Tuesday, June 26, 2012

New Table: The Crystal Desert


I took a break from painting last week to build a new terrain set. You got a sneak peak of it if you read this report

I have a bunch of the tie-dyed fleece cloths from JoAnn's Fabrics and I've been wanting to get complete terrain sets for each one.  It's been a project I've put off for months and this new foam cutter the NOVA guys are using has me inspired.




So I've got two of these brown cloths and needed inspiration so here's what I came up with before I got started.


I like the ideas of plateaus but I'll have to make them shorter and more playable.


From this one I wanted to use the cracked earth texture.


Organic curves and wind-worn feel.


Dried out grasses and undergrowth struggling in a harsh environment.

Here's what I came up with.  It's not magazine quality, but my normal requirements of saving time and money applied.  This table was done in about 8 days worth of free time (2-4hrs per day).


All pieces have multiple levels.  Everything is blue foam (1") or pink foam (2") cut on the foam cutter shown above.


Everything is also airbrushed.  The ground pieces use dark brown, burnt sienna, honeycomb, and parchment (FolkArt).  The cracks are from a stencil I cut in plasticard and airbrushed dark brown/pure black mix.  I used lichen, moss, GF9 rubble, and GW tufts to add finer details.


The crystals and different rock levels are tall enough to give cover to all MC's and non-flyer vehicles.  It's not quite 25% yet, but definitely playable.  I'm waiting to see what 6th ed brings to finish up the set.  Maybe a creepy crystal forest ooooooooh!  I don't care what people say, I like the cheesy random stuff.


Anyways, I hope you like it.  It was definitely enjoyable to put together.  Come to DaBoyz GT 2012 if you want to see/play on it in person!

6 comments:

  1. Looks awesome mate, well done!

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  2. Looks good. Simple, but very effective. I'm sure I'll see it at a tourney eventually.

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  3. Damn dude that looks great for something so nice and easy to store(well the crystals might be more difficult but still better than tiles of terrain).

    The colours match your nids perfectly.

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  4. That's really cool, it has a style to it that's almost cartoonlike but without the cel animation black outlines. I love the different heights in the rocks which adds variety without needing angled cuts. I'm not 100% convinced about the crystals coming through the stone without some sort of debris or surface rupture around the base. Although I'm not sure how you would do that and still retain the cleanliness of what you've done so far.

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  5. Thanks guys.

    @ redscorps ~ Yeah it's actually easier to store than any of my other tables. The crystals are foam on foam so regular elmer's glue does the trick. The funny thing is I got the cloth almost 2 years ago when I started basing my tyranids to make a table that matches them. Now I'm in the process of repainting and re-basing the tyranids which will no longer match.

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  6. Oh yeah that's right I remember seeing you do that! Oh well, it does look blody good regardless.

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