Wednesday 5 November 2014

Istvaan III Table: Crater Tiles

Keepy here,

It's been a while between drinks on ye olde blog, I have recently discharged from the Australian Defence Force after a fifteenth year stint and have been busy sorting that as well as trying to transition into the real world... Feels great! I should be back on the blog fairly regularly now with most of the turmoil done, leaving a bit of room for hobby - Huzzah!

Instead of ripping into yet another building I have gone with a couple of destroyed buildings, or more specifically their foundations. I made two of these to add to the destroyed / war torn city effect, as well as cutting down the dollar count on the amount of parts I needed for full buildings. Besides, it makes sense that a few buildings would be leveled in all out city warfare.

Here is the first one, It starts simply enough with the GW Moonscape craters at the center of the cork foundation. I put the crater on top of the foundation to give it a "lifted" or shattered feel, like a shell had went a few feet into the ground then detonated.




Ruins were then fitted and pinned to the cork in the corners to give perspective of the building that once stood proud on it's foundations:


 



Once the building pieces were fitted, I tore out a few chunks of the foundation to add to the destroyed feel. I then scattered a few pieces of destroyed ruin, I beams, and left over plasticard all over the ruin, then as a finishing touch I added a rubble mix consisting of torn up cork, 1/35 model bricks, stones and sand. This worked really well and gave the whole piece the post apocalyptic / Istvaan III look.






Really happy with how it went, however I think it sits too high on the foundation. To counter this, I did a bit of modification to the next crater by fitting the foundation around the blast area rather than just sat on top:






Once the position was finalised, I followed the same process as the first crater and came up with this:







A little bit of rubble and hey presto:








Really happy with how these turned out, they are surprisingly easy to make and look really effective as battlefield terrain.

Well that is all from me for now, it feels great to get back into the hobby and do some posting on the Blog, I really hope you enjoyed this post. As always, your comments and critiques are more than welcome. If you have any ideas or other ways to make destroyed ruins like these, I would be more than happy to hear about them.

Talk soon


Keepy

Links:

http://www.back2base-ix.com


Istvaan III Table: Concept and Design
Istvaan III Table: Battleframe 5000 Tile Construction
Istvaan III Table: Battleframe 5000 Tile Construction Complete!
Istvaan III Table: Road Sections
Istvaan III Table: Bell Tower
Istvaan III Table: Proxy Fit 1
Istvaan III Table: Governor's Residence
Istvaan III Table: Proxy Fit 2
Istvaan III Table: Habitation Block + Back2Base-ix Promo!
Istvaan III Table: Crater Tiles
Istvaan III Table: Building and RampTiles
Istvaan III Table: Battle Damaged Roads
Istvaan III Table: Table Update
Istvaan III Table: Comms Tower

4 comments:

  1. I really love that you are back. I discovered this blog some days ago and read all your past blog entries but was worried that the blog came to a bit of a hold and wouldn't get updated in the same pace.

    @terrain: I like your tiles, but two questions:
    1) How big are your tiles? Mine measure 2' by 2' (or better 600x600 mm) and once they were done they were kinda heavy because of the sand.
    2) One might wonder why you buy the craters in the first place because you cover most of it with your rubble anyway. Do you have plans to model the craters yourself?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Arachn4!

    As with most people, life takes priority over hobby. I have a bit of time up my sleeve now so I am making the most of it while I can.

    To answer your questions: I have two sizes of tile, 1' x 1' (300mm x 300mm) and 6" x 6" (150mm x150mm). The tiles have come from a company called Back 2 Base-ix (link at the end of the post) and come in an MDF flatpack you have to assemble. More info on these are covered in the Battleframe 5000 Tile Construction post. They don't weight that much standard and because I am using cork and not that much sand there is not much additional weight at all.

    I used the plastic craters as a starting point. I have never built anything like this before so it was a bit of pioneering with how to construct them. Now I have done it I would probably build the craters out of cork.

    Glad you are liking the posts, I have a couple more in the pipeline for the next few days!

    ReplyDelete
  3. First off congrats on your 15 years of service! Ive done 10 with the US and had a few chances to work with Australian forces and its been amazing every time!!

    Second, your terrain is amazing! I may or may not end up stealing some ideas from this for use on my FW cityscape boards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Blue! Congrats on your 10 years too, I have had the privilege of working with the US on many occasion both at home and overseas and have never had a dull moment!

      Imitation is the best form of flattery, so if you see something you like or can improve on then go for it! I would also be interested to see how you go so send over some pics.

      Delete