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RobSkib's Mad Scenery Thread

Started by RobSkib, April 07, 2011, 03:42:56 PM

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RobSkib

I bet you can see where this is going..!

Courtesy of the extra handsome and doubly-dashing folk who judged the Painting and Modelling competition at this year's IGT, I found myself with a few GW vouchers burning a hole in my pocket. With a student loan on top of that, this is a dangerous combination, so I decided to defuse the situation by er.. giving in and buying some cool things :)

The big decision was between more CoD scenery or one of the new SM Stormravens, as I've had my eye on converting one of them into a personal flier for my Inquisitor and his troupe. However, I vowed not to start any new projects before finishing my old ones, so the logical conclusion to come to was to help finish an old, old project (my growing scenery collection) by er.. also giving in and buying some scenery. Hey, it works in my head, alright?!

I thought about tacking this onto the end of my other thread, but I have been asked in the past about some of the scenery that finds its way into some of my photos, so I figured a new thread was in order to showcase my scenery modelling projects, past, present and future. HOPEFULLY this is the motivation I need to actually complete some bits!

It also ties in quite nicely with a conversation some people were having over the suitability of Cities of Death scenery in Inquisitor. Hopefully I can sway some minds towards the effectiveness of CoD at 54mm, with very little, if any, modification required. In fact, you can avoid modification altogether with just a bit of forward planning.

A couple of key things to remember with the CoD stuff;

-It will ALWAYS work at 28mm scale, regardless of how you build it for Inquisitor, so don't let any absurd schemes or bat[EXCOMMUNICATE] ideas put you off!

-You never get enough 'full' (unbroken, windowless) panels to make a convincing large building, so unless you plan on buying a LOT of CoD packs, be prepared for your building to be a little ruined :)

-Imply big, build small. Lots of smaller, 'corner' sections of a ruined building are much better than one long section of ruined wall. They have more versatility, can be rearranged to any size and configuration and can imply a much larger building than you actually made.

-Build taller rather than wider. Taller buildings appear more impressive, and give you much more scope for your games to be interesting. Try and have at least two different height levels to play on. Combined with the above 'imply big' maxim, you can actually create a convincing massive broken building only using a handful of tall corner pieces.

-All the doors and windows work at 54mm scale, except the railings. I have yet to come up with a suitable alternative, as sticking two on top of each other looks tacky. Chest-high walls are a staple of urban combat, as any modern shooter will tell you, so I have done all manner of things to get some cover onto my buildings as much as possible. 

-Have a focal point. Most of the scenery I create these days has been created with a specific purpose (I don't know this purpose til after the model is made however!) and the whole building will be engineered around this focal point. It might be a massive mining drill, loading platform, giant warning bell, gun implacement, anything. "Something that is likely to be used as an objective some day" is a good briefing when designing buildings.

-Keep a bits box! You end up with a buttload of spare parts, I now have a third bits box consisting entirely of spare CoD stuff. These pieces are a modeller's best friend when it comes to 40k-ifying bits of generic scenery material - yoghurt pots, bits of polystyrene, interestingly shaped packing card - everybody has made a building out of these kinds of pieces at one point in time. The difference is, stick some pointy lights to the top and some buttresses at the corners and your building will literally transform in front of your eyes.

Anyways, enough jibber-jabber. Roll pictures!








I promise by the end of this I'll have figured out a way to successfully take pictures of scenery that doesn't rely on witchcraft and luck in equal measure.

As you can see I've tried to incorporate as many of the points I made above into the model. The only hardcore modification I had to do to ensure 54mm would fit was lengthening the door aperture (picture 4) so it reached the ground. Normally it came with a set of cool metal steps, but they got appointed to the Speaker's Balcony instead. In fact, a balcony hadn't even crossed my mind until I saw the steps on the sprue!

A final word before I go; Logic and ease of access have no place in a 40k Architect's plans. Banish them from your thoughts! The building must be hard to access, illogically laid out and if the building has a purpose, it must be completely impractically designed to encompass that. If it doesn't look like it makes sense, it doesn't have to! The best buildings in Inquisitor are the ones that are fun to climb up and fall off.

let me know your thoughts, and any comments and criticisms you might have, I'd love to know what people think.
An Inquisitor walks into a bar - he rolls D100 to see if he hits it.
                                     +++++++
Gallery of my Inquisitor models here.

Hadriel Caine

*sigh* that's such a nice kit. I miss my terrain...

The problem I have with the cities of death kits in general is that they aren't conducive to making flat roofs... which is fine but I like running across roof tops (seen the matrix WAY too many times).

I found that the cities of death kits go a LONG way if you combine them with sections of plasticard. You can add your own detailing/ rivets etc and have the GW pieces as areas of interest: doors, control panels, shrines etc.

good luck with it!
The Fall of Astraea
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