Terrain Ruins Project

One things that i noticed about Epic/40k when i started building models and terrain was that often 'official' terrain was all about 'ruins'. i get that on a practical level it makes removing a roof unnecessary and thus the insides of a building more accessible but given there's not 'room rules' for Epic/40k, who cares. 

this trend is changing now with lots of unexploded terrain bits in the official range which is nice.

to my mind it seemed less compelling to be fighting over a bunch of ruins (yes i get that it's cover) compared to fighting over the functional, populated structures of imperial citizenry, or raiding still full hab-blocks for the more canabalistically minded factions.

anyway, point is that my terrain buildings to date have generally been towards 'whole structures' rather than ruins. to the point where i have a nice little outpost town available in my terrain box. 

at one stage i did make 3 coasters of ruins just because variety, and they work just fine. wanting to bolster those pieces in my kit i decided to make 5 more coasters worth and document the process while i'm at it. again, looking to highlight what you can do with 3d printed stuff.

for almost all my terrain pieces i use a standard size/pattern 'slab wall' which comes in a few sizes and patterns (windows/doors) and can be clipped together. these are all deliberately plain (sans windows/doors) as the intention is that once you build your structure you can then decorate it with stuff from your bitz box.

enough blither, this is what i made...


Build Pics...

after printing up all your slabs 'dry fit' them into pleasing patterns; do you want all the doors on one side, all the windows on one side etc. 
i went with 'square' structures for all of them due to laziness but you could also make smaller structures or 'L-shapes' as well.

take the panels and glue them into flat plates. superglue. dribble some glue into the connecting bits, 'snap' the pieces together than flatten against the workbench with a (flat) block of wood. 
i like using the plates because i'm useless cutting straight lines and if i tried making structures out of mdf they'd be too wonky and annoy me. plates help me make straight structures.

then assemble the plates into structures. with 'whole structures' i tend to take a bit more time making sure the connections are square (90 degrees) but for ruins i wasn't so picky. once the structure is solid glue them to the coaster. no roofs required.

now for the fun stuff... using a stanley knife or similar chop off the top of the structure in artistic ways. 

what's the difference here? take to the bottom parts with a dremmel (or similar). you could use a ciggy lighter, file, hot knife, sandpaper. basically anything to get the pieces nice and gnarly. 

then take the left over 'tops' and make them into inner walls, 'floors', collapsed areas and debris.

this was all that was left after decorating the ruins. theoretically you could flip over that last piece and make another ruin if you could be bothered. i couldn't.

wall plaster (out of a tube or bucket. the easier the better). starts adding a bit of shape to the base, use it to conceal the connection points, printer striation, and to help remove straight lines.  be artistic, take your time with this step, it can really help the overall effect.

texture paint. adds texture. helps fill gaps and cover print striation. a bit expensive and you could possible make your own from regular paint with plaster and/or sand mixed in. i'm lazy and i like texture paint plus i don't use much or frequently.
from memory i did two coats, a dark coat (apollo grey) over everything (fill gaps) and a lighter coat of grey (rocky dam) for the walls, which is more or less their final colour. 

astrogranite the bases (including inside, always inside) and a bit on the walls and collapses. adds texture and variety.


Basing Formula
My basing formula is pretty much what i used on the entire model (except walls which need to remain a light grey).

- 2 coats of astrogranite (1st to cover all the base areas, 2nd to add extra lumpy bits for extra dimension)
- 2 washes of agrax, liquid but not leaving pools
- 1 dry brush baneblade brown (medium to light effect)
- 1 dry brush screaming skull (medium to light effect)
- edges of coaster with steal legion drab

this is what i use for all my Epic stands... and all other models for that matter. Yes, i use citadel paint, force of habit, easy to get, and i'm not that discerning when it comes to paint, i like consistency of colour and availability over artisan shading...

this one has the agrax washes added. so make sure you wash and dry brush the astrogranite bits on the walls and inner parts too, you don't want them pristine. 

end result

i managed to use up the last of my static grass (yhay). would have preferred a second shade of static grass as well but had used up my 'dry' ones on a previous project. 

at this stage you could add fallen aquilas, busted up tanks, statues (28mm models work great) or whatever to the models. i intend as a future project to revisit all my terrain structures and add some pretty but i'm not in a rush as it's also nice to have less gribbles to catch fat, clumsy fingers on. 

these particular terrain pieces are notably different to my original three (they are in real life anyway). 
for my original pieces i was mainly using regular ol' art acrylic paints rather than modelling paint. i also took a bit more time to finesse them. basically working slower and more thoughtfully due to it being a new concept.
but when i'm working on 'art' projects i'm not that fussed by a bit of variation as the pieces aren't intended to be uniform anyway. 
provided the pieces look good on the table and help the overall, immersive effect, who cares?

until next time...