Ok, so I've been on the boards for best part of a year now and have yet to put any serious paint on anything. When I first came on board in about April I was looking to put together a Tau force but for one reason or I found some Tyranids and some Imperial Guard first. I've convinced myself that these are to be used to get my mates into the game and not due to any pokemon style tendencies I may have.

Anyway, I digress...

I'm going to aim at 500 points of Tyranids per month up to 3000 points then I'll start on the Tau. At the moment I can see it falling into two parts, infantry and anything that doesn't need converting first, then the bigger beasts, who, conveniently are worth more points!!

So, wish me luck!

Good luck! And will look forward to seeing the results.

_________________
Army projects:
Iyanden Eldar - complete
Hive Fleet Scorpio - complete
Ulthwé Eldar - complete
Nova Guard Titan Legion - complete
Crimson Fists Space Marines - complete

Who are you kidding, release the Pikachu within you. Submit to the wonderful models that seem to be coming far too often.

Anyway, best of luck to you.

/Fredmans

Ok, so it's looking like I may have to play a joker already!! I should get 500 points based up by the end of the week but the chances of them seeing paint aren't looking good.

But... I haven't been totally idle. Hobby time's been spent constructing a modular board this month, I hoped to get it finished over Christmas but a young family put paid to that idea!!

So this is what I've started with, the first three of a possible six 4'x2' boards that should give a good base for games of all scale, though it will most likely be epic and warmaster.

And this is how they look after texturing with Wickes' sharp builders sand, sieved to remove any of the really large bits...





If you're interested in how they were constructed, I followed the method from here:

http://www.quindia.com/studioart31.htm

I had to use insulation boards though as pink foam wasn't readily available. Lots of sanding to get them to sit flush with the frame, very messy but not hard. I ended up spending about £40 and I still have the materials for a fourth board which will probably end up being a plain one so I can play without a river if needs be. If I ever want to play Infinity or 40k on them, I plan on making some wider road sections that can sit on top of the ones on the board itself.

Hope you like!!

What he said!

Very promising start!

_________________

Jeez - has it really been four weeks!!

Anyway, I think I've taken them as far as I'm going to right now. Overall though I fairly pleased with the results and the modularity. I made the green hit the edges of each board at regular intervals so no matter what the configuration it should pretty much line up.

So here they are, in a variety of configurations:







I'd say they're pretty much done apart from the river which will get a shade from green/yellow at the edges through turquoise to deep blue/black in the middle and then be covered with clear resin. When I do this in a couple of weeks I may well add another thin layer of sand on some of the edges where the frame is visible (if you're looking for it!) and redo those small patches and also add some rocky patches (khaki/devlan mud) and grassy patches (goblin green/dark green wash) just to add some more colour variation.

I still have the materials for a fourth board, I'm undecided whether to add another plain board so I can play without a river at all or do one with a 90 degree river bend so the river doesn't have to go straight on one side ad off the other. I'm leaning towards the extra river section to be honest, you don't see enough rivers on boards!!

C+C welcome...

And another couple that show off the contours a bit more, that's not toally clear on the other pics...

Nicely done!

_________________
Army projects:
Iyanden Eldar - complete
Hive Fleet Scorpio - complete
Ulthwé Eldar - complete
Nova Guard Titan Legion - complete
Crimson Fists Space Marines - complete

Looking good.

_________________
Mickey's Minis Painting Service: http://www.mickeysminis.com
Mickey's Minis on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MickeysMinis
Mickey's Minis Blog: http://mickeysminis.blogspot.co.uk
My Personal Blog: http://mickeysminishome.blogspot.co.uk

River bank is looking fantastic.

_________________
Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

Like those boards really nice.

What colours did you use please?

_________________
Vanguard Miniatures

Link, http://vanguardminiatures.co.uk/

Stockist of:

Vanguard Miniatures
BattleGroup Helios
Onslaught Miniatures
Pyrkol Gaming Markers
Gregster's Lab
Microworld Games
Troublemaker Games

I made up the colours as I went along really but pretty much this:

1. Base coat of Plasti-kote Chocolate brown.
2. Airbrush of Vallejo Beasty Brown then Vallejo Heavy Brown, this didn't do as much as I thought it might and took an absolute age but it did break up the dark brown and serve as a decent base.
3. Then I got a bunch of colours colour matched down at Homebase; Vallejo Khaki, bone white, plague brown, graveyard earth-ish, cayman green and dead flesh.

Then it all went a bit jazz odyssey!!

4. Drybrushed khaki then bone white - didn't like that too much so I drybrushed it with plague brown.
5. Then it was looking too yellow so I washed the whole thing with watered down earth. Then washed watered down cayaman green over some of the brown and filled that with some solid patches of cayman green.
6. Drybrushed the brown with Khaki and the green with Dead flesh
7. Didn't like that too much so I drybrushed the brown with earth to bring it back down again and the green with some "olive" I found knocking about, a little darker than Vallejo camouflage green. Then drybrushed khaki over the brown.

And that's where it is now!! I think at some point I'm going to drybrush the green in something approaching goblin greeen maybe? I'm also seriously considering taking to the brown with some green wash to equalise the colours a bit more. Really not sure and any advice would gladly be taken at this point!! I'm going to leave it for a week or so anyway and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Oh, and the roads were based plague brown, devlan mud wash, khaki and bone white drybrush, earth wash, khaki drybrush and devlan mud wash.

As you can see, I went back and forth a few times on the first board and then had to repeat it on the others so they'd colour match - I actually think this probably helped break it up quite nicely in the end. I saw something on TV recently shot in the Panamanian jungle that reminded me of this palette which is encouraging - I always imagined my Tyranids fighting in a jungle!!

Overall I'm pretty happy with it but if anyone's got any ideas what they might do with it, I'm all ears!!