Dreadball!

This is a slightly different post in that this is a project I have done for me-which is a rare think indeed!
Dreadball was bought for me for Christmas and I have thoroughly enjoyed the game. Salute saw the release, by  Amera Plastics, of a Dreadball arena. I couldn't resist so here it is.
It comes in plain white plastic so it needs to be washed and then primed in white.
I then stuck it down onto a base board that is big enough to add dice trays and card slots which was a bonus.
I have a number of teams so rather than painting it in a team colour I went for a deep blue that looks like the blue in the Dreadball logo. Two cans of car paint later it was covered.

The final touch was to have a stadium sign laser cut. Andy Slater did a great job re creating the Dreadball logo and I went for the Ortiz name as that is supposed to be the guy who invented the game.

I then painted the board and had my first game of it last week. Here are some photos of it finished.

The finished sign

Humans V Orcs in the Ortis stadium.

A close up. The sign is about 20 to 25cm long to give you an idea of the size.

In the end I went for a metallic look with the board. I think it looks OK- although I have had a couple of comments about adding some lights to it. If I have learnt only one thing as a full time model maker is that I know when it is time to stop!
Finally, I now have a Facebook page so follow the link to take a look. The plan is to use it to post regular updates on projects I am working on (probably daily), highlighting events that my terrain is involved with such as shows, any general information about TMTerrain and highlighting any useful products I come across. If I can keep to this list I hope it will be seen as a useful page to like.

Helping the army!

This project was a new experience for me. The army contacted me to recreate a piece of training ground on a 6ft x 4ft table so they could use it in the class room before go on exercise.
I don't know what scale it ended up being as it had to fit the table so it was what it was. I had the OS maps so was able to convert the contour lines into a 3D model of the area.
This process I find a challenge as I do it all by eye. This time I had 6 boards, all 2x2ft so I was able to calculate what the shape of the ground was at all points where the boards met. I gave the carpenter, who makes my board carcasses a profile of each board side so they all fitted together.
Once I had the carcasses I filled them with insulation foam and then carved them to shape, constantly referring to the map of the area.When I was happy with the shape of the landscape I then covered it in grout and then a covering of sand to give it texture.
Once all that was dry, I needed to add the wooded areas. Although I don't know the scale of the board I do know it is very small so I used coarse grit for the woods. This worked well especially once I painted them a darker green to the rest of the board.
The natural landscape was now done so I finished it off by adding the roads, paths and power lines to the area. I just used different coloured paint for different things and it all came together pretty well.
Here are some photos:

It was great to see it finished. It would have been fun to play a 1/300th game on it with some interesting line of sight issues as it is very hilly with lots of woods.
I didn't finish it with my usual flock finish as it needs to withstand class room use so it needed to be as durable as possible.
Overall, an unusual commission that I really enjoyed doing.

Arnhem- a post script

Over a year ago I was asked to make a number of buildings unique to the Arnhem campaign.
There was the hospital, museum, a church, a couple of generic buildings and a tall but narrow building that I can't remember the name of.
They were sent off and recently I received a pile of photos of them in action. I love getting things like that as I very rarely get to see them this way.
The table is very impressive and I am very pleased that some of my buildings were involved in such a large project.
Here they are:

the church was massive

an unusual shape structure- very interesting to make

This game was set up in Australia and I hope it plays as well as it looks.

20th Century buildings.

Last year at Salute I delivered 3 large factories to a customer. They were designed to be able to be fought over anytime during the 20th century in and around Europe. I did do a post about them but here are a photo of each as a reminder.

These were all pretty big structures so I now had to deliver another 10 smaller structures that would go with them.
I had used alot of accessories from Skytrex so I did the same again. The guttering and most of the windows were from their railway range and along with other bits and pieces such as chimneys I was able to make alot of details common to all the buildings making them look part of the same community.
I used plasticard sheets from South Eastern Finecast so again using the same sheets I got common a common brick look.
Each of the buildings were different and that became a bit of a challenge to come up with the different designs.

white washed walls added contrast and variety for the layout

factory and offices. The horn by the top of the door is a resin piece.

a 3 level building and flat roof.

straight forward rectangular workshop.

These first four buildings were all brick and industrial but I wanted to have a couple of buildings that looked like flats. I had done some Stalingrad apartment buildings in the past (Pavlovs House) and wanted to do something like that.
These were very plain buildings so added a couple of fire escapes on the end to add more interest. The roofs and floors come away so lots of opportunities for snipers and house clearing games.

fire escape railings are plastic but stairs are from Skytrex.

windows are laser cut

I then did a smaller building and wanted it to look very run down and as if it was built from concrete slabs. I cut up sheets of cork tile and distressed the edges. Cork tile makes very convincing concrete flooring so I thought it would do the same on walls and I was happy with the result.

roof is plasticard painted grey and then washed brown and dry brushed.

doors are from Skytrex.

The final two buildings I decided to make ruined and design them so they could stand alone or be combined into one large ruin.
One of the buildings had a large door at one end and the other had a furnace with tall chimney. Both had a ruined open end. The windows and wall colours were the same on both and so they matched each other.
I had to add debris as well as some internal details so lot of cat litter and bits and pieces of industrial debris from my spares box made them look suitable ruined.

windows are laser cut

pipes and cogs always look very industrial

rust effect on the pipe done using Delux rust coating

I also had a couple of resin lathes and drill stand. I thought they would go well in here so in they went looking very sorry for themselves.
Finally, on one of them I recreated a burst pipe. I made a stream of water using Woodland Scenics water effect and then once dry stuck it on the end of the pipe and arched it so it touched the floor as if it was a stream of water coming out of the pipe. I then added a puddle of water using two part resin mix from Delux.

the ruined drill stand on its side

water gurgling out from the pipe

the two joined together

the rubble

The final piece I made for this commission was a supply dump. I wanted to something a bit different that would be interesting to fight over.
All the bits came from Skytrex range of extras for their railway line. I had great fun laying them out so there was space for figures to hide behind. I hope the layout is interesting enough to have a good game in.

this is about 30cm long and 25cm wide

corrugated fencing is sheets of plasticard cut to shape and bent to show distressed bits

all piles are from Skytrex range- very useful.

That covers the completed commission. I hope to get some photos of them all in action. If I do I will post them as they should look pretty good with all of the buildings together.
This was another very enjoyable commission and the hardest bit was keeping period detail off them as I was very tempted with adding graffiti and that sort of thing which was a real no no if they were to be used in different theatres and times during the 20th century.