SEASON OF SCENERY 2024 - Adeptus Titanicus/Legions Imperialis Terrain - Part 2

 

Welcome back to Season of Scenery 2024.  I've poked away at a few more buildings...and I built a bunch more tiny Astartes stuff - but it's more of the same tiny stuff, so I'm not posting it here. I've been playing with various roof types and increasing some of the details, like dry brushing the doors with ProAcryl Dark Silver to make things a bit more interesting.

 

 

The flat roofs need a bit more black so they are less swirly, maybe. But that's not a big deal.

 

Here I thought it might be fun to make a building stand out a bit from the others with a fancier roof.

 Also I went with more layers of transparent black on the flat roof to get more even coverage.

Having finished the Administratum buildings, I started to work on what I consider the Ecclesiastic buildings.  There is such fun detail in the windows here that I decided to play a little with colored glass.  I used some ProAcryl florescent colors over ProAcryl transparent colors to try to get a hint of light coming through the glass from within.  Not a full on OSL thing, just some added brightness. I also tried some transparent yellow on the circles that look like they could be lights on some of the walls. Doesn't show up so well in the pics though. This building isn't yet complete.  I plan to add verdigris on the pointy gold bits.

So there's a look at the progress so far.  I took a couple nights off to build some extra drop pods and Astartes support stuff. Then there's some family summer fun going on so I won't get back to painting for a few days.  But I should have something to show later next week as I crank through the Ecclesiastic buildings. 

I hope your summer (or winter) is going well.

Cheers and happy gaming!

SEASON OF SCENERY 2024 - Adeptus Titanicus/Legions Imperialis Terrain

Greetings and welcome back.  Today I'm sharing a group of Adeptus Titanicus buildings that I am painting up as part of Season of Scenery 2024. This scenery is also suitable for Legions Imperialis, although it provides more line of site blocking than garrisoning terrain.  Of course, you could certainly garrison these buildings so long as you can agree with your opponent as to how that works.

Here is the full range of buildings I'm hoping to complete by the end of August. The more "churchy" buildings were sprayed with an off-white rattle can from the local hardware store (Rust-oleum brand, in the US).  The more "administrative" buildings got a similar rattle can spray coat of light grey. I then made two simple washes - brown for the off-white buildings and black for the grey buildings.  For terrain, I planned to use a lot of wash/shade so I needed an effective but cheap solution - NOT GW Agrax or Nuln Oil.  I chose to use the "Les Wash" recipe for this. I made up the medium mix a head of time, then just added the sepia and black ink to suit my taste.  I didn't follow the exact number of drops used in the video I linked. You can see how the brown/sepia wash affects the off-white buildings above.  The Black wash is shown below.

After shading everything, I started looking at the details I wanted to pick out.

Here I used Proacryl Transparent Black on the doors, and Proacryl Rich Gold on the dome.  Then I used Dirty Down Verdigris on the dome. I covered all the gold with the verdigris, then before it fully dried, I used a wet paintbrush to remove the Verdigris from the center of each panel.  This left a pleasing effect in the cracks around the panels where I thought verdigris would collect/build up.  I went back in with a matching Proacryl light grey here to clean up the areas around the gold.

Here I used more transparent Black on the doors and a bit of rich gold on the imperial eagle wings. Then I went to work with some Proacryl Jade. on the tower roof. This was shaded with the same black wash as the building to tight things in.  Agrax Earthshade was used carefully on the eagle wings. I ended with some more clean up with the light grey.

This is a piece of terrain from the Epic days that I built from sprues I found on eBay back along.  Here, I was going for a tower that was hit and burned out. So I used used layers of Proacryl Coal Black dry brushed heavily on the inside, and then lightly with upward brush strokes only following the windows from bottom to top. I wanted it to look as though smoke billowed out of those windows and rose up along the side of the building.  I finished up with the Proacryl Transparent Black on the inside of the wall bases and GW Agrax Earthshade on the outside of the wall bases. Simple but effective for easy tabletop terrain at this scale.

Then I spent more time on this "Generatorum" building.  You can see Proacryl Transparent black used on the doors and all the roof details.  The black "Les" wash was applied in a few layers on the roof. I then carefully dry brushed Proacryl Dark Silver on the roof pieces, followed by Rich Gold on the Imperial eagle wings and the generator thingies.  I used verdigris on these gold parts again, though with the large generator bit, I used it sparingly in between and around the base of the "tubes". That doesn't show in the pictures much, it's subtle.

