sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 28, 2018 1:01:32 GMT
You might want to add some tech looking bits to the pieces. Fans, wires, control panels, and the like. It is more of what ties it more into the universe. Absoloutely, I'll add them on after I get the main building done, then weathering. Thinking about a third with a cloth awning like a vendor stall, or second floor. Thank you! You might want to do it over the matchstick details. Those currently look somewhat out of place for the building style and detract from the rest of the look. You really don't have features like that with the stucco buildings like those for Tattooine because it would likely end up breaking off in reality, and force massive repair work. They are the right positioning for using some of the straw type coffee stirrers or even just use clad wire for post plaster detail work. The larger shapes are great though for it and look right for the planet.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 27, 2018 5:43:28 GMT
You might want to add some tech looking bits to the pieces. Fans, wires, control panels, and the like.
It is more of what ties it more into the universe.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 24, 2018 17:14:59 GMT
Well, with the large tree with a tunnel that I posted some on a long while ago, well, I ended up basing it due to the underside of it warping heavily on me. Before I'd used a piece of paper marked up to show the tunnel so that I could just pick up during play to use it, so I used a bit of grey on the top to mark the tunnel since the top was blacked out in order to show it as something to largely ignore and let you imagine them going way up without needing the hassle of the massive height needed. Based it to match the others after needing to repaint the majority of it anyway.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 19, 2018 13:28:43 GMT
I'd suggest a bit more weathering of other types as a way to massively improve it. The structure part of it is really good and making me think of making something similar for Legion, but it's in that odd mix of being both to weathered and not weathered enough at the same time. It looks like it's been left out, but never used. Personally, I'd go with darkening the corrugated areas near the bottom without hitting the surrounding parts as a first step, possibly also the threading near the top of the plastic. The pole on top could also be brightened with a metallic. Then use some washes from areas to have other weathering and wear patterns around areas where you would have drainage or similar on it. Another thing that might help would be to find a large washer or similar and either mount it directly under it, or find something to fit in the base part of it with some weights to make it less likely to be knocked over. I've had a lot of taller things end up batted across the table by accident. That's a really good point about it being knocked over. That tends to happen a lot at my table. I actually did do some light weathering with washes, but they were either too thin, or the plastic is a bit too water resist, because they didn't show up very well. I was considering doing more weathering with a careful dry brush to see if that would show up better. I would actually appreciate some tips and techniques for weathering, too. Kind of new territory for my painting skills. You might try acrylic inks for weathering with some of it rather than normal washes. Just thinned down a bit less than normal in their use
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 18, 2018 2:26:16 GMT
I'd suggest a bit more weathering of other types as a way to massively improve it.
The structure part of it is really good and making me think of making something similar for Legion, but it's in that odd mix of being both to weathered and not weathered enough at the same time. It looks like it's been left out, but never used.
Personally, I'd go with darkening the corrugated areas near the bottom without hitting the surrounding parts as a first step, possibly also the threading near the top of the plastic. The pole on top could also be brightened with a metallic. Then use some washes from areas to have other weathering and wear patterns around areas where you would have drainage or similar on it.
Another thing that might help would be to find a large washer or similar and either mount it directly under it, or find something to fit in the base part of it with some weights to make it less likely to be knocked over. I've had a lot of taller things end up batted across the table by accident.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 17, 2018 18:55:24 GMT
You did it!! Looks fabulous! You could try pinning them, but I'm not sure how many you need to do. That would be torture to do it on 30+ Need to dig out Battlefront on Xbone now! If I do more with that type of base, I'm going to pin them. So far each squad has a different but similar basing in order to both let me identify which stormtrooper is associated with which squad while still having some unity.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 14, 2018 23:10:07 GMT
You may want to do something with the sand you have on the terrain pieces. Paint and such tends to make it blend in a whole lot better because it doesn't quite fit in with the rest...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 14, 2018 5:00:59 GMT
Went with yellow for the squad, took a few tries to get the right yellow for it. However, I ended up having a few issues with finishing the squad up. My intent was to work the bases into the smooth, reflective flooring in order to try matching it up with the floors shown on both death stars that are almost a mirror finish. It took me an hour due to only having a nearly expended sanding block I'd picked up a while ago. All of the other sand paper I have is to rough to do what I wanted. Worked the surface smooth, then using some high gloss metallic black spray paint and a high gloss varnish it looked great. Then I screwed it up by grabbing the superglue to attach the minis rather than the other glue I'd planned on using. It blobbed up and frosted right around the connection point and seemed to pull the gloss out of the rest and leave strange mix of matte and gloss. My first thought was to simply try using a bit of gloss to try fixing it, which did bring it back to the more glossy side, but it looks off now due to distortions due to not being able to get it as smooth around the feet and it has a few other issues. At the moment, I've kind of given up on directly fixing it, end result isn't horrible, and I might try again when I get some more stormies to paint up, or I might go for something else entirely. But here is Stormtrooper Yellow Squad...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 12, 2018 5:47:19 GMT
The new stormtroopers have arrived and I've gotten a good start on them.
After washing and priming them, I gave them a heavy drybrush of white before using watered down black ink to pretty much cover the entire thing. That's where I'm leaving it for the night, but the next step is to use black paint to get the black and what will be metal, then white for the armor, then the squad colors, and finishing with metals.
