I've decided on a planet, but I'll get to that later:
My first attempt at wargaming terrain... many mistakes, many things I will try differently next go round.
( @Force Majeure can attest my hobby related updates tend come both sporadically and at a comparative torpor, lots going on in mah house)
I've still got to paint the trunk of the little tree and paint the edge of the base.
Probs:
- I relied on the flock too much... the only place I've seen an even swatch of grass like that is a golf course.
- Like many nubs before me, I couldn't get the static grass to stand up... not a big deal, but there you have it.
-
I don't know why, but my big tree looks an awful lot like Milliput gobbed over a wire coat hanger frame.
.. need to lighten the bark color also.
- The little tree is a cheap leftover Christmas village accent and looks exactly like a cheap, leftover Chrimmas village accent.
- I actually sculpted several small hillocks and tapered up to the roots of each tree with milliput... annnnd the grass basically made that effort vanish.
- I also coated the entire ground with baking soda, to resemble scale dirt, before the grass.. you know, to be more accurate, and so you'd see dirt inbetween the grass... yeah that all vanished. (No experience with static grass).
- I also also sculpted several small hillocks and blended up to the roots of the trees with milliput, because I thought perfectly flat ground would look uninteresting... grass made that go away too. Won't make those two mistakes again.
- By the time I got to putting the orange... stuff.. on my tree, I was all excited over the prospect of showing it off to my wife, so I got enthusiastic with the glue gun.. got some gnarly hot glue gob trimming to do under the canopy.. or not, you know.. you have to flip the thing up and peer into it to notice, which I assume is a rude thing to do at someone's gaming table.
- It's too barren. My justification was gameplay and effort.. I was unsure if anything I was doing was going to look remotely decent, so I kinda threw this one together as a test board for minimal effort... also, having never done this before, I was painfully cognizant of the fact that X number of little plastic minis need (in my mind) to be able to move about this terrain piece; now that I look at this, this minor bit of professional landscaping doesn't really say "Forest: Light cover, blocks one hit"...
Despite that last point I'm not going to add to it. I have certainly learned the value in "finishing" projects. There reaches a point where you are definitively emotionally done with something, even if there are improvements you could make and things that could certainly be added. Trying to artificially push myself past that point has led to innumerable botched projects and stripped repaints and "breaks" from the hobby.
So, there it is. Figured I'd keep myself accountable by presenting stuff on here for momentum-maintaining feedback... I already have two objective markers in various shades of completion (Bases are done, the things themselves have to be painted ), that I'll put up soon.
Ah, and I've finally picked my planet. (Pointless blathering, don't bother if you're just hear for the hobby stuff)
Struggled with this one a lot. The Endor table on the TC video looked great , and ROTJ was my favorite film as a kid. (Irritating Ewoks and Hole Ridden plot?? I gave no flips, huge, gorgeous space battle and a Forest Planet and Scout Troopers! Watching Jedi has always kinda felt like Christmas to me... but then I've always gotten lots of Star Wars stuff at Christmas, so perhaps thats justified by more than trees, multicolored lights and happiness)... Yeah, Endor was a big draw, and it's easy to find or make summer trees.
However... as I looked deep into my heart, I realized I really wanted to make a map set in autumn. It's my favorite season (worked with my dad's construction company since I was 11, summer has never been the wee, skippy happy fun time like the other kids seemed to think... it meant working in the heat
). My wife and I both love fall decorations and other such silly things. I realized it'd be fun (for me), to have my rebels and stormies fighting over... essentially Sleepy Hollow. Anyone remember the first Undead mission in Warcraft 3? Kinda like that.... I didn't acccomplish it at
all
with this piece, but I have something to aim for.
I don't need lore justification, but I was still pondering where I could have my conflict set that featured a semi-earthlike climate with deciduous trees in a pastoral setting... finally I realized I'd have my garrison struggling to hold against the insurrection on Qiilura. Keep those valuable Barq fields from falling into rebel hands.