I used some thinned Proacry Transparent Black in some of the wall details that looked metal. I then dry brushed those a bit with Proacry Dark Silver, or left them black totally on whim, and the likelihood of not getting dark silver all over the walls. I used Dirty Down Rust around the large pipe coming out of the wall and dragged it along corners and down the walls where I though crud/oil/rust/etc. might drip down the wall. Again, not going to win a Golden Demon, but a quick and effective way to add a little interest to the building.

Here is another look at the grime work on a similar panel on the other side of this building. I spent a lot more time on this building, hoping it stands out a bit as a focal point among the general look at the rest of the Civitas buildings. I should add that I used roughly matching off-white and light gray paint to touch up and spots on the buildings where I thought the wash pooled or simply dried in unpleasing ways.  This was mostly along the top railings and occasionally dry brushed here and there to lighten the surfaces some.

So that's where I'm at so far.  I have these four buildings done from the collection of 14 I'm planing to complete by the end of August.  Swing by Wargames Terrain Workshop to see what else Dave Stone is up to, and maybe catch an update on the Season of Scenery 2024.

 

 

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

On the Workbench [July] - Legions Imperialis Ruins

 Greetings!  Leading into Season of Scenery 2024, I finally sat down to build the Legions Imperialis ruins. They look great, and honestly aren't that hard to assemble.  But boy did it still take me some time to work through them. There's a lot of little parts and cleaning (esp. if you are a perfectionist, like me 😂).  But after a couple sessions, I had everything assembled.

Lots of fun terrain for the infantry to take cover in, and garrison. Some line of sight blocking for the rest. As shown above, one box roughly covers a little more than a quarter of a 4'x4' gaming mat.  Hopefully mixed with the rest of my Titanicus terrain, there will be enough terrain variety for a decent game. The plastic bag in the upper right holds all the bits of scatter terrain (piles or debris, etc.) that help fill in some of the empty space with cover.

While digging out terrain for painting, I also came across this resin landing pad that I had forgot I picked up.  Seems to host this Thunderhawk quite nicely. :) This piece got a primer coat along with all of my Adeptus Titanicus buildings.  For mey next post, I'll share WIP pics from that project as I move through the Season of Scenery, 2024. Perhaps ironically, these ruins are not on tap for the challenge, unless I have time after all the buildings are done. And there is a lot of buildings...

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Dark Angels Sicaran Battle Tank Squadron for Legions Imperialis - TO DONE

 

Welcome back!  Today I'm shared the completed pics of the Sicaran Battle Tank squadron. Two squadrons, really, but they can roll as one; they are just chill like that! 😂. With the completion of these tanks, I have filled my first battle foam tray with completed models.

Very cool.  I'll take a big ol' stamp of Done for the project, and the full tray!

If you would like to see more tiny tank photos, then please keep scrolling past the break and enjoy.  If not, no worries, there will be lots of tiny terrain coming in July to mix things up a bit!!

Cheers and Happy Gaming!

Dark Angels Sicaran Squadron for Legions Imperialis - WIP

 Greetings and welcome back.  I thought I'd make an opportunity today to walk through my process for painting these tiny tanks. They have lots of sharp detail and can be really fun to paint. The scale can change how we approach the models in a way that makes them in some ways easier to paint than the 28mm models.  But one thing is for certain; it all starts with a good primer coat...

I like to use Vallejo Surface Primer Black, sprayed through an air brush. However be warned, this approach isn't for the faint of heart.  Primer paints contain compounds that make them 'gloppy' in a way that easily clogs the airbrush.  I use a mix of Vallejo acrylic thinner and flow improver to make this work.  And even then, I have to pause often to clean out the air brush. But I think it is worth it - especially at this scale. Rattle cans are cheaper and easier, but you'll almost certainly clog and obscure some of the sharp details with them. With the airbrush, I have more control of how much paint I'm laying down.

After the primer has dried (I wait ~24 hours to be sure the primer set firmly - but this is generally because I spray late at night before bed), I hit the models with a heavy dry brushing of Proacryl Dark Warm Grey.  This always ends up looking MUCH lighter than I want - but I trust in the process and stay the course. At the end of the evening, after drybrushing, I then lay on a heavy all-over coat of GW Nuln Oil, straight from the pot. You can see the wash drying in the pic above. If the first coat doesn't darken things enough, I'll add a second.

