Not all my hobby work goes
into building and painting miniatures, and tabletops. I also throw my glove
into the ring when it comes to scenery construction and painting as well. Below
are some examples of scenery I have worked on.
Games-Workshop
Cities of Death ruins
Ruined
Building converted into Ork HQ for WH40K CityFight
These
are two of the building ruins made by Games-Workshop for the WarHammer 40,000
miniatures game. These models come in separate pieces and can be built in any
number of different ways and designs. These two pictured below are the standard
designs for these two sets. They are also painted (pretty much) stock colours
as shown on the GW websites. The two ruins are based on 3mm thick MDF board and
coated with PVA glue and fine river sand. The bases are then undercoated black,
and drybrushed in three layers. 1st – Codex Grey. 2nd –
Fortress Grey. 3rd – Skull White. A very simple way to show an
Ashland-type appearance.
This
simple fuel refinery is made from a couple of multipart plastic kits. To get
the bare metal look, I simply undercoated the building in black then drybrushed
over the black a heavy coat of Tin Bits, followed by a light coat of Boltgun Metal.
Details were then added, such as the warning logo’s on the large tanks. The
base was painted in the same way as the ruins above.
This
building was most definitely a labour of love. Completely scratch built from
MDF, plasticard, and spare ‘bitz’. The template for this building can be found
on the GW website. I heavily modified the templated wall sections to show the
damaged tops and edges. The tiles on the floor and levels are made from plasticard,
as is the Imperial Eagle on the front of the building. The reinforcements on
the outside of the walls are leftover parts from the Cities of Death (CoD)
ruins at the top of this page. The crashed Rhino was donated to the cause by my
friend Jim.
With the basic ruin shape done and the tiles in place, I got started on sealing the whole project in 3 layers of cheap black spraypaint. Once that was all dry, I then painted the crashed Rhino (tank) and it’s separated parts with Ultramarine Blue, and also the Imperial Eagle with Burnished Gold and applied a brown Ink ‘wash’ to the finished gold paintjob. The edges of the eagle were then highlighted with shining gold and lightly drybrushed with Mithral Silver. The bullet holes in the eagle logo were made with a cross-head screwdriver lightly tapped into the plasticard, then rotated 90 degrees and tapped again. This gives a nice ‘*’ shaped hole and looks quite effective. This can also be done to vehicles to give the appearance of small arms fire. The tiles were painted Ultramarine Blue and Bleached Bone. At this point I also painted the base. (Using the same steps as the CoD ruins at the top of the page).
In an attempt to give the appearance of the Rhino having gone out of control and crashing through the front doors of this ruin, I had to first make the 2 doors. 5mm thick MDF cut to size, and 1.5mm thick plasticard applied to the door shapes to make the tiles/eagle/frames of the doors. To further the effect of being rammed into by the wayward tank, I bent one of the doors before applying the plasticard details.
A
test placement of the final location of the doors and then onto painting. In
the 2nd pic below I added a smoke spire with a fire still burning in
the tank. This is simply made from Steel Wool which was undercoated black and
drybrushed basically the same way as I do the bases for my buildings. Then I
attempted (and failed) to drybrush the lower part of the smoke spire to make it
look like a fire was burning… Ah well. The good thing is, it is removable.
With my ruin and crashed tank in place and painted it was time to ‘Orkify’ the building. First a plasticard ‘tent/shack’ and plasticard armour plates for the windows. Oh and some Orky teeth to go over the Eagle Logo. Different types of plasticard were used for this. Thickness’s and textures.
After adding other details such as the antenna, wires, etc. I got to painting everything and glued it all in place. The final building sees quite a lot of battle and has been defended by my greenskins successfully on many many occasions.
The
photos above are only some of the ones taken of this build during the process.
For a complete range of pics please go to http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/40kOrks/Buildings/Looted%20Kommand%20Bunker/
. There you will see many more pics of different parts of the above ruins.
