Chaos Altar 28 mm

So what to do with the ball at the centre of the aquatic moss ball or indeed the spikes from the same ball?

Sometimes you just see potential in a piece of scrap add two stones, place the spikes correctly then thread your pentagon in place.

The prayer flags are just strips of paper printed with gobbledygook, reduced in size and then cut out, ink washed and then cut at the bottom to look frayed.

There were some interesting cracks in the stones, a little red paint in them and we are oozing blood.

Jungle terrain

Some years ago I decided to create some scenery for 40k, we are talking 3rd-4th edition.
At the time the rules on LOS were more liberally understood the area of terrain was considered to be the jungle edge and you could only see 2" in, anything beyond that or behind the scenery base was out of LOS. Later versions of 40k played if you could see it you could shoot it. Scenery therefore had to be more substantial if you wanted it to block LOS.

After a hiatus in gaming of two years I came back to my scenery and found it has been mouse chewed and soiled. (it had been stored in an outdoor shed) apparently there was no room in the house.

The original layout had been three pieces of terrain that worked individually or could be grouped to make one large piece. I'd done this by cutting the bases out of a single piece of 6mm mdf using a jigsaw.

No the picture isn't washed out, but the flock had come off  and it looked tired. In addition I had learnt new skills. So it was time for a full refurbishment.

When I first created them the supply of scenery items was from a florist supplier, this warehouse had occasional sales and I accessed my materials there.

I've since discovered plastic aquarium plants, although one of their biggest faults is a lack of height, However I worked out a way to get height, I also used plastic xmas tree branches.

Using a painting brush I removed the dust and debris, cleaned it up best I could. I then applied PVA where I wanted rough stone areas and then sprayed black undercoat over the entire model to sterilize it. Dry brushed the stones with two shades of grey in two stages, then applied PVA and flocked those 'grass' areas I wanted.

The aquatic plants usually come attached to a mat, a ball or individually based on 'stones'. I avoid the individual pieces as they are more expensive. If you look closely you can see the plastic is assembled using small spikes onto which the individual elements are pushed, I gently pull these apart with the intent to reassemble the elements onto a kebab stick or dowel.

First I drill a hole into the base where I want the 'tree/bush' cut a length of kebab stick and glue it in the hole if you get the drill size right it's a tight fit, a quick wash of brown for the dowel and then I push on the plant material, adding further pieces separating them as I see fit to produce my tree.










By using different plants you can produce quite a variety.

In some instance the dowel mab no more than 10mm high in others 60 mm.

Sometimes the elements break off or like the xmas tree elements have no hole to thread so I drill holes to size and glue in with PVA or 'No Nails'.

The stone slabs in the picture are simple squares cut from a cereal box.




If you do enough you can create quite an interestingly terrained tabletop. Of course it's up to you to decide if LOS is stopped by terrain pieces or not, but with enough as shown below, you can use actual LOS

Alien Trees 28 mm

What sort of tree would you expect to find on Larisa third world of Betelgeuse 3?  I don't know either as I've not been yet, but I'd be surprised if they were like Earth's or indeed the ones below.
However I've never seen serious attempts at alien trees so thought I'd give it a go.

First off you need the inspiration and I saw it at 'Homebase' a dried floral bouquet.

The heads of the 'flowers' were obviously 'made' in some way and looked 'alien'.


I had previously made trees using wire and string and resorted to the same idea, odd numbers of wire were twisted together, spread out at the bottom so I could stand/glue the tree to a base.



Why odd numbers? Look around you, nature rarely has an even number of petals, leaves etc and even will always look wrong.

I started from the trunk and wrapped the string around the wire until I had the desired width and then tied it off at the end, I was going to cut it off neatly but saw the potential of dangling roots so left it long.



 I then wrapped string along the main trunk thickening at the bottom then coated it all with PVA to hold the string in place. I rather liked the effect and didn't want to hide it under caulk.



I'd earlier cut out some MDF, same shaped bases I'd left over from before. I used a router to make depressions for pools on the bases.

Placing any stone and grit with PVA I then undercoated the whole black.

Following the alien theme and being an Iron Warriors player I decided this might be a Chaos planet or one slowly converting.
Certainly it was scorched so I left the undercoat in place, dry brushing the rocks/grit grey, then added patches of PVA for scorched grass flock.  I dry brushed the trunks grey and then dry brushed the balls white to lighten the subsequent red and highlighted with orange. The end effect was darker than I liked but worked.

The pools were painted red then I poured PVA over and left it to dry, cheap water effect.
For some reason unknown now I wanted extra contrast so put on some snow flock.

For a 28 mm Cedar of Lebanon look here