It's been a rough couple of weeks for me with familial sadness in no short measure, but the Emperor has no time for whiners so let's get to it. After several more scattered nights of construction, Sector 7G now consists of 12 buildings and one space filler, enough to cover an area 32" square as can be seen in the picture above. There's still more to be built as I now aim to eventually double the current size of this cityscape, but I'm ready to move on to something else for the time being. I made a number of really dumb mistakes while putting together the last few buildings and have had my fill of sawing through floor sections. Also I've not detailed anymore pieces since the last update but that's easy work. I'm not worried about finding some spare time here and there to finish them off.As desperate as I am to get back to painting, brushwork continues to be on hold as the weather on the Carolina coast has been brutal and I have not been brave enough to try any priming in the heat and humidity. The few late-night priming sessions I attempted have been rained out so I'm not sure what to do. My experiments priming with gesso have not gone well either and now I'm scared to use the stuff on anything that I genuinely want to paint. Plus I'm heading off with my wife and daughter in about a week to visit family in western New York. I'm therefore reluctant to start anything too ambitious since I'll be gone for probably two weeks or more. But therein can be found what might be my last hope to get some real painting done this summer.
I know that most of the east coast is suffering under similarly dreadful climatic conditions. My hope however is that there will be enough improvement going from South Carolina to New York to allow me to prime as many miniatures as possible while I'm staying at my in-laws house. And maybe, just maybe, I might even get some painting done while I'm away on vacation. If not, I'd still be coming home with models primed and ready to paint upon my return. Thus my goal for the coming week is to focus on assembling a batch of dudes to take with me.
I have several projects up in the air from which I can choose but I also need to keep in mind the constraints imposed in taking this on the road. One primary concern is that the figures all should be easy to transport without taking up lots of space. And if I am to have any chance of painting, then I also need to plan out in advance the color scheme and limit it enough to what I can pack in a travel bag. It may be overly optimistic to think that I'll get anything at all painted, but I've had success in the past as a traveling painter so why not give it a shot?
The gluing commenced late last night resulting in the five guardsmen pictured above. More to come soon as I intend to go over my plans for this in a couple days once I have some additional models built. The basic idea though is for an Imperial Guard force themed to go with my Sector 7G terrain, and one that would make use of my Deathstrike missile launcher as well. The opportunity to fire that thing in a game has proved to be too much temptation for me and so I'm excited to have found a way to include it in an actual army project.
And thus the endless procession of new projects continues....
My word, Sector 7G has sure turned out nice. I am interested to see is you have any other plans for the expansion, perhaps an Imperial park of some kind. As for the endless procession of projects, I'm right there with you brother.
ReplyDeleteCheers!
Looks great! You've got a very inspiring city sector here, I may have to go back and get all of my buildings on standardized bases now.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for the paint!
Sector 7G is looking ace, I'd love to get around to doing a whole city table like that! Shame about the brutal weather over there not giving you much chance to paint, hopefully the weather will treat you better on your vacation.
ReplyDelete7G is impressive, nice work!
ReplyDeleteNice gaming board there :)
ReplyDeleteQuestion, - do you have an airbrush?
If you do you can buy several brands (I reccomend Vallejo model air or tamaiya) of airbrush primer. this does away with the propellant and puts you totally in control of mix and application. you should be able to find a good cosnistant way to prime no matter the weather then.
Thank you, guys! I'm very grateful for your encouragement and suggestions.
ReplyDelete@ Col. Hessler - For the expansion I have in mind focusing on larger pieces so an Imperial park would be really good for that. My gameboard is standard grassy plains so I thought I could leave gaps when pushing the buildings together to represent either a park or overgrown areas. I've got a bunch of loose trees and some of the Citadel woods kits that I can use to place in those areas to represent nature gradually reclaiming Sector 7G. Thanks again, Colonel!
@ Gyro, Bo Bo, and Thor - Thank you, I really do appreciate the support I get from you guys.
@ Karitas - I tried using an airbrush more than a decade ago but had no idea what I was doing at the time. I no longer have that one but I've become very interested in investing in one. I hadn't ever considered though using one for priming but that's a great idea. I think that would really help me out a lot, thanks!
if you drive through MA (specifically the part called andover) gimme a heads up!
