I’ve been meaning to experiment with foam insulation sheets for terrain for a long time. I finally decided to give it a go, with rocky chunks for Lunar and Rangers of Shadow Deep as the focus.
These blocks are intended to plausibly exist either as lunar rock formations (possibly including placement by astronauts) or as barren rocky ground. I cut a bunch of blocks of foam with a hot wire cutter, then trimmed them to vaguely rocky shapes.
These are similar, but with an earthy vegetation base, clearly don’t belong on the moon. I think all the rocks are a success, although they may not be masterful.
This barrow hill I consider a failure. Though I’m not tossing it just yet. I started doing the brickwork texture by just pressing with a pen, but that lead to tearing. For the rest I cut it with a hobby knife then opened up the gap with a pen, which worked much better. The hill part isn’t very smoothly cut either. By the time I got to paint and surface texture I knew it was a loser, so didn’t spend much time on it. I’ll have to give it another go and try to refine the shape more.
From time to time I’ll reach into the hobby vault to feature models painted before I started this blog.
These Incubi are from the much-hated Finecast era of Games Workshop, complete with both bendy and crack-prone swords. Still, they turned out mostly okay.
The helmet and horns were one of my early successes with a wash and drybrush to get decent shading. The glowing eyes look good on the table, but don’t stand up well to closeup photos.
From time to time I’ll reach into the hobby vault to feature models painted before I started this blog.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted old work. Lets show off some old Kabalite Warriors.
Kabalite Warriors (green, group 1)
The Dark Eldar was my second 40k army, after Space Marines, of course.
Kabalite Warriors (green, group 2)
I painted the base edges color coded to match squad-specific sigils for their transports. The thinking was I could easily track which unit was in which transport, especially since that could change as the game progressed.
Kabalite Warriors (red, group 1)
Looking back years later, I still like the bright edge highlights, though I wish it were more evenly applied. Sometimes you can really see the paint.
My Rangers of Shadow Deep vision is to made some small thing for each game, and over time build up a library of terrain, markers, and models. Of course, that theory led to over a year between games, since I tend to get hobby sidetracked. But here we are.
Web Cocoon markers
This was inspired by a half-remembered YouTube video I’m not finding again. The cocoons are made with Crayola Model Magic, which air-dries into a lightweight form. On top of that is stretched web material like you’d put on your house for Halloween. The bases are made with white glue, sand, and toilet paper.
The bases are definitely the weak part I did not like any aspect of working with it. If I did this project again, I’d probably just use wooden circles or something, with sand or other basing materials I use for models.
But I can’t be too precious with these. The goal is to get it done so I can play the game. And done they are.