Then I come back the next day and get to work on the metals.  This is generally Proacryl Dark Silver on tracks, weapons, shoulder trim and maybe a few other details with the tanks.  For the plasma cannons on the Sicarans, I went further to show their technological age and 'special-ness'.  Yeah, I think that's a thing.  Anyway, they got some Proacryl Bronze along with the Dark Silver details. I also shaded the tracks and exhaust with GW Reikland Fleshshade.

Unique to the plasma weapons, I had more weapon work to do than normal.  I followed my usual paint recipe for plasma effects (see my 30K Dark Angels recipe in the tabs above), perhaps with a bit of a lighter hand than I would on 28mm weapons.  I'm typically going for a 'charged up and ready to fire' look vs. a 'peak power - firing!' look anyway.

With metals painted, it's usually time to select the parts that will carry the legion red - in this case Proacryl Bold Pyrrole Red. With the tanks, I choose locations in a way that marks out one squadron from another of the same tanks.  With my collection here, I'm aiming to be able to run all the vehicles in a single squad (rules permitting, of course) if I want.  But I also want to be able to run smaller squads, and have it be clear on the table which tanks go with which squads. So here I have three tanks with front quarters red, and three with side armor red. It helps here that the Dark Angels have a complex and hard to discern heraldry at the best of times. So we can't really say that anything is 'wrong' with our schemes, so long as there is black and silver and red.
 

I actually tried to get cute with some red and black checkers on the front panels.  But it was just painful to paint and looked pretty mediocre with my skills...well, really bad actually, if I'm being honest. So...straight red it is!  With larger tanks and larger panels, like the Spartans, I could play with transfers to get the effect.  Here things are small and the shapes fiddly, so I didn't attempt it.
 

Oh, and I chose to paint in the targeting lenses and lasers while I had the red out. I'll need to go back to the earlier painted tanks and do that at some point. I had thought these areas too small, but it is really no worse than painting in eyes!

Speaking of transfers, that comes next! I like to think of the Sicarans as older tanks in the armory.  So I gave them icons of the hexagramaton to show their pre-Caliban Terran origins.  Plus its just sorta mysterious and all Dark Angelly - yes, that's a thing too! Of course, they get the 1st Legion icons as well.

On the right flanks, I put the usual vehicle numbers to make picking out specific models during games easier and the 1st legion icons. And that was it for these tanks.  There aren't many flat spaces large enough for the transfers I have, but it's fine if some vehicles carry less bling than others. :)

I think I started this with the Predators, but I figured out that the small laurels from the Legions Imperialis vehicle transfer sheet fit on the marine shoulder pads.  Win!  So I'm dropping them on all my command models - squadron leaders in this case. Fun!! The small Dark Angels icon (seen on the side of these tanks) seems *just* too big, so I haven't tried that.  I wish they'd print an infantry sheet with tiny legion transfers for the shoulder pads...

The last step is applying weathering powders to the tracks and bottom of the tanks. I typically spoon out a bit of powder with the GW plastic texture tool (or whatever they call that plastic tool used for applying texture paints...) into a small cup, then add pigment fixer liquid, enough to make a thin soup...?  It's a "feel/experience" thing that I don't know how to accurately describe.  Reminds me of my grandmother who'd describe recipes like, "Put some flour and sugar in a bowl, then a bit of butter and mix it together..."

Anyway, after applying the weathering powder soup to the tracks, fronts, bottoms, etc. of the tanks, I let them dry over night.  When applying the weathering mixture, I try to consider how mud, dirt and dust might accumulate on the tanks...then I back off a little because I want to enjoy the paint job some.  I imagine the paint on a real tank is barely recognizable after a short time operating in a dirty, muddy environment. Anyway, I got carried away on the front of a few of the Sicarans, but I like it. Seems like the slopped fronts, and their increased speed over other armor might make them scoop up a bit more grime on the go.

Somewhere in all that I also applied more GW Nuln Oil to the remaining metals bits.  I used GW Agrax Earthshade on the plasma weapons, prior to painting on the plasma effects. At any rate that's pretty much it; painted tiny tanks! I always finish with a good coat of matte lacquer. That sort of dampens down the weathering powder effect. When it dampens the effect too much, I re-apply the powders.

I'll post up some completed pics from the light box next and take my big ol' stamp of done then too. So check back in a few days to see how these came out, in more detail.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!