November 19th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, Miniatures, hobby, web sites Comments Off
Adepticon 2010 is rolling out a strong line up of hobby seminars. Top of the line instructor are available to help take your hobby skills to the next level. Be sure to register early, the most popular seminars sell out early.
The Hirst Arts terrain seminar will be returning. I always have fun teaching this class – the seminar is all hands on and very approachable. Rest asured, I am no Golden Demon winner – working with Hirst molds is a skill anyone can learn.
April 6th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, High Seas, Hirst Arts, Terrain Comments Off
Took about 10 weeks of hard work, but I’m rather satisfied with the result. In the end, the 8×4 table was consolidated into a tightly packed 4×4 table - perfect for a skirmish game like Legend of the High Seas. The event organizer was please with the terrain & apparently the castle was a hit with the players.
Looking at the finished project, I would to add a few taller pieces. The jungle plants are nearly as tall as the castle structures - I’d like for the castle to break through the forest canopy. Guess that’s a project for next year.
March 29th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, High Seas, Hirst Arts, Painting, Terrain Comments Off
Adepticon is almost here & the castle is nearly finished. For this project, I’ve spent a lot of time painting with a sponge. Its a great little tool which completely eliminates any brush marks. With the highly textured surface of the Hirst blocks, the sponge quickly applies paint to the surface & leaves shading in the crevices unmarked. Wet blending is a snap - the sponge easily blends from color to color.
All that is left is a bit of static grass on the bases and creeper lines on the walls with flock.
Paint List
Field Stone:
Chipped Stone:
Soil:
March 17th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, High Seas, Hirst Arts, Terrain Comments Off
The pirate castle for Adepticon is finally coming together (and with 2.5 weeks to go - it better!). 25 pieces cover a 6 foot by 2.5 foot table space. When combined with jungle plants, the whole set up should fill a 8×4 gaming table. I have a lot of painting to do, but a big brush should cover a lot of ground in a hurry.
The castle layout begins with the two large round towers with the gate house ruins in between. Next is the open court, presently occupied by pirate booty in the form of wine barrels. Past the loot is the armory on the left and to the right, the chapel. Next comes the remains of the grand hall, now little more than an entrance way & a few pillars. Finally, the oldest part of the castle stands with a watch tower on the left and the corner keep on the right. The broken remains of the walls surround the fort.
Both towers below have full floors at the 4 inch level, making them fully 3D gaming pieces. The ground cover is Hirst Arts Cavern Accessory Mold #85, wooden craft barrels and resin cannon balls.
Corner Keep
Corner Keep
Armory
Watch Tower
March 11th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, High Seas, Terrain Comments Off
It is an old concept, but damn if plastic plants don’t make for super easy terrain. Take a trip out to Michael’s or Hobby Lobby stock up on:
After a few nights work, you’ll have a jungle worth of terrain to cover the gaming table. I’ve never been a fan of hot glue, but the product does a fine job of holding everything in place. 25 stands/150 glue points and I’ve had to re-glue one plant frond.
Look for this jungle to be part of the ruined pirate castle playing at Adepticon 09.
February 19th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in 40K, Adepticon, Sculpting, Terrain Comments Off
The alien has arrived & its hungry. Prepare to be infested!
5th edition 40K brings strict line of sight to the terrain rules. The solution is area terrain with defined places for all objects. A 1/4 MDF board is drilled with sockets for 60mm and 40mm wooden disks. Look for this terrain system at the upcoming Adepticon convention.
For these two terrain sets, each disk holds a mini-diorama built from Hirst Arts blocks, PVC pipe, a plastic Easter egg and lots of Terrain Putty (light tan) & Apoxie Sculpt (light gray) epoxy putty. In addition to standard sand flocking, the MDF board is also coated with a mix of play sand applied wet & saturated with white glue. The ridges represent underground tentacle growth from the infestation, hopefully the effect will be more noticeable once painted.
February 12th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, High Seas, Hirst Arts, Terrain Comments Off
First installment in a rather large project for Adepticon: a ruined pirate castle. The table will be used for the group Legend of the High Seas game on Friday and Saturday night. Plans for the rest of the castle include a second round tower, one or more square towers, a fallen main hall, a few grand facade and lots of jungle foliage.
