New member, long time lurker, first ever terrain piece

[Mr Kissyfur]

Hello everyone!

I've been reading (and marvelling at) this site for several years now. I used to play some GW games when I was a young lad, then spent a short while making aircraft kits in my mid 20s, but haven't really done much for the last few years. However, reading this site has made me want to get back into the hobby - moreso since my kids are now getting to that age where they're into cool stuff (5 and 6).

So, over the last few months, I've painted up a few miniatures (some old GW plastic skellies, a dragon, some Airfix tanks, a couple of battletech minis and some other bits and bobs) just to get my hand in again, and then after reading Captain Blood's "Quite A Big Terrain Project" thread over and over and over again, and showing it to the boys, we decided we needed to try it out. So, this is what we came up with:











There's some stuff I'll do different for the next one that goes with it, but overall it's not too shabby.

(I apologise for the lack of WIP pics, and the fact that to be honest this is nowhere near as good as the good Captain's efforts, so apologies for the poor imitation  )

Since we finished it, the kids have been playing "skeletons vs dragons vs tanks vs barbarians" - at some point I'll introduce dice. Next step is to paint some of the mountain of Mk6 and 7 marines up in the loft I've got left over from my misspent youth (it wasn't spent painting marines...) and put some sort of skirmish game together.

I've also now got a copy of the XWing Miniatures Game on the way, so I'm going to try to teach them the rules to that next weekend as well...

So, even though it took a chuffing long time for me to do anything about it, many thanks, LAF, this is a wonderful forum.

[Commander Vyper]

Hi there. 

Welcome.

You'll need to go in to Flickr and img link to your pictures as your links are broken.

Be good to see what you're working on.

Cheers

[Mr Kissyfur]

Yeah, just twigged to that - they've changed Flickr since the last time I used it...

[Commander Vyper]

Lol.

Nice little entry fun for the kids. Nice little slice of terrain too.

Cheers

[gamer Mac]

Nice first post.
Cracking looking board

[FramFramson]

Whoof! Great looking board! Nicely done!

[Mr Kissyfur]

Ha, thanks. Apologies also for the terrible photos. It's been too wet here in Gloucestershire to take the board outside for a decent picture, and we live in a cave of a cottage.

One query for the experienced, if I may - I tried Cpt Blood's suggestion of using a decorator's spray gun to paint the board- this worked for the basecoat, but for the highlights it was awful - I ended up resorting to drybrushing with a large brush. The spray gun was chucking out fairly large size gobs of paint; the spatters were a mil across and a couple of mil or three long, rather than the fine mist I'd been hoping for. I was using thinned emulsion paint as the good Captain did; I looked up online for tips, and tried cutting the mixture with windex, but to no avail. What was I doing wrong?

I've also trimmed the overly tall field grass - that stuff is a 'mare to use.

[mikedemana]

The board looks great, and you can tell what the kids think by their expressions! Great job opening their eyes to the wonderment of minis while they're young...

Mike Demana

[Cherno]

I say it's a cool piece of terrain! Personally, I would go with a modular approach if only to save space, but a one-piece design is certainly easier to build and aesthetically more pleasing!
Also, it's good to see that your rear the next generation of miniature enthusiasts
Keep up the good work  

[Mitch K]

Your FIRST piece of terrain

Well, you haven't set yourself any sort of challenge to improve on this, have you? Brilliant work, mate! Thanks for sharing.

[OSHIROmodels]

Cracking work 

Regarding the spray gun, if it has the settings available then try to increase the airflow and decrease the amount of paint going through.

If it doesn't, get yourself a set of big brushes 

cheers

James

[Quirkworthy]

Well that's probably the best first piece of terrain I've seen!

[Elbows]

Better than any terrain I've ever made (though to be fair that isn't really saying much!).  Great looking stuff. 

[Constable Bertrand]

Thats a beauty of a grassy knoll. Welcome! I wish my dad made awesome terrain for me to play on like that when I was growing up. But he did make me a cardboard castle, so I can't complain too much 

Cheers
Matt

[Quirkworthy]

If it's a grassy knoll then where are the snipers? Oh, next to the ninjas. Sorry, I didn't see them at first