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Wednesday, April 02, 2014

The Watcher - Terrain - WIP

Well I am pleased to say our Fellowship of the Ring campaign is moving steadily onward, though now albeit a bit more slowly, as I am having to get figures painted and/or scenery made as I go along...

...so I thought I'd share a little of what I am currently working on...

Now I had recently made a terrain section to do double duty as The Walls of Moria, and the Dwarrowdelf... here, but...

 I also recently came across 'Celevue's Fellowship thread here, on the The One Ring Forum, and his wonderful terrain, inspired me to try a bit harder, so...

I decided to make a custom Watcher in the Water scenario board; I made a MDF Base and Frame, and lined it with Dense Poly (Styrodur). I read up on the description of the area in the FOTR novel, and decided make the pool, with a stream feeding into it from the side, which in my version will also splash down a rocky cliff face, as cliffs were also mentioned in the area description...

I also then started making a more imposing cliff face for the Walls of Moria, hacking up and gluing together more poly sheet... and then a pause in proceedings came, as I knew I had to figure out how to make a decent door, with that iconic image from the book and movie; the Doors of Durin!

I decided to quiz 'Celevue', on how he'd done his, and he kindly replied, confirming my suspicions, so I set to, printing off a downloaded black and white image of the pattern of the door, scaled down to match my figure scale.

I then over painted the black outline in GW Mithril Silver paint. Then painted the surrounding area in dark grey. A little touch up back and forth with the colours until I was happy. The elven scroll work at this scale was nigh on impossible to copy directly so I hope I have given a good enough impression, to make it look right?

So here's the Doors of Durin, so far...



This took me most of Saturday afternoon to do. I now plan to stick this to two foamcard doors, that will both be hinged to open, and the complete gateway, will then be cut in, to fit flush with the gap in the Walls of Moria below...

The Walls of Moria, WIP

The Watcher scenario board, WIP

Side cliffs and stream feeding the pool, WIP

I am going to have a play with the Woodlands Scenics Water Effects and see if I can make a waterfall for my stream with it...

So things are progressing well, on the terrain front.

I also ordered a crafters kit from the Hotwirefoamfactory in the US, (which was waiting on my doorstep when I got home today!), so looking forward to having a go with that and see what I can do with it... I just need to order up on some more Styrodur as I used the last of my current supply on the above...

Finally for the weekend, I finished off all my hills which had been re-shaped with shallower slopes, then re-flocked and finally sprayed up...



I have also been working on some figures too - more wargs for the 'Hounds of Sauron' mission, and a couple of figures for a fellow blogger as part of a figure swap-deal... more on  that later

So not to bad for a weekends work... stay tuned for more...

30 comments:

  1. Great work for a weekend! Looking forwards to the finished watcher board.

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  2. Amazing as ever. Stick all your hills on a board next to each other and it will look like Rohan!

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    1. Very true! Ahh Rohan...one of my favourite armies... I've got boxes and boxes of riders to put together and paint which will look great en-masse :-)

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  3. Your terrain projects are always breath-taking. I'm looking forward to see your progress with the board.

    Cheers
    Stefan

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  4. Well done Scott! Great work!

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  5. Love the door detail, will look forward to seeing this progress

    ian

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  6. That looks great so far you talented bugger!

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  7. Great looking cliff face mate. Interested to see how you finish it off. Am I right in thinking you flocked and then sprayed the hills afterwards? I might have to try that...

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    1. I'll do as I did with the Island cliffs; go over the whole thing in a thin skim coat of polyfilla. Then go over with sand textured paint.Then add model railway ballast and cat litter gravel to the rocky ledges... then paint the whole thing!
      Yes, I static grass the hills using a PVA/Green paint mixture and a DIY flock shaker. Once dry I go over it with a cheap hairspray (acts like a spray glue). Then I breakout the spray paint; I use Plastikote matt finish Brown, Green and Yellow, applied in that order. It breaks up the monotone static grass...

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    2. I spray up my green felt base sheets the same way, so the hills then match in with the base sheet :-)

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  8. Loving it... The whole LoTR revival is fantastic, keep up the good work.

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    1. Thanks Sam, certainly enjoying getting back to LOTR modelling, painting and gaming here!

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  9. Thanks Andrew. I got the foamcard doors cut out and hinged last night too. ;-)

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  10. My goodness Sott, you don't skimp on the terrain; I would need a bigger house by now! That said, this does look 'oh so cool'!

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    1. Many thanks Michael. I guess the advantage of having some decent hobby space, means you start experimenting making bigger things, that said, space in a given room is indeed finite... and I am start to view the spare back bedroom as potential storage space... which may of course lead to a head on encounter with my better half, which I will undoubtedly lose! ;-)

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  11. Very impressive as always, Scott. What amazes me is how you're building new terrain and painting new figures as the campaign develops. Truly focused and inspiring. Best, Dean

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    1. Thanks Dean, I have always found that whatever gaming I am currently enjoying, inspires painting and terrain making to suit... and with the range of settings covered by MiddleEarth, it allows for some wonderful creativity!

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  12. "Crikey " as they say down under ( or bloody hell if you're from up north). It looks like your mojo is firing on all cylinders at the moment.

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    1. LOL, indeed! Mojo is on full bore! Gaming, enjoying, and inspired!

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