Terrain Challenge: Manda’s (Amachan) Happy Radiation Pond

I’m planning on making a pond with a rock on the side and a radiation warning sign next to the pond. It will also include a miniature overlooking the pond and some barrels in the pond. My inspiration is from some of the terrain features found in Fallout 3.

Now the miniature overlooking the pond I want to put on a rock behind it and I have decided to go Ms. Lovely Day from Crooked Dice. I will have to order the mini for this, but it seems like an appropriate miniature for this kind of scenery. Now the miniature is not the main part of this, but rather something to just add a bit of cinematic effect to it. But how could I not include a miniature, I love miniatures.

These pictures are from the Crooked Dice webpage.

Started by making the base to build the terrain on. I cut this from a box that I had laying around. It’s definitely not flat nor cut very accurately and straight. But It should do, I hope. It’s approximately a 25cm square.

I used polystyrene to make the rock, which is now more of a cliff or something like that. I understand that this might not be the most optimal material, but it’s what I had. I glued certain bits on the top that I broke off and pinned them down with cocktail sticks in order to held them in place while the glue dries. I used watered down PVA to glue them down. I’m going to leave those sticks in and just cut off the top, because I’m not sure this glue is going to hold.

I also made a mess of my desk, because I obviously thought it wasn’t messy enough yet.

I printed the sign I want to use and glued it down to a bit of cardboard. Because I’m clumsy when I was flattening it I got glue on my hand and rubbed that over the image. It’s PVA glue so let’s hope this dries transparent, otherwise I can just print it again.

I got these bend and busted barrels from Tabletop-Art to use for the barrels that are going to be in the toxic puddle.

I then decided to make more of a mess of my desk by assaulting the bubble mountain with a knife. I did this to break up the bubble texture a bit. When it’s painted I hope it will look okay.

The sign dried up really nicely with glue leaving a protective cover over the image. I glued a bit of card to the back of it and primed the back of it black. I also got a little stick of card and primed that black. When that was all dry I cut out the sign and glued the stick on. I cut the stick to length comparing to a miniature for length. The sign is now ready for some painting and weathering.

I got some pieces of cork and some stuff with straight edges. I got them glued to the corners of the square card. I put some wait on them as the pieces of cork are slightly bent in hope that they stick down flat. I can add pieces in between to fill up the edges and maybe add something to centre after this has dried.

I primed the bubble mountain with my airbrush, when it’s painted up I hope it will look decent even with the bubbly texture.

I glued a couple more bits of cork on and glued down some bits where there were gaps on pieces I glued down before.

Due to the heat I really can’t do any painting as it results in a grab paint with brush and try to put dry paint on the miniature situation as it’s dry by the time I reach the miniature. Which is both not good for my brushes and is very annoying. Not doing any airbrush work either just to not have to clean up a clogged airbrush again. So I glued a bit more bits of cork on the card square. I’m thinking of leaving it like this, the bubble mountain will fill the the corner anyway. Just waiting on some clay to come in so I can smooth the edges a bit. After that it’s a base coat, once the temperature goes down.

The miniature from Crooked Dice came in as well. Prepped it for priming and stuck it on 1mm brass rods so that I can just stick it into the bubble mountain with a bit of glue for a good tight bond.

Temperatures are finally going down and I can do paint work again. I primed the miniature to make it ready for painting and gave the bubble mountain a basecoat with Vallejo Model Color Basalt Grey (70.869). I did both with my airbrush.

Work on the bubble mountain has progressed. I first did a heavy drybrush over it with Vallejo Model Color Medium Sea Grey (70.870) and followed that up with a lighter drybrush with Vallejo Model Air White Grey (71.119).

This kind of bubbly polystyrene is horrible for terrain making. So the drybrushing did some damage to the bubble mountain. In order to fix that I glued on some wasteland tufts from The Army Painter with PVA glue. Let’s see how this looks when it’s dry and then fix up any problems.

I’ve given the back, the sides and the stick a base coat of Vallejo Metal Color Burnt Iron (77.721). I then stippled on some Citadel Technical Typhus Corrosion (99189956010), painted the sides with Vallejo Model Wash Rust (76.506). I then used this same rust around the area where the stick is glued onto the sign and to finish it up I did some streaks over the back of it as well. The sign is now mostly finished apart from some varnishes.

I added some rocks and a couple more tufts to the bubble mountain to break up the bubbly nature of the polystyrene and I am quite happy with the result so far. I just know that I have to get some hot tools like a wire cutter and a hot knife to work with this material next time, but for now this has to be it unfortunately.

I worked a bit more on the base today. and used plenty of DAS modelling clay to smooth the edges and create a base for the mountain to fit on. I fitted the mountain on there to get the shape and surface about right. When working with DAS modelling clay make sure the surface is wet and having wