My Pipe Dream – Part 7

by | Dec 31, 2013

Ho!
The holidays are a busy time and sorry for my lack of posting. But I'm not really sorry because I'm sure you've been busy too. So there.

And shame on you for trying to make me feel bad about it.
Anyways, this is my next part of the board and terrain project for my home battlefield. There are six other parts so far, so if you are bored and haven't seen the progress so far, go back and check em out!
I left you off after finishing primary construction of the terrain. Next up was priming and texturing. Like the main board, I brushed on black latex paint, as not to melt my foam with spray. I did spray the pipes though, to save time. While the paint was wet, I sprinkled on my sand.
Selecting where to put the sand was a pretty easy process. I kinda sprinkled it over the main flat areas. I didn't put texture on the pipes. I had other plans...

 
 Up next was brushing on the brown all over the earthy things, like the hills and the bottom of the abandoned pipes.
Next is the yellow dry brush.


Man, that yellow sure brings out the detail. Its simple. It looks great. Easily reproduced because I have so much of it now. I am pleased as punch so far.
 
Now the pipe piles. This is where everything really came together for me. I just hit this with a super heavy dry brush of boltgun metal. I imagine spraying them silver and washing with Agathran Earthshade or Nul Oil would work too. The pipes looked good like this. I was up in the air too about rusting them up, but I am glad I didn't. These would be unused pipes ready for repairs or future work on the facility.
Then boom. Snow. I took some white glue and rubbed it on the highest surfaces, where the snow would settle. There would be snow on these things because there is no super-hot goop flowing through them. They are just cold, cold metal.

Man, I love the look. They look cold. Harsh.


They are plenty big too. You could hide pretty much anything besides a RipTide/Wraithknight behind them and expect LOS to be blocked. They would still obscure an awful lot of those models.
Up next is the pool. Something I've been avoiding purposefully because I thought this could be the hardest part. I was going to try a couple of techniques here that I had either read about or thought of on the spot... chances for failure: high.
The first pool, I tried something that I guess turned out okay, but will probably change in the future. The second pool turned out much better, so I'll probably do something like that. So I decided to use Elmer's clear school glue, water and paint. I mixed them up until I made a decent thick liquid and poured that into the pool. This is Dark Green from the Vallejo line.

Then I spurted in the goblin green and swirled it around a little bit. I would let this dry overnight.

 
 For the second one, I wanted to try Secret Weapons Miniatures clear water effects. It comes in a little squeeze bottle, so I bought two. The plan was to paint "depth" onto the pool then cover it with the water effects. This is after one bottle and allowing it to dry for 24 hours. What happened was the clear stuff either sucked into the wood/paint or it slid under the foam a bit. None-the-less, it really didn't work.

So when in doubt, add more. I poured on my second bottle and let it dry... then boom! It looked awesome! Even little bubbles formed here and there, not by design but my chance. It turned out amazing. Proper depth, right look, hard as a rock. As a bonus, these turned out to be perfect places to roll dice for each player.
The last step on the board was to snow up the hills then I would be done for the most part... except for the refinery. I will be honest, I haven't even drawn up plans yet for it, so part 8 might be some ways off.
Some "completed" shots. I tried some "rust" on the "hot" pipes that I need to redo. I might just re-dry brush them boltgun metal and give them another go. My technique on my Death Guard for rust is to stiple on brown then orange. That works good on small things, not so much for large things. I might have to bust out some actual "rust effects" from Forgeworld or something like that.

Another view! Happy with the results.

Well, that does it for me today. I hope you've enjoyed the journey as much as I did. Perhaps you could draw some inspiration from it. Perhaps we can play on it someday. Who knows?
Till next time, take care!