This week I have been blitzing a new generation of Necromunda terrain for my collection - here are a trio of scratch-built ancient electricity sub-stations. I still have a lot to learn about painting rust effects, but I'm very pleased with these. I made them from empty plotter & printer cartridges that I had been saving, & detailed them with wooden lolly & toffee apple sticks & BBQ forks. The 'lights' are the caps from the little soy sauce fish bottles that you get in supermarket sushi packs. Having been inspired by the truly awesome
Necromunda/Inquisimunda scenery that can be seen on the internet, I really want to capture the utterly decrepid, rusted-through, & caked-in-grime look that the Underhive should 'realistically' have - the subterranean bowels of Hive Primus date back up to ten thousand years to before the Great Crusade. I want that complete industrial waste-zone look on my tabletop! Hence I textured these sub-stations with coarse modelling paste to help with the rusted look. This machinery will have been non-operational for thousands of years, but I imagine arcs of blue-violet electricity would have originally passed up & down those vertical prongs when functional.
I'll need to add a lot more vertical scenery with aerial routes & line-of-sight yet, but as basic blocking terrain which captures the right feel, I think these will see plenty of use. I used PVA glue to secure the bits, strengthened with hot glue gun in places. They have a nice weight to them, & seem very durable. A black matte spray paint undercoat was essential as the plastics of the cartridges wouldn't take brush paint without it.
Lastly, here is a photo of these pieces prior to detailing & painting, where the components are clearer to see >
This week I have been blitzing a new generation of Necromunda terrain for my collection - here are a trio of scratch-built ancient electricity sub-stations. I still have a lot to learn about painting rust effects, but I'm very pleased with these. I made them from empty plotter & printer cartridges that I had been saving, & detailed them with wooden lolly & toffee apple sticks & BBQ forks. The 'lights' are the caps from the little soy sauce fish bottles that you get in supermarket sushi packs. Having been inspired by the truly awesome Necromunda/Inquisimunda scenery that can be seen on the internet, I really want to capture the utterly decrepid, rusted-through, & caked-in-grime look that the Underhive should 'realistically' have - the subterranean bowels of Hive Primus date back up to ten thousand years to before the Great Crusade. I want that complete industrial waste-zone look on my tabletop! Hence I textured these sub-stations with coarse modelling paste to help with the rusted look. This machinery will have been non-operational for thousands of years, but I imagine arcs of blue-violet electricity would have originally passed up & down those vertical prongs when functional.
I'll need to add a lot more vertical scenery with aerial routes & line-of-sight yet, but as basic blocking terrain which captures the right feel, I think these will see plenty of use. I used PVA glue to secure the bits, strengthened with hot glue gun in places. They have a nice weight to them, & seem very durable. A black matte spray paint undercoat was essential as the plastics of the cartridges wouldn't take brush paint without it.
Lastly, here is a photo of these pieces prior to detailing & painting, where the components are clearer to see >
Ingenious! What a great build and cracking rust effects too.
ReplyDeleteCheers Michael, they seemed to build themselves once I saw what could be done with the shapes.
DeleteThey look great! A very clever use of the old printer cartridges :)
ReplyDeleteThanks, I'm glad I hung onto them!
DeleteTalking about making multiple levels work well in necromunda - it would be great to have some walkways that run a little below the height of these units. Models would get some cover, but still be able to fire over the terrain at people on the same or higher elevations.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how you'd actually build those walkways though, especially in a way that wasn't really fragile.
Good thinking, Tim, I'll add those walkways to my build list. I think they will be do-able: head-height gantries made of foamboard, with archways underneath to allow movement at ground level. They could be made sturdy with a base board, or (my preferred option) free-standing but weighted with hidden coins/other heavy materials.
DeleteClever and beautiful!
ReplyDeleteCheers Phil, I guess they are beautiful in grimdark way!
DeleteThats a cracking use of old odds and sods. Very effective.
ReplyDeleteThanks, I do enjoy a good scratch-build!
DeleteVery clever scratch build. I must say that news of the Necromunda re-release has our gaming club a bit excited too, but we have yet to start getting ready for it :-)
ReplyDeleteI found this blogpost years ago (not mine) about doing different types of rust effects and have found it very useful over the years- you might too.
http://paintbard.blogspot.com.au/2011/01/painting-rust-effects.html
cheers,
Paul
Thanks for the link Paul, those tips will come n very useful! I found one of my all-time favourite tips in a YouTube scenery tutorial recently - to use sewing mesh for metal grille flooring! It's so cheap, easy to work with, & effective!
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