Hobby Time (Aug17)

We've been doing a bit of terrain making as of late which is a lot of fun.  The kids like smashing together a ruined building or two, getting to do some spray painting, gluing, etc - you can't really go wrong and it's a very quick process.

Nova Corp Marines patrol a Banksia grove whilst being observed by IMEF forces.

The weird looking things behind the Nova Corp Marines are our newly minted alien plants.  What are they?   An Australian native shrub called a Banksia.  There's quite a few varieties and once their flowers go to seed, they look a lot  like clams on a scaley lizard's/snake's body.  Creepy, but perfect for 28mm terrain.  With Charlie's assistance I sawed off the bottom of a flower spike (technically called an inflorescence) then screwed it onto a heavy card/pulp board base.  Jez, those flower  spikes are tough to cut!  After that it was simply a case of gluing down some pebbles and there you have it - some alien plants.

The above picture uses another Australian Native's foliage, it's the nut of a Gum Tree aka Gum Nuts.  I got these babies to my shed, hit them with a course file then glued them along with a few handfuls of gravel onto a bit of card.  Sprayed the whole lot with some spray-on adhesive (I didn't have any other glue handy) and finished it off with Paddy's application of slimy blue glitter paint oozing out and around the nuts.  I think it looks rather good!  I think we'll make some more at some point.

A band of Orks make their way through the ruins... but who's that observing them from the shadows???

Finally we bashed together five bits of ruins.  The ruins were constructed out of foamcore and cardboard off cuts, kitty litter, pebbles a little plastic ladder (that might have once been on one of Charlie's many firetrucks) all held together using PVA glue.  A basecoat of black spray paint was applied, then some primarily silver acrylic paint was dabbed on using a small sponge.  Finally I made some watery brown and red paint and poured, blobbed and flicked it over various elements.  So quick and it looks pretty cool... a nice counter-point to our existing, more pristine sci-fi terrain.