Easily
my biggest non-table project I have ever attempted. This building is only
really usable in Appocalypse games of 40K. Due to the sheer size of it. The total
length of the building (base end to base end) is just short of 24”. Over 12”
wide and a hight of over 10”. Why did I build something so massive? Because I
could and I wanted to try and see what an aircraft hanger would look like if
Orks got to it.
The
skeleton of the hangar is made from 3mm thick MDF as is the base. In order to
hold everything in position I placed ‘runners’ along both sides of the base.
These would be camouflaged at a later date with sand, rocks, and debris. The
large metal plates/tiles on the floor were cut from 1mm thick plasticard and
first layed in place to get a guide for spacing and placement. The tiles were
then glued to a skin of 0.2mm thin plasticard and once they were all painted,
the skin of plates was placed inside the skeleton and glued to the baseboard.
With the basic shape and the floor in place, my mind wandered. As it often does, and I begun work on ideas for interior details. Check out the professional looking drawings (read: scribbles) for ideas of what to line the sides of the garage with. With that mind wander out of the way, I then had to think of what to use for a skin for my hangar skeleton. I knew I wanted corrugated steel. Then it dawned on me. A thick cardboard box (reinforced type). I tore one open and ‘skinned’ the corrugated cardboard inside. With a healthy coating of black paint and heavy drybrushing of Tin Bits and BoltGun Metal, I got my corrugated metal look. A large exhaust fan (read: Computer Power Supply fan), and some Plasticard armour plates, and my garage/hangar was starting to take shape.
One small problem… Well actually a large problem, 2 of them. My gigantor hands. Reaching inside this behemoth and attempting to move minis and tanks through it was going to be a problem, a major one. Simple fix. Cut off the roof! Mask the cut with the armour plates, and no-ones the wiser.
Time to add exterior details. Two large sheets of corrugated steel (the doors) were laid down on the baseboard and glued into position. Random ‘bitz’ and some not so random power supply type constructions, plus a lot of small rocks and sand, and the base of the garage was now done. I then added some ‘go faster’ red to the armour plates. My hangar was well underway. But it was missing… Lots!
While I was busy painting up the details on the exterior of the base, I realised that I had left the hangar undefended. Best way to defend it would be to have some of my Orks stationed on the roof, in a heavily fortified position of course. The basic shape was made from Plasticard with some flat floor panels from the sets used to make the Fuel Refinery above. A sign to show all those visitors who was doing all the work, and the hangar was now personalised and defended. But how did the ‘defenders’ get up to those nice gun boxes? Oops.
Ladders! That’s how. Thick square tubed plasticard was used to construct the ladders and the rungs were placed an inch apart from each other (well, as close as possible anyways). Now the boys had access to their gun boxes.
With the exterior now fully completed and making sense, I got started on the interior details of the garage. Operating from my professional blueprints above (*cough gag*) I got to building the different items that made up a busy garage. First things first, a vehicle hoist complete with diagnostic computer.
Of course, if I have a place that can build repair loot vehicles, then I had better be able to replace the rubber the vehicles use to get around. So then came a tyre rack and wheel alignment machine. And what’s a garage without gas tanks and air tanks, and a engine hoist and workbench?
With the timely release of the new Ork Warbikes and Trukk plastic kits, I found myself with copious amounts of the old Ork Warbikes and wheels and tires. First things first, a bike rack – Orky style! I figured getting the bikes up and down from such a high rack would require something more than just an oversized Ork, so I built Da Lifta!
With machines and places for all his workers to use and work in, I thought it a good time to make that special area where the Big Mek can go in relative peace and quiet. Where he can contemplate all those worky things, and a place where he can kick a Gretchin in privacy. So the Big Meks office was made. What’s an office without paperwork and a desk? A cupboard! Lot’s of blueprints filled my head so I put them on a table instead.
With the interior details now built, it was time to paint everything up.
With all the painting done, it was time to put everything in place and secure the lot for gaming.
The
photos above are only some of the ones taken of this build during the process.
For a complete range of pics please go to http://s137.photobucket.com/albums/q231/DarkFather69/40kOrks/Buildings/Meks%20Workshop/
. There you will see many more pics of different parts of the above
hangar/garage.
