So the first two pictures are just the overview of the ruins themselves. After all was said in done, the widths are 1' by 1' and its just under 7" tall.
Here are some close up shots of some of the details. After I had primed and painted it, it looked a little bland. I wanted this piece of terrain to be used in multiple skirmish games (LOTR:SBG and Mordheim mostly), and after viewing some of the terrain people other people had done for they're Mordheim games, I've noticed its the little details that really pop out. Since Mordheim is the "City of Damned" after getting hit with a comet, the terrain needs to have that "hint of death" to it. So, I added a few skulls here and there and a few broken swords, axes, and war hammers to give it more character. I think these little details definitely add alot to the piece.
After I had done the bulk of the work, I was looking at the piece and I wondered "How would guys be able to get up to the second level and move from one side of the building to the other. I have a lot of balsa wood laying around from one of my scratch built buildings I've yet to complete still, so I decided to make a little catwalk. After cutting it out and gluing it together, I cut the sharp edges and scored it with my knife to give it a more "worn" look. After doing that, I remember looking at other project involving balsa wood being used for planking and I really liked the idea of putting something like nails protruding from where the boards were hammered together. I've seen where people just put a blob of green stuff, then painting it silver and calling it a day, but I wanted a more "authentic" look to it. I decided to take a paperclip (2 to be exact) and shoved them thru the two pieces of wood then snipping it like 2mm above where it was sticking out of the wood. I really liked this effect, and wanted to give it a paint job that really made the wood stand out, opting for dark warm brown and tan tones.
Now the second problem I faced was how the hell were guys going to get up to the second levels? I toyed with idea of carving a ladder out of balsa, but wanted something a little different plus I want the bottom to feel like a bigger open space for battle. I opted to have a rope hastily tied to one of the cut off beams. Problem was is I didn't have any authentic looking rope material to use. I had some lightweight gauge wire laying around, so I cut 5 pieces of the same length, twisted them together, used a ton of superglue to fix it to the bottom of the beam (out of sight), and let it cure overnight. After it cured, I painted where the glob of superglue was the same color as the plank, wrapped the wire around the plank, primed it black, and painted it mid to light tone tan colors. I think both the catwalk and the rope turned out fantastic.
Now here is a few shots of some minis on it to give a sense of the scale.
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| Aragorn fights a vicious morannon orc on the the catwalk while the battle is joined below by a small band of dwarf rangers |
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| The dwaves engage the menacing foes |
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| The struggle on the catwalk continues |
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| nevermind the half painted Goblin King in the background, hes just chilling while he waits for more paint |
Overall, this project was alot of fun and now I think I'm ready to tackle my scratch built Mordheim building I started 6 months ago but lost interest 30% into it. Its been sitting on my shelf in my living room as a reminder that I still have a lot of work to do on it. I eventually want to have a full 4' x 4' ruined city board to play Mordheim on. I also think it can dual purpose for a game of LOTR:SBG since I'm a big fan of lots of terrain being on the board for any table top wargame. Part of the reason I love this hobby is creating awesome looking terrain which is a whole different animal than painting miniatures, with different styles and techniques. We'll see where we go from here.
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