I'm trying to decide what color to use for this squad since I already have a red and a blue stormtrooper squad. I'm kind of torn between Yellow, Green, or Purple.
But, I'm also trying to sand down off the texture of the base to do a death star flooring basing for the squad.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 11, 2018 3:44:57 GMT
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 8, 2018 21:48:34 GMT
I have also been looking at Legion and Imperial Assault. But I'm leaning toward IA because the scale is 28mm and they would work well with the figures I have already for the Star Wars RPG. And then, when I get back to D&D I'll have deserts and swamps and giant fungus forests and--oh crap. This hobby never ends, does it? All of the terrain options mentioned work in Star Wars...and actually appeared in the movies. For example the fungus forests were on the planet that Ayla Secura died on during RotS
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 6, 2018 20:46:17 GMT
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Post by sotf on Apr 6, 2018 5:14:39 GMT
I knew it!! I have also been bitten by the Star Wars bug! Still deciding on X-Wing or Imperial Assault! Legion is something else you might consider, the full wargame stuff is fun with it
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Apr 1, 2018 2:47:21 GMT
Not very far in my Legion starter set, but I've got both stormtrooper squads and the speeder bikes done, I've also got Vader partially done (Still working out my rebels basing due to the vehicles having the sight lines on them and I'm getting some acrylic rods for Luke and Vader to replace their lightsabers). Largely did them at the store in a rush bar the basing due to the intro rewards and wanting to play the game...even with a break for lunch, all of them took 3 hours not counting the primer that I did at home, and about an hour and a half of that was going to lunch. (Used a bit of poster tack to attach them to the bases for the early games) For painting the troopers and scouts (the bikes I painted separately, and I only partially assembled the stormtroopers before painting), I did a very heavy drybrush of white over the primer, then used thinned down black acrylic ink to coat the entire mini. That's where I left them for the big break I took, though did a lot more on the bikes at that point. Then I used black to get everything that wasn't the white parts or going to be hit with the squad colors. Then came the white, which was used on the armor and parts I wanted a bright color for. Then came the color for the officer shoulder pad, the shoulder rest of the launcher troopers weapon, and the bits on the heavy troopers pack. I then used an armor (basically boltgun metal type darker metal) to go over the guns, pack, and a few other things (like the controls in the hands of the scouts). For the bikes (For the bikes I assembled them except for the foot petals which were painted separately because you need to mount the pilot before you can position them properly), I started with giving the main hull of the speeder bike and the forward fins a brown layer, the bedroll a bone layer, and the rest of it was hit with black. Then I hit most of the black areas (Only the seat and the bedroll straps remained black) with armor. Then I went in with a thinned down black acrylic ink wash over everything but the bedrolls which I hit with one using a thinned down sepia acrylic ink wash. That's when I attached the parts together for all of them and glued the flight stands for the speeder bikes to their bases Speeder Bike Squad
Red SquadBlue Squad
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 22, 2018 22:16:22 GMT
Well, got the Star Wars Legion starter set and started painting it up.
I'm kind of rushing through the Imperials first, though I'm going to end up waiting some to finish Vader as I realized my acrylic rod stock is gone and I've got to get some blue and red for Luke and Vader.
For the Imps, I'm going with a more industrial/starship style with plastic canvas along with a few other things to let me keep the etched facing lines in the vehicles without making them look out of place...might end up buying acrylic bases for the Rebels but I'm not entirely sure as of yet.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 21, 2018 17:34:27 GMT
Sweet! Thanks for the advice, sotf. I was thinking I wasn't entirely happy with the large plates. The major problem with the bolted plates that comes up is that you need to keep everything the same distance from each plate or it begins to look off. It's not worth the time and effort to make that work when there are other methods that are just as good in making the same basic effects...
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 20, 2018 23:25:23 GMT
An easier option for decking would be to use a single piece of card for the majority of it. Just use cut outs for things like the windows. If you draw out the plate markings and then use a small, hot glue gun to then trace those lines with a fine bead, you get what look to be welds.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 20, 2018 23:18:03 GMT
Yes, cardboard can be used for basing, as well. Spread the sand out into a relatively thin layer on an old cookie sheet. Bake it at 300 F, for an hour. Let it cool for an hour, afterwards, before handling it. This will kill everything in it, as well as dry it out. Cheers! Put foil over the sheet first, sand can do some damage to a lot of the cookie sheets if directly on it due to being a rather good abrasive agent. It also makes it easier to get out in the end.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 19, 2018 21:24:27 GMT
Bushes, woodpiles, crates, barrels, and the like work. Same with larger rocks or rockpiles.
If you take some corrugated cardboard and remove one side of the cladding and roughly texture/reinforce it with some hot glue, then further texture it with white glue and sand...well, you get a rather good looking field as a result.
But if you're going with just green paint for a board, flocking it with some cheap flocks is one of the better options, not static grass though. Get some of the larger tubs of railroad flock and the stuff will last you forever.
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sotf
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Post by sotf on Mar 18, 2018 7:42:15 GMT
Depending upon what you want, some of the cheap trees and such from the cheap animal/dinosaur/soldier sets might be something you could use. There's several pretty good palm trees that you can remove the fronds from for some excellent ferns of differing sizes. Others can be used as is or even chopped down and used with some of the thicker sawdust/foam flocks to make some great bushes or similar.
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