The ruined tower is built from Hirst blocks with a floor tile carve as the second floor and wall paper texturing the base. The open side and missing upper floors represent the damage done to the fort when sacked by the British navy - but in reality are a nod to playability, giving easy access to the structure.
January 15th, 2009 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in 40K, Adepticon, Hirst Arts, Pipe, Terrain, casting Comments Off
The 5th ed 40K rules put a new spin on terrain building. LOS now strictly governs what a model can see. Area terrain, the abstract fuzzy space of trees or ruins on a platter, is gone. The solution adopted by Adepticon is to place all terrain objects on 3 inch disks with matching sockets in a MDF base. The Hirst Arts Pipe molds, along with the Sci Fi molds, provide an excellent resource to build all the required objects.
Pumping station made from 5/8 Pipe mold, 3/8 Pipe Mold, Station Builder, Star Ship Wall mold and the Star Ship Deck mold.
December 30th, 2008 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, Terrain, web sites Comments Off
A wonderful new batch of terrain created by Marcin for Adepticon 09. He has a great eye for detail - perfectly straight plastic card, more rivets than I care to count and no fear of departing from a box design. The fantasy pieces pleasantly incorporate GW plastic kits and show off some putty work. Check out the thread on Cool Mini forums for even more pics. While there, be sure to review Marcin’s collected works.
December 17th, 2008 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, Bubbles, Hirst Arts, Resin Casting, Terrain, casting Comments Off
The first rule of resin casting is to keep moisture away from the resin. Any contamination & the resin will bubble and will create a flawed casting. But what happens if water is deliberately introduced to the resin? Will resin form huge bubbles? Will the resin geyser like Coke with Mentos?
The experiment mixed 1 part water with 2 parts resin. The heavier resin floated to the bottom of the container & resisted mixing with the water. Only after the excess water was drained from the container did the resin begin to set up. I was disappointed that the resin/water mix only created a substance some thing like oatmeal. No 10x expansion in volume. No flowing river of bubbly resin. Looks like I need a Plan B to make my toxic chemical soup.
The rest of the project is part of a terrain building surge for Adepticon. The project will mix the Hirst Arts Pipe molds with Imex plastic kits and a bit of kitchen garbage including water bottles & soup cans. The resin does serve one purpose - the fragile plastic bottle is now supported by the internal coat of resin.
November 24th, 2008 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, web sites Comments Off
Adepticon 2009 is open for registration. I will be returning once more to teach my Hirst Arts seminar on Saturday. My big project for this year will be a pirate castle for the High Seas games on Friday and Saturday night. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of other projects going onto too - 40K terrain, mission objectives and maybe even time to finish my WAB Arab force.
June 21st, 2008 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in Adepticon, Miniatures, WFB, beastman Comments Off
A set of Beastmen dating to around 2003. Originally painted for a dungeon crawl game played at the first Adepticon - I’d almost forgotten that I still owned these until I found them hanging out with the rest of the chaos army.
March 28th, 2008 chicagoterrainfactory Posted in 40K, Adepticon, Miniatures, Painting Comments Off
Baegor the One Horned painted for the Adepticon Masterclass auction.
The figure is cleanly sculpted and cast with an attached rocky base. Detail on the model is crisp and easy to identify for painting. Cast in two pieces, the left wing is separate and requires assembly.
Assembling the wing joint was a bit of a chore. The figure comes with a small peg and hole as an attachment point. Not trusting the peg to hold the metal pieces together, I used (an over-sized) pin vise bit to drill a pin hole. The bit was much to large for the wing & ripped through the outer skin of the model. (Ever pin a Daemonette or anything by Rackham? It was sort of like that.) Plan B was to fill the hole with super glue and stuffed a ball of green stuff into the void. GS does a marvelous job of taking super glue and bonding metal parts together over large gaps.
Paint plan is white primer with GW brown ink base coat. Body is GW Dark Flesh blended to highlight with Vallejo Flat Red. Wings are GW bleachbone with GW brown ink wash. Details in light grey and bleachbone. Metals in bright silver and gold with brown ink wash.
