How Long to Paint Ruins?!

  So what's the point of painting your models if your terrain still looks like junk?  That was a realization that I had while trying to get motivated to paint my Orks the other night.  I've been planning on painting the terrain for some time now, but I was so focused on my boyz that it simply slipped my mind.

  No problem, I stack all the buildings up on my tray and take it out to prime in the garage, and I'd be halfway done already.  So I played Tetris with the ruins, turned around and reached for...  nothing.  There was a full can of White primer and a 25 mm base just sitting there.  My hand hovered for a bit before my brain realized the futility.  So I stared at this for two weeks...

  But I picked up the primer and got to work, even grabbing my Moonscape craters along the way!  Here's where I got and where I stayed for another two weeks...

After priming them again...  These buildings have a ton of detail!

The buildings, drybrushed...  Notice the 'model' building in the lower left.

  Now I chose to drybrush the buildings and make them different colors.   While I had one set of the ruins previously done for the quick demo board years ago, the rest couldn't just look like that one.  So I chose to use gray, blue, and reddish brown for the sets.  I tried to keep like buildings together so that gives me the option of putting bigger ruined 'footprints' on the battlefield if I want.  Notice that I simply added Eshin Gray (really light gray, like the old Fortress Gray) to the main color to drybrush the flooring.  This can be changed later, but I do believe that even monochrome buildings should have a distinction between wall and floor...

  Speaking of things that can be changed later- Notice that I also painted the Aquila Warplock Bronze, to be painted Gold later.  This is the start of the principle of 'Minimum Two Colors' rule that we used to use in our Thunderhawds, and I may actually push that further.  Certain window frames will be silver, skull motifs will be bone, some statuary and decorative elements will be picked out, etc.  But terrain is secondary to models (and a close second!), so that's not a priority right now.  So I'm sure it will be a couple more weeks before I think about it again.

Bases!!!

  Funny enough, I'm always waffling between whether I want to base the ruins or not.  I layed down the buildings and traced out their outlines on the existing bases that I have now, because I should do this.  After all, I would have been written-up by the Inquisition had I chosen not to do this when I worked for the Emprah.  But then I got to thinking (again)- I lose a great deal of placement options between my storage shelf and the oddly-shaped hills of the battlefield!  I'm not sure I want to lose the versatility of the model ruins just for a bit more resilience and aesthetic...

  Of course you know that I'll post more in the future, including batreps on fully painted terrain!  I'm excited about that.  Let me know what y'all think of the basing idea and tell me what you're working on terrain-wise.  It is the most forgotten part of the modeling wargame hobby, after all.

  Happy Hobbying!