ReplyDeleteI second the recomendation for the vallejo airbrush. It's pretty cheap, and you can buy it per maelstromgames!
ReplyDeleteEDIT: I can't find the link, but maelstrom was selling a nice one for less than 30 pounds. I'll email you if I find it again.
Ah! The Sector 7G it's turning out much more awesome than I thought!!! It's freaking amazing! The bases look neat and the table altogether it's pretty inspiring!! ;D Keep up the nice work PapaJJ!!
To finish, a question. What are you going to do with all the remaining straight and corner pieces? Have you another project for those bits or are you going to sell them? =P
If the latter it's the correct answer, tell me how much!!
Cheers for sharing mate.
ReplyDeleteI have started planning some new buildings along the designs you have used to give my board some extra height.
Good use of the statue too - might knick that idea for the centrepiece of my fountain.
The terrain is simply fantastic! A beautiful job and well executed! I'm particularly fond of the marine statue / honoured imperium that you've placed on the top of a building -- such a neat touch that I'm going to have to borrow the idea off you.
ReplyDeleteSector 7G is looking awesome. I am hoping to do something similar. What type of movement trays are you using as the bases? They look perfect for cityscape bases.
ReplyDelete@ Matty - Thanks, it would be awesome to meet up with you. If it looks like we'll be in your area I'll definitely let you know as soon as I can... I want some cookies!
ReplyDelete@ Nesbet - The more I think about it, the more an airbrush seems worth it if only for the ability to prime my miniatures whenever I want to. If you come across anything that looks like a good deal then I'd appreciate you letting me know. Thanks! As for Sector 7G, I haven't thought of any uses for those leftover pieces from the movement trays. I considered trying to grind them up for rubble but they look sturdier than normal sprue plastic so I think it would be more effort than it's worth for me to do that. If you can use them then I'd be more than happy to just mail them to you.
@ Rogue Pom - Thanks, buddy! I'd be happy to post more photos if there's anything you'd like to get a better look at while planning your own buildings. I think the marine statue would look really cool in the middle of a fountain... awesome!
@ jabberjabber - Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. As nice as the marine statue is straight out of the box, I think the extra height gained from putting on him on the building keeps him from being eclipsed by the taller terrain pieces. Also I like the additional sense of mass that it gives to the statue.
@ ENROHK - Thanks, I'm glad you like how it's turning out. I'm gluing all my buildings to the flat pieces you get in the Warhammer Modular Movement Tray set. I'm really happy with how well they've worked like this as they provide extra stability for the building and give you some space to model interesting little scenic details. And as you noticed, the grid pattern on the movement trays make the buildings look like they've got sidewalks and paving slabs. I think it's a pretty cool effect to get without requiring much extra effort, especially if you wanted to base your buildings anyways. Thanks for taking an interest in Sector 7G, I appreciate it!
Hey Paps, Any chance you might give us a peek at another angle of say the first row on the left hand side of the pic - particularly the last 3 Mech builds - are they fully enclosed all the way round or can you get minis into the middle?
ReplyDeleteAlso, How many kits would you say you have used to build a full row worth of buildings on average?
Cheers mate,
Pom
No problem, I'd be happy to post up some more pictures. I'll take some new ones of those you mentioned and get them added this weekend.
ReplyDeleteThose three buildings, as well as some of the others, are fully enclosed on the first floor so their assembly did use up quite a few more pieces than the ruined ones. It's not too bad though if you've got several kits to work from as you can gather all the solid pieces together and use them for the enclosed parts. Then you can use the window and damaged sections to either build the upper stories or to make the smaller ruined structures. I estimate one row of buildings in that picture took four CoD kits, of which I've been using much more of the Manufactorum kits than the others because it has the fewest window pieces.
I wanted to have a mix of enclosed and open buildings so that I could really mess with LoS and make it as dense and confused feeling as I could. There's still opportunity for long range shooting but it's going to be primarily restricted to either firing along the lanes between buildings (and eventually the along the streets, too) or else from rooftop to rooftop.
I hope some of that helps, thanks!
Cheers mate - I like the idea of channeling your LoS - and at least no one side will be disadvantage over another.
ReplyDeleteI reckon a fully terrained board like yours will produce a more cinematic game over say a gun line shootout across a generic open board.
I look forward to tracking your progress mate - keep at it.