.

However, cameras often don't agree with the eye when it comes to extremes of light/colour, so it may seem better in person and the worst case seems to be that reviews agree that it does varnish up nicely as a beautifully dark glossy black, so I should be able to make something of it one way or another.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

cymrilian

looks great. is the monolith actually suspended off the floor?

MarcoSkoll

It is indeed. Not massively in that picture, but I wanted to make sure the original cut of the chains erred on too long rather than too short. Hooking it a link higher on all of the chains brings it up quite a bit.

I have had a suggestion of magnetic levitation, which would be delightfully eerie, but which I definitely haven't got time to implement. However, it's certainly not out of the question to retrofit, so I might come back to the idea.
S.Sgt Silva Birgen: "Good evening, we're here from the Adeptus Defenestratus."
Captain L. Rollin: "Nonsense. Never heard of it."
Birgen: "Pick a window. I'll demonstrate".

GW's =I= articles

maglash1017

That floating monolith looks very cool. I'm very interested to see what it looks like with the superblack paint, I try to follow the innovations on these sorts of paints and I don't think I've ever seen it used in a miniature (scenery) project before. Also, are the main structures all made out of foamboard? And is there a reason, apart from cost, that for some detailing you use cardboard rather than plasticard?