My scenery thread

By TauntaunScout, in Painting

I will get better pictures tomorrow, these were quick cell phone pics. I've made a moisture farm (1 house, 1 vaporator) and a dozen bases of mostly alien, kinda deserty looking, bushes and scrub. Combined with my Geo-Hex desert system I'll have a great Tatooine layout. Now that things are cured I'll touch up the edges of the bases. Next up I'll make 7 bases of terran trees to use in any old game, based like these ones to be able to make one big Star Wars forest if I want. Probably use big evergreens. Old Space Marine shown for scale. Heavily inspired by the WEG SWMB book.

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Edited by TauntaunScout

Nice. I definitely recognize your inspiration.

Thanks, here's more pics, better late than never.

3 bases of crazy red trees that are presumably dangerous terrain, or some other type of special effect if I need them to be.

As for normal trees, I couldn't find the type of Terran trees I wanted so I had to use these ones instead. I have 3 more bases of slightly bigger Terran trees in the works right now. These plants are on a pizza box, fresh from the outdoors where they got two coats of spray varnish to reduce shedding. I did go and trim some of the tufts of tall grass after I took these pics, they weren't meant to be that tall. But it's easier to place too-big grasses, wait for the glue to dry, then trim them. My rebel fleet troopers need some shading and highlighting too... dug these guys out of storage. Umpteen years ago when I painted them I was in a hurry so besides black shading for the grey pants, and grey drybrushing on the black vests, I skipped the shading/highlighting and never got back them. A couple years back I realized that if I never painted certain 40k armies, no amount of miniatures would ever be enough, so I started painting those "I always meant to, and thought I would have by now..." armies. Once i checked them off, I felt a huge pressure lifted regarding painting. Then last week or so I realized the same was true of certain scenery. If I don't make the scenery from some beloved old books, I'll never feel like my scenery collection is done. So here we go. For the last 20-odd years everytime I see styrofoam balls I think "I could make a Star Wars house from that" so hopefully that goes away now. Ditto sparkplugs and vaporators. Everytime I see spark plugs in the store, I think "I really want to build a vaporator". So there we go. I have endless topographical features from my GeoHex setup, plus a moisture farm, and 15 bases of vegetation. 4 more bases in the works. Probably finish the vegetation collection somewhere between 20 and 30 bases. I assemble my GeoHex terrain on a blue felt cloth, so I can pop out hexes to create ponds, streams, or shorelines, so I am also all set on water for my games.

It's amazing how adding a few weird orb fruit things, and lots of fall colors, makes ordinary bushes look "alien". I plan on having about half the finished collection be Terran trees and bushes though, so I can have a forest in any 25mm or bigger game setting. I guess some of the trees and plants would work for 15mm but not all of them.

I'll also make a couple more Tatooine buildings to turn my moisture farm into the suggestion of a town.

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Edited by TauntaunScout

I have got to make some of those West End Games style flat trees and styro-ball plants. You're definitely inspiring me.

I did actually put together a spark plug vaporator back when I was a teenager, but whatever glue I used back then was inadequate to the task and I had not yet discovered primer so the paint didn't stick well. Last year I bought the coffee table sized book Star Wars Blueprints, which has working drawings for most of the sets from the six Star Wars movies. I started using the drawings of the vaporators with my current skill set to make some for Legion, but then they announced the Battlefield Objectives box which should have some pretty good ones, so I'll wait a couple more weeks to pick it up and save the trouble scratch building. (I'm as likely to go ahead and finish a few anyway to add some variation to the collection. For the ones in the movie, no two are the same. )

Edited by Albertese

I like the big red-silver water tower building :)

On 6/27/2018 at 11:52 PM, Albertese said:

I have got to make some of those West End Games style flat trees and styro-ball plants. You're definitely inspiring me.

I did actually put together a spark plug vaporator back when I was a teenager, but whatever glue I used back then was inadequate to the task and I had not yet discovered primer so the paint didn't stick well. Last year I bought the coffee table sized book Star Wars Blueprints, which has working drawings for most of the sets from the six Star Wars movies. I started using the drawings of the vaporators with my current skill set to make some for Legion, but then they announced the Battlefield Objectives box which should have some pretty good ones, so I'll wait a couple more weeks to pick it up and save the trouble scratch building. (I'm as likely to go ahead and finish a few anyway to add some variation to the collection. For the ones in the movie, no two are the same. )

The guy who made the original WEG ones told me what supplies etc. he used so if you decide to make some hit me up and I'll share!

On 6/28/2018 at 5:42 AM, MasterZelgadis said:

I like the big red-silver water tower building :)

Yeah... I thought about moving it out of the frame but decided it was a good universal indicator of scale. :)