Terrain as a break

  It wasn't that long ago that I mentioned terrain being a bit of a distraction, but that doesn't mean that I don't like terrain.  In fact, sometimes terrain is more enjoyable than models. 

  As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been through some... health adjustments and that was really sapping my ability to hobby.  Between pounding headaches and constantly being tired and hungry, sitting down to paint the fine details of a model wasn't exactly appealing.  But that meant that I would fall behind in my goal of four painted armies this year.

  And then I remembered that I had other projects too.  Things like canvas paintings, bike repairs, and novel-writing.  But I don't really care about those, so I found a way to keep hobbying on my game stuff- terrain!  After all, the painted soldiers need painted terrain to battle over, right?

  The advantage to painting terrain is that it doesn't require a lot of detail or even effort if you're really sneaky about it.  A cardinal rule of table-building is to never let the terrain outshine the models.  There's a reason knights of antiquity wore such bright colors while sallying from boring gray stone castles...

  In this case, I'm working on the Sector Mechanicum terrain that was originally released in the Shadow War: Armageddon game.  While I have my own set and even purchased another, I received yet another set from the local shop!  And this one I want to get done fast since I didn't have to build or prime it. 

  I started by poking a brush loaded with Leadbelcher into all the nooks and crannies to color the pipes and machinery under the grating. 

   More importantly, I then did a very heavy drybrush of Gorthor Brown over the whole platform and guardrails.  Neatness is not required at this stage as long as a)the brown covers over any silver from that first step that may have spilled onto the walkways, b)any brown that spills onto the machinery below is easily ignored, and c)it adds to the worn and used look that will be the trademark of this set. 

  After all of that is done, a drybrush of Ushabti Bone over that just to highlight the grills and edges.  When drybrushing the guardrail, I drybrushed downward and much more heavily toward the top of the 'fences'.  Again, neatness not required on this terrain. 

  Next came the support legs, also with silver having been brushed onto whatever metal there was.  For this, I chose to do a heavy drybrush with Eshin Gray, followed by a light drybrush with Ushabti Bone to highlight those edges.  

  The terrain set comes with so much fantastic mechanical bits that they really need the attention as well.  And that attention can be very simple- a heavy drybrush with Leadbelcher (see how I keep using the same colors throughout- simple!).

  Finally, I simple painted the panels of the mechanical bits with Averland Sunset and the panels of the guardrails (inside the 'fences') with Khorne Red.  It's important to note that the yellow is not a very opaque color and so will require multiple coats to get a solid layer.  If you still see much of the undercoat showing through, don't worry.  I even took the pic below before putting on the additional layers to show how typical it is.  

  That's as far as I've gotten on this set.  It gave me (and my wife and son, to be fair) a good day's work and already some good-looking terrain to play on (if not sloppy).  And I got what I wanted- a simple project to work on while barely capable but still accomplishing something.  A productive break...

  Have you been working on any terrain?  Let me know in the comments below.  Happy Hobbying!