Details of The Towers of Thousand Tonnes (pt.12)

And because the towers are so huge and filled with massive amounts of detail, here's a pile of more detailed close-ups.

Big Necromunda buildings READY (pt.11)

Big Necromunda buildings a.k.a. The Towers of Thousand Tonnes a.k.a. TTOTT are now finished! Yay!

For the last two weeks I've been putting on the final touches on The Towers, an hour here and there, plus two nightshifts. Subtle highlights by drybrushing, several more rusty washes and dirty paint waters to stain everything, create pools and drips all around.

One major personal level discovery happened also...

I tried Liquitex BASICS Burnt Umber acrylic for painting the rust. Somehow I had kind of dismissed it before as being "just one of those cheap hobby paints with nothing that spectacularly interesting going on". Still used it a lot before on muddy mixes. Again I just grabbed the nearest dark brown there was lying around on the table. Drybrushed it on a few ladders, kind of meh... too translucent and weird orangey poo tone going on. What if I work it a little bit? Nice blend! Well what if there's thicker layer dabbed on top with the tips of a hard bristle brush? Deep brown with distinct little chips appear, MAGNIFICENT!!! So out of one paint I got easily two or three different translucencies, shades and textures going on. Looking very realistic and rusty to my eye.

I just had to double check the text details on this tube. Usually they dont tell much, but this one had a list of ingredients: some medium, and as a sole pigment there was IRON OXIDE. So basically I tried to paint rust with actual rust, right? It looked fabulous, and was followed by careful edge drybrushes with Citadel Necron Compound (and rusty ochra washes).

The tiny egg/pearl growth got a dull green glaze (mixed from all the green washes, glazes and paints from Citadel and Army Painter I got at hand), then verdigris-coloured drybrushes with Citadel Hellion Green and Vallejo Model Color Verdigris Glaze (that ain't no glaze but a regular paint, at least the bottle I've got).

Added a few dozen posters/signs on the walls with napkin glue. They got matt varnish and even more dirty washes on top. I had to cut up a few magazines for the materials because I couldn't find my old stash of suitable little pictures (found it the next day of course). Got some album covers, (dis)motivational healthcare quotes and other completely non-Necromundian cutouts on the walls now. Most are located in the darkest corners and above doors, so mainly not visible from the usual gamers perspective.

Last night I felt like maybe the organic/alien shell and mushroom growths should've been made more distinguished, and there could be blood stains and slime and graffitis and all that added, but it was already 3am so I decided to call it a day and not put any more different colours in. The mushrooms would look nice with some yellow & red dots on though...

Here they are, with two examples of possible configurations for assembling them together.

What next?

As I've been putting the finishing touches to the two big Necromunda buildings, I thought they had to be named properly. One day I did a rough counting of bits and pieces that went in to them, and the number was easily several hundreds. Gotta find out the exact number one day. This however brought up an idea about the name. The buildings are kind of TOWERS, and there might be even THOUSAND parts in them, and they currently weigh a lot (almost a TON!) despite being made around polystyrene frame(s)... So they'll be branded The Towers of Thousand Tonnes. That'll make a nice logo as well!

TTOTT

So with The Towers close to being finished I was wondering what to do next. Modular boards have been hovering on my mind for a while. Then again the Sylvaneth army could be completed as well. And what about the Iron Warriors, Death Guard and the Nurgle Glottkin armies that aren't quite ready either? Skaven seem like interesting choice to start collecting too... Or should I rebase the old Warhammer armies of Dark Elves, Undead, Tzeentch, Dwarves and Orcs I've got somewhere?

Flipping through the pages of one quite new White Dwarf I found something interesting. Don't have the magazine at hand right now, so can't remember the number or any other exact details (especially the person whose army I got the inspiration from). I'll check them later to give credit, and add a link as well if I can found them online. So the army comprised of only Imperial Knights. There were propably a dozen of them (all beautifully painted and converted), but the main thing was the mention about games being rather quick and easy when you had only around four (4) big models to move around and fight with. Despite me being a big fan of crappy horde armies, this sounded super interesting.

Things started to come together. But I wasn't going to actually buy 4 Imperial Knight kits anytime soon (or should it be never?), so what to do? There were Chaos Knights available as well, but I've already got a lot of Chaos stuff done and to do. Something else then.

The current range of Ork miniatures has been irritating me for quite a while. There's just something I don't like in many of the models, and I can't quite put a finger in what that something really is. Maybe it's the faces? Most have just this stereotypical angry grin and little else going on. I'm really missing the mischievous, snarly, sneaky and even comical Ork faces of the old.

But hey! Orks build their machines just the way I like (scrap, crap and weapons quickly thrown togehter), so no need to worry about any modern Boyz miniatures being a little off. Just glue togehter big piles of pipes, gears, wheels, shootas, wires, skulls and armour plates and call it a day. A Stompa, Gorkanaut, Morkanaut and a couple of lesser creations by crazy Meks done in an instant.

Paint scheme should be simple too. Copper and verdigris this time instead of iron and rust. Dust and dirt. Black clothes with only very minor sharp highlights. Red (bloody) iconography, most likely Evil Sunz theme. Gotta try out the black and white checker pattern as well. Very dark and moody skins, just like the Orcs in the spectacular The Lord of the Rings animated film from 1978.

So lets see whether I can finish this Mek-Ork-Stompa-Dred-Killa-Kopta-Kan army before getting more interested in something else... 'Ere we go!

WIP big Necromunda building (pt.10)

Put down subtle drybrushes on the creamy and greenish areas, just for more definition of textures and edges, and to fix a few spots where earlier washes had been too thick. Then I added loads of nice thin terracotta wash I had made for some earlier project, and had half a bottle left. Coloured/stained the edges of creamy areas, and added rusty stains to other spots.

The consistency of this wash was awesome, but I have absolutely no idea what I had put into it. Most likely there's different brown, yellow and orange washes and paints, some kitchen washing liquid to break the surface tension, and propably Typhus Corrosion technical paint, because there were similiar little texture particles in this bottle. Sprayed some clean water (yuck...) around to better blend the terracotta wash in, and to help it run down and make nice puddles.

Next up will be again more washes... Nice DIY ochra wash leftovers from the same old project as the terracotta wash I already used. And dirty paint waters. I really cannot emphasize their importance enough. The most crucial thing when "painting" miniatures and terrain.

After these washes and maybe subtle grey drybrushes on some details and edges, I'm really struggling whether to also add some rusty metal spots. Dark brown/orange/metal sponged on areas such as ladders and a couple of edges that might have took some wear and tear? I'm trying to keep the overall appearance of these buildings kind of dull and monotone dirty grey, so am a bit hesitant about adding many more different colours in to the pallette, especially bright rusty oranges and silvers. This is because I don't want to draw too much attention to the terrain when playing games, as the miniatures should be the most prevalent thing on the table. Then again it would be a lot easier to spot all the ladders from the buildings if they were completely of a different colour than the walls. Hmm...