Scenic Distractions V

Imperial Army Checkpoint TK 421

Not a mighty fortress just yet, but certainly enough for a security perimeter around a supply depot...

This Imperial Guard checkpoint is a perfect example of the way your hobby can spiral out of control in a constructive way sometimes if you follow your imagination.  All these items came in a sampler pack of terrain from Ender Toys Terrain which I have mentioned on this blog before.  When I first looked at buying some Ender Toys Terrain on Amazon, I was a little cautious because of how low their prices were so I bought a variety pack that contained a wide range of their terrain items so I could gauge the quality of their offerings. These pieces were primed white for a year after buying the set, but as I started taking in game pictures for this blog the bright whiteness of the bunker in particular was driving me crazy.  On a mostly basecoated board with a lot of the other terrain in various stages of painting, the primer white bunker stood out like a sore thumb.  Follow along after the jump if you want to know more about the rabbit hole I fell down thanks to these scenery items...

When you have more Heavy Bolters than you have Land Speeders why not make a gun emplacement?

So what began as an "I'll just spend a day or two throwing some paint on this bunker" very quickly snowballed into a painting project that took up the whole month of January for me.  I had done some work in blue on the tower/elevated position piece, not because I was especially interested in urban camo, but mostly because I have a lot of blue paint and don't really paint any blue armies.  Starting with the bunker and barricade, I tried to create a geometric shapes/camo pattern with triangles formed by painter's tape because I wasn't confident in my ability to paint the traditional blot shaped camo patterns that would look good.  Unfortunately after several unsuccessful attempts to make overlapping long triangles of different shades of blue in an attempt to conjure up a "tiger stripe" like pattern I had to try something else.

Since it's an Imperial outpost, I thought I should drag these two grizzled veterans of the Rogue Trader era out to pose with their checkpoint.

Sometimes repeated failure can lead you to what does work, so I took what I thought was a cheating shortcut and looked at urban Imperial Guard tank camo patterns until I found one I thought I could copy.  As is often the case with my artistic endeavors, I am far better at copying something I'm looking at than I am at creating something out of whole cloth.  The front of the bunker actually matches the camo pattern on a chimera color plate from some edition of the IG codex I found on google images, but good luck figuring out which one.  Once I painted one side of the bunker, it became easier to extend onto the other panels, and I then used that same idea on the barricade.  I even painted a semblance of the pattern on the tank traps although the different shape meant I had to hint at the idea more than replicate the camo pattern on the tines of the tank traps.

"How long have you had these droids?"  I feel like these troopers could be the weak minded Obi-Wan was referring to...

After painting the five objects in a similar style, I even experimented with a little weathering effects on the various pieces.  All of my armies are painted in what's now referred to as a "parade ground" fashion owing to most of my painting inspiration coming from the days of middlehammer.  These scenery pieces seemed like a good place to try some ideas I've been reading about on other blogs and in WD.  The bottom edge of the barricade, bunker, and tower were all washed with Agrax Earthshade, Reikland Flesh, and then Seraphim Sepia in consecutively larger blots and waves along the bottom of the structures.

Customizing generic terrain pieces can be a great use for all those random things in your bitz box.  The door control panel on the left is a piece of a Grey Knights bolter that was cut down to a section that with paint could look like buttons to operate an unseen door.

I don't know how well in shows up in the pictures but the idea was to use the darkest shade just at the bottom, then a layer of the midrange covering that and going up a little farther.  Finally with the lightest shade I covered the first two and took the lighter shade to the middle of each object.  The idea was to simulate some accumulated grime that got darker and dingier as it went down the wall of each object.  I tried to use the shades natural tendency to dry in that "wave" effect that happens when washes are used heavily.  Normally people are understandably trying to avoid that look on their minis but I though in this case it could help simulate the way dirt builds up at the bottom of building walls over time.

They're very brave if they think these tank traps are going to hold back that Land Raider heading their way...

Other than my experiments with some weathering effects, I feel like the icing on the cake linking all these scenery items together was the use of some 25 year old Imperial Guard transfers.  Many years ago when my brother and I were first playing a lot of third edition 40K, there was room in the army list for Chaos Space Marine players to take imperial guard vehicles.  My brother bought and used a Leman Russ in his CSM army for many battles but he had no use for the transfers or self stick banner that came with the kit so into my bitz box they went for a long suspended animation slumber.  Sometimes I think model building and miniature painting is one of the only hobbies where hoarding has an upside.  I have mentioned in my entries on my Dark Angels army that I've only recently using the transfers I've been storing up for twenty years or more.  The aquilas on barricade and tower piece were my first attempts at using transfers and decal solvents to add some character to my painted models.  At the time I was figuring at least if I messed any thing up it would be on scenery and I could paint over it, instead of marring the time consuming painting I do on my minis.  However the more I looked at the various imperial symbols on that transfer sheet, an idea began to coalesce in my brain. 

Besides being another way to tie it all together, I used the number decals so these scenery pieces could also be used as objectives in 40K or Kill Team.

It started with the self stick banner which had the aquila and the name Necromunda on one side, and several army group and squadron symbols on the reverse that matched transfers on the sheet.  As can be seen in the pictures I still have a couple of the plastic Imperial guardsmen that came in the original box set of "Imperial Army" troops.  The illustration on the side of that box, which specified the unit colors and insignia of the "Necromunda Spiders regiment", was another Oldhammer image that spurred hours of imagining when I was a teen.  So I decided to use the transfers and banner to link together the five pieces as an outpost or checkpoint of an imperial guard army unit, the XII Necromunda.  The army group badge, skull on a diamond, was applied to the barricade, bunker, and tower in order to match the banner.  Another element, the blue star in a filed of white inside a red box, was also applied to all three to add another element tying it all together.  The blue star inside the white box transfer lacked the red outline it had on the flag, but I feel like I was able to free hand that pretty well to match the banner.  Last I used free hand circles of yellow and put the number transfers inside, numbering the pieces one to three in case I ever wanted to use the scenery as tactical objectives in games.

In the closeup pictures you can still see the lines from the painters tape I used at first to try and create "random" lines for the failed tiger strip camo pattern.

For me, the use of the transfers to tie all the separate pieces together really fired my imagination and added a lot of fun to a project that originally started as a, "I can't stand the way that unpainted piece looks, I just have to throw some paint on it".  Frustration like that can often get me to start a painting project but rarely provides me the motivation to finish it in a satisfying way.  However when I find a fun way to bring it all together, it can lead to me not only finishing the job, but also exploring new things, like weathering and transfers.  Thanks as always for coming along for the ride, anyone who reads these incredibly long descriptions of my thought paths while modeling probably deserves a medal for valor.