Wirelizard's Perpetual Terrain Thread (4 June 2011 - plowed fields, WiP photo)

[rob_alderman]

Yeah they are looking good. Masking tape looks like a great idea for the roofing.

I'd perhaps have based them off white and then drybrushed them white rather than painted them white straight off. Also looks like you may have been using too much paint on your brush? I always said that if you can't see the bristles through the paint, then you have got too much paint! Even for scenery.

I reckon a brown wash followed by a white drybrush would have the same effect. 

Definately an improvement on the first attempts to paint them though. 

Keep it up and don't let the lack of comments get you down!!!! 

[Gluteus Maximus]

That's what happens when you start talking to yourself - people assume you're mad and leave you well alone 

Great thread, sorry for not posting before! I like the buildings a lot and as you say they are very multi-functional, which is always very high on my list.

I also like the earlier hill set and was impressed by the cunning way you actually planned them for storage/transport - unlike fools such as myself 

Keep posting please - I'm sure plenty of others are enjoying your work too!

[Wirelizard]

I'd perhaps have based them off white and then drybrushed them white rather than painted them white straight off.

They were painted this way, actually. Dark brown basecoat (which can be seen in one of the photos of the first building upthread), tan 2nd coat as a heavy drybrush (which I left as the inside colour in a few cases), white final coat drybrushed on. The brown along the bottom edge of the walls is a thin wash.

I had to use flash to take these last night, and it blew the white out pretty badly. There's more texture on the walls than it might appear; I should try and get some daylight pictures today when I get home.

That's what happens when you start talking to yourself - people assume you're mad and leave you well alone 

Heh. That thought had occurred to me. Then again, most of us are mad here. Sane people don't do this sort of thing. 

[Wirelizard]

One last picture of the stucco/tropical buildings before I move on to other projects - this one shows the stairs in the ground floor of the two-storey building, and another shot of the open-sided garage with it's craft-paper iron roof. I shot these outdoors this afternoon, quickly in between rain squalls! The colour and detail is better than the other photos that I had to use flash for.

[rob_alderman]

They look great mate, keep em coming. 

[El Grego]

Very  , especially the roofing materials.

[Burgundavia]

The roofing is some one-sided corrugated paper I found at Michaels for about $1.50 CAD. Good for some stuff, but the fact that it is backed limits its usefulness for things like fences (which are often made of corrugated iron).

[Cory]

For corrugated fences I run paper through a $12 crinkler from Michael's and then coat it lightly with a 50/50 PVA/water mix for strength.

[Gluteus Maximus]

You'll have a lovely urban area by the time you've finished. Great for all sorts of genres 

[Wirelizard]

Been a long while since I updated this thread, but I've got a 2nd two-story stucco house that I actually finished in mid-April and haven't taken any photos of yet.

Pics of that early next week, I promise.

I've also just started a pair of 12" long cliff sections, roughly 6" high, inspired by several of the freestanding cliff sections seen here on LAF. Both sections are carved and assembled and painting will start tomorrow.

The cliffs demanded a blood sacrifice, though - I opened up the tip of my right little finger with the long razor knife I was using to cut the styrofoam! Cut away from yourself, right, right... I knew that, honest. Got careless halfway though carving the 2nd cliff, and splattered blood across the kitchen floor as a result...

Thankfully I'm left handed, so a buggered up right pinky finger is fairly easy to work around. Just a nuisance when I try and hit Enter or use right Shift on the keyboard!

[Wirelizard]

First update in so long, the forum software is telling me off for doing it!

Started another river section a few days ago, along with my Build Something II entry of a small bridge.

I already have a number of 12"x6" river sections, designed to be put along one edge of a table or (now that I have enough) to form both banks of a river across a small 2x2 or 3x3 board.

This one has a cut or dredged bank section and a couple of rickety, lightweight dock sections strung up with some pilings and such to keep it all out of the mud.



The larger dock will be fixed in place; the smaller dock on the left will be removeable, with just the wooden retaining wall alongside the river. I'll probably do a third, smaller floating dock as an optional piece.

The whole thing is designed to fit a nice small river steamer my brother made a year or two back, and which he's promised to finish one of these years. And other boats, which to be fair I haven't even started building yet. 

I need to do a larger river/stream junction piece too, so the Build Something creek & bridge have more purpose.

[Wirelizard]

River dock basically done, barring some drybrushing on the muddy bits.


The larger dock is glued down; the other bits are freestanding for some flexibility.

[Gluteus Maximus]

That's lovely! I need something similar for my Darkest Africa set-up. Some sort of wooden dock or jetty like yours - the more ricketty-looking the better. Shouldn't be a problem - I'm good at ricketty 

Great stuff 

[anevilgiraffe]

I really like that... have been considering a table edge river/coast bit like that for a while myself... pics saved for reference...

[Wirelizard]

I really like that... have been considering a table edge river/coast bit like that for a while myself... pics saved for reference...

Thanks! These ones are made of mattboard - picture framing stuff - which is pretty tough and won't warp unless you're really free with the glue/paint/water. The eventual plan is get some 2mm or 3mm MDF and rebuild the river sections in much tougher material,  using a bandsaw I have access to!

Latest project is back to buildings! The largest yet of my "generic tropical village" buildings, and probably the last for a while, as I have a pretty good table setup of these buildings now!



All three parts laid out - main floor, 2nd floor, flat roof. Still todo: stairs up from the main floor, interior partitions on both floors, a roof access hatch, and of course a forgiving coat of plaster over the whole thing to hide some of the patchwork foamcore and errors in construction! (I love doing these buildings, if they look a bit rough that's fine, and the plaster hides the worst!)