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My Crom Funder package arrived today – great stuff, cheers!
Crivens, them birbs is big!
In the background is the beginning of a set ruined piece.
In the background I also spy the wicker fences you mentioned – I already have a set of the Baueda ones, with an eye to getting more…
But if Crom’s is going to have their own available, I’ll wait for those!
However I am tempted to do some swarm models…
Please do
! Love these scarabs, I’ll see if I can find them on the internet.In the meantime you can get ’em here , though I got mine on ebay…
However I am tempted to do some swarm models…
I could always use a few more swarms…
…the hyenas are on the site.
Sweet, they shall be mine! (come payday…)
Painted the birds… slap them on the site in readiness for the bird themed Crom Funder… finish painting the hyenas and see how far off the production mould for those is… images to add stuff to the bestiary of The Chroniclers Companion… re-jigging the website to have a section devoted to the Lore of the Burning Sands… see how the two new Hero figures are coming along… Could be a busy month…
Lots of things happening it seems, I like the sound of that!
The right sort of ‘interesting times’!
Looking forward to seeing all the new things.
…never used to be like that.
…spoke to previous owner. Only the space savers were ever blue foam.
Tis the way of these things – the website only specified
‘foam’’tile’, and I took a punt hoping for the best. It’ll be ok with some strengthening trim and maybe hardboard backing (since I’ve got 2×2 lying around…), but I wouldn’t want to go any bigger than 2×2 with them.What is the TSS board made off?
As I am intending to re-texture anyway, the rather underwhelming finish isn’t an issue for me, but I wouldn’t want @Thomaston to rush out and buy some without knowing that so he can make an informed decision
The second tile was always destined to be chopped up for terrain features, so again, no great shakes for me.
My Nina (Zvezda 1/100) also arrived, and its bigger than I anticipated – still in scale, just bigger than I thought (8″ long, give or take a bit). No pictures until I’ve ‘waterlined’ it, and finished up a few terrain pieces
Conan Exiles…
PS4 by any chance?
PC, I’m afraid!
What is the TSS board made off? You got me interested.
Just taken delivery… it appears the 40mm thick ones are expanded polystyrene, rather than dense insulating (blue or pink) foam.
Initial impressions proved to be correct, not high density insulation type foam, but expanded polystyrene. I’m amazed they arrived in one piece, excepting one minor corner ding.
And the flocking appears to have been applied to the bare panel. You can see the bubble texture of the material through most of it.
As it happens my plan was always to ‘resurface’ them, but I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone
Oooh you bought the thick ones eh, I went for the 20mm Space Saver ones.
Yeah, I want to be able to gouge gullies and wadi’s etc out of one of them, felt the thick ones where the way to go
Still much cheaper than I anticipated.
Oooh, keen to see how they look with 15-18mm minis!
I was convinced to take a punt by these sources:
The figures in the first are billed as 1/48 (they kinda look 28mm to me though) so dudes about half that height should look fine, and it is nominally 15mm right out of the box, so…
The figures in the second are pressumably 1/72, 20mm, so it’ll probably look a little big on 15mm guys, but I’m planning on stripping back the rowlocks and some of the benches to fit them up as little lateen rigged fishing boats – I recon they’ll be fine once any scale specific details are removed or hidden
Just the thing for adventurers wanting to get to ‘the Forbidden Island’ or get their pirate on and board a larger trading vessel for loot and xp!
I’ve been meaning to tell you about…1/144 set of 3 ships of different sizes ‘Lindberg 1/144 Columbus 3 ship set’
Interesting… I found an online review that says the ships are out of scale, as all three models end up being roughly 4.5 inches long – which doesn’t sound like a problem for our purposes! I can’t find a set I can get for less than $40 (£30), though, as I’m in the UK and they’re all in the US. For now they’ll have to go on the wishlist!
What is the TSS board made off? You got me interested. It’s listed as half a kilogram. Also yes to swamp terrain. Looking forward to seeing it.
I was going to chime in with ’40mm blue foam equivalent, from what I can gather’, but @Mike has beaten me to it by a country mile
Edit: Thinking about it, Conan – Exiles is where I’m channelling my terrain ideas from, isn’t?!?!?!
Tis what immediately came to mind when I saw the broken road.
Yeah, just googled it up – that’s clearly what I’ve been templating from! I’ll have to log in and see if I can get smoe more inspiration
Tried playing co-op with my partner, but we found the ‘tethering’ really annoying.
One of them I’ll flip and paint a smooth dark green/brown water effect on, and use this as the main board. The water side for making rivers and swamps (trust me, it’ll make sense
)You’re going to make swamp terrain at some point? You’re making swamp terrain?? *Jumps up and down in glee*
You dig swamps, eh?
Well, I got beguiled by @Thomaston’s (here) and @Stroezie’s (here) boats, so I went and ordered myself a Zvezda 1/100 Nina and a couple of Zvezda 1/72 ‘medieval lifeboat’ to convert into merchant and fishing boats.
The swampy areas will be part of a huge river delta type area, so warterways, islands, shifting sandbars and mangrove/everglade type zones.
I imagine that my ‘Simurgh’ analogue will be situated on a major river/estuary, and thus justify boats and the ‘swamp’, and also let me use the Museum Mini’s samurai/ashigaru/ikko ikki I picked up years ago as a sampler for traders/adventurers/mercenaries from a distant land.
Coolio. I use a TSS tile for my games too.
Thats where I got the idea from
Do you play Conan Exiles?
I did, a little, when it was the new hotness. Haven’t in an age though – I’m one of those paradoxical types who loves the idea of online games, but finds that generally, its the presence of other people that bring them down, in the end. Well, anything more involved than an FPS or World of Tanks like arrangement, that is. Those I can play ’til the cows come home and not be bothered by the antics of the rest of the players!
I imagine its changed quite a bit since I last played… How is it these days?
Off out to watch bad martial arts movies (Mortal Kombat and Warrior King, I’m told…) and consume beer!
Edit: Thinking about it, Conan – Exiles is where I’m channeling my terrain ideas from, isn’t?!?!?!
Phew, a Bank Holiday weekend – I’ll have some time to make some progress on this project.
Well, I’ve made a bit of ‘progress’, a test panel for the playing surface colour:
I’ll be going with the top left, it has the right sort of cool, ‘chalky’ kind of feel shown in the pictures up thread of the kind of desert I want to achieve.
Speaking of the playing surface – change of plan!
@Mike was right, the board warped (not the frame). It wasn’t bad, and it would have been ok if I’d left it…
But instead, I tried to counter the warp by coating the underside with PVA and applying weight whilst it dried (box of sand!).
It didn’t quite work out – it’s not unusable, but any decent sized piece of terrain leaves annoying gaps when placed on it.
So I ordered a couple of TSS 2×2′ sand panels 🙂 Just waiting on delivery! Much cheaper than I anticipated! The plan is to re-texture them and paint as above.
One of them I’ll flip and paint a smooth dark green/brown water effect on, and use this as the main board. The water side for making rivers and swamps (trust me, it’ll make sense
) and the other I’ll carve into pieces to make cliffs, wadi’s outcrops and other ‘three dimensional’ terrain features.I’m also waiting on a Croms Anvil order (still with the courier…) – enough buildings for two small settlements.
A “Merchants Oasis” and “Goatherders Homestead”. I’ve also received mini’s from Mueseum and Irregular Mini’s to help populate them.
I’ve undercoated the finished terrain pieces in burnt umber (one of the Giant Sietch’s, right) and been working on some more pieces (another section of ancient roadway, left):
Tomorrow I’ll have time to sit down and get painting in earnest on the terrain, and finish up the part-built pieces.
…Getting close to be being finished!!
Seems like I picked a good time to start getting into Burning Sands!
Really cool! Feeling very inspired right now.
Cool, show us yer stuff! 😉
I was reminded more of this:… …(“Harmony and understanding” is precisely what all that Conan stuff is about, right?)
ROFLMAO!
Smoke effect markers or suchlike?
Mad cacti
Nope, nope!
Ok, I’ll put you out of your misery…
Enourmous termite mounds/bug nests!
00 1999 Termite mounds in Australia
W. Bulach [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsThanks for thoughts on the trees –
I think they are trying to represent varieties of this fellow:
Jubaea chilensis kz4
Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsThough being cheap plastic tat (lets be honest
) from China they don’t quite get there. Still, I think they have a clumsy, spikey charm to them!I like the weird pineapple body, so its a feature not a bug for me, though I think flattening out the bottom end and blending it better with the ground is a good idea (see below for first try at that).
I don’t want to do too much work on the trees themselves though – and I have several varieties to mix it up on other pieces.
I agree on the desire to avoid artificial homogeneity, @Rhoderic , but as noted above I have plenty of tree options to get variety across several terrain peices.
All it comes down to is I cant decide between the two options in the previous post. I like them both. Perhaps I’ll just have to do one of each
Window still open for further opinion/suggestion…
And now the fruits of this afternoons labours:
The unfinished, now ready for paint, ‘rough ground’ piece from yesterday. The Croms Anvil pillar with firebowl and chains (I found the chains! I get them from Rbmodels) and a second ruined Giant Sietch, still needs the bare MDF concealing with fine sand. Sadly thats all the pieces in that style I have, so won’t be making anymore like this unless I can find another seller (Hirst Arts bits).
Scale reference provided by the YMCA chorus line (Ral Partha, Croms Anvil, Xyston) whilst Dobin the Battlefront pack mule is decidedly unimpressed by all that frivolity.
Some sort of tree/cactus thing for the eggs?
As for the eggs… the beginnings of primitive statues maybe?
Interesting ideas, but I have something much gribblier in mind!
Thanks for reading folks.
It looks like you are off to a great start! I look forward to seeing your next post.
Cheers, glad you’re enjoying it!
loving the chain on the pillar! Got any scenarios planned?
Thanks – once I find the small brass chains, I hope it’ll look a lot better with a short lentgth of chain hanging from the ring!
As for scenarios – for this piece specifically, thats why I got the Priestess set and this pillar from Croms in my first order – Stop the ritual! Rescue the captive! It can also be used as a hitching post for guard beasts of various flavours, too 🙂
This is coming along lovely – exactly the type of terrain I picture for this stuff, ruined columns and smashed temples. Ace.
Thanks! Glad you’re liking them, after all, this is all your fault!
Wow, that all looks so perfect. I’m currently also in the process of making terrain for Burning Sands, but the level of detail doesn’t even come near to yours. Outstanding work all over!
Thanks Wouter, high praise indeed!
Don’t be shy about sharing your stuff here on TWW, its always good to see other folks toys! I might see some idea’s I wouldn’t have thought of myself 😉
And I cant really take credit for all the detail – 90% of it is right there as part of the castings I’m using
.Looks some ruins and rubble type stuff is on the cards for me next the eh?
Can never have too many options when it comes to quality ruined terrain though, gets my vote!
I’d say I’m sorry, but I don’t think either of us would beleive that
Thank you one and all for your kind words and encouragement!
And now, a question for you all.
Which is best*:
A: Two trees of similar type.
B: Two trees, different types.
I can’t decide.
And finally, a teaser.
What in the name of Apis is going on here?!
Going to be messy and fiddly getting these finished, so may be a while before seeing the finished articles!
Thanks for reading!
*I will also accept C: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”
Have had that experience. Have become addicted to it. There are worse ways to live.
I can handle it, its not a problem! I can quit any time!
I aired mine out in the oven…
I should probably have done the same, but was just that keen to get on with it
Here are some more pics of todays developments:
For @Rhoderic is a pic of the ‘porridge’ mix:
Not quite Delia’s stiff peaks, but hopefully this’ll give you an idea of what I’m mixing. Just sharp sand and straight PVA.
Here is the board as it is stood 5 mins ago:
This thread is literally just a string of pictures of glue drying now. Maybe I should get out more?
Nahhhh…
Growing terrain collection:
Right is the first piece I ‘roughed up’ the other day (and that got tweeted! I saw that!
). Needs a bit of something doing with the joins on the pillar, and then good for paint.next (in front) is a 50mm round base in 2mm mdf, Renedra bases (20×20) chopped into distressed flagstones, and a Croms Anvil bare pillar with a fire-bowl plinth on top and home made metal ring (waiting one me finding my stash of teeny tiny model chains). And adding the fire-bowl. And pinning the column to the base.
Behind that is the ruined ‘Giant Sietch’ now ready for paint.
On the far left a barely started bit of ‘rough ground’ – couple of ragged layers of cork and a resin cast from, I think, a Woodland Scenics rock mould. Bought a set on ebay ages ago – sadly seems no one is selling them anymore – add that mould to my Hobbycraft shopping list, I guess!
The terrain bases I’m using are from Supreme Littleness, cut in 2mm MDF and you get eight for a touch under £5 (pkus shipping). The 50mm base came from ebay, not sure of the seller, but there are plenty to pick from!
Painting will start when the board is done, so that I can match the colour!
Cheers for reading!
Cheers, hopefully they’ll all look better with paint on 😉
Been a busy day, and some progress made – sand/PVA mix drying away:
I’ll be back after dinner with some more progress on the terrain pieces.
I may also have thrown caution to the wind and flexed the ’emergency plastic’ and received a veritable cavalcade of tufts and terrain materials from our rather beleagured postie this morning…
I might want to steal the idea off you.
By all means
Its just sharp sand (the type with gravel pre-mixed in) and PVA in a gloopy mix (can’t give you a ratio, I sort of made it up as I went). Still noticably grainy whilst you’re mixing it.
Its looking pretty good as is, now its set. I think I’m going to just add a few pieces of cut stone type rubble between the fallen pillar and broken pillar, then cover the rest of the base and a few strategic areas with fine sand and call it done:
Figure is a Xyston Maccabean Rabbi.
Test cast of the Hyenas are here, and they are all good. The casters will be making a mould of them soon…
Ooh, cool. Look forward to being able to buy some
Great suggestions @Rhoderic and @Geof Downton.
I had just purchased some ‘seafoam’ when I came back and read your comment, @Rhoderic – I’m in agreement on its apparent fragility, but Serious Play had a sample/starter pack of it for £3 so I picked one up whilst I ordered those tufts @Mike suggested. I always, always forget about rubberised horsehair, and consequently have never tried using it. Might be time to look in to that now!
Those bushes look like they’ll be really useful for acheiving the look I’m going for, @Geof Downton! However, I blew my weekend beer budget on tufts and grass recommended by @Mike last night, so I’ll have to wait until next week now before I can order some!
Tangentialy, my (first) order of stuff from Croms Anvil arrived today, cracking mini’s and though the only terrain I ordered was a pillar and a wall cap/firebowl the casting is super sharp – can’t wait to prder some more!
Here, Eydis and Erland survey their new surroundings, which appear to have had porridge spilled all over them (stodgy mix of sand, gravel and PVA for first layer of rubble):
I have done some more work on the board, but its just gap-filling and not noticably different from whats been shown so far – it’ll get texture, and hopefully paint, over the weekend.
Cheers!
