Wednesday 5 October 2016

Preparing The Dropzone

STEP-BY-STEP TERRAIN FOR THE 10mm WARZONE

The abandoned city is nearly complete*, with just a handful of pieces left on the painting table. In the mean time, I thought I would show my step-by-step guide to preparing and painting my buildings, since so many people have asked about the process. It is remarkably simple, as with most of my painting techniques!


I hope this is interesting for those of you looking to make your own tables and paint up some lovely terrain.

*No project is ever complete, merely awaiting new avenues of expansion
First, the easy part - construction! I tend to build the model all together at this stage, but understand those who would paint larger projects in stages. Various glues are available and recommended, but I find myself using simple superglue most of the time
Details are added - signs, air ducts, anything extra that does not come in the original set to break up the skyline and make it look more realistic
Undergrowth and creeping vegetation is added with sand and fine slate - with paint this will look more appropriate, and it gives some bulk when the flock and tufts are added later
The piece is covered with a stone-effect spray - not too heavy! I use Rustoleum available from any DIY store. This breaks ups the flat surfaces of the building and will make painting a lot easier, without damaging the detail. It looks horrendous in this stage, but that is deceptive



The painted building - all colours blocked in and highlighted, details added and the whole model brushed over with a fine grey final highlight. Areas of vegetation are painted in green

Burnt grass flock is added over all the green areas, plus any areas that I feel need some extra vegetation
Tufts are added almost at random to break up the silhouette
A good coat of varnish or two and the piece is completed! This building took only a couple of hours to actually paint - most of the time is spent waiting for stages to dry
Another Residential Block is finished for the streets of the abandoned city!
Thanks for reading, 

George

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for doing this! It's really helpful! I must get some of my scenery built - and painted.

    I hope you aren't finished with this, as I'd like to see you keep adding more and more buildings to have a really high density of terrain.

    Also, and I know this would pose certain problems, I'd like to see you create an alternative board: one that was overgrown. I know the mats are really nice, but the clean look looks a bit out of place next to your fantastic overgrown buildings.

    This is obviously only a minor point: the nice matt and very nice buildings look fantastic. But an overgrown board would raise the overall level even higher.

    Thanks again for such an inspiring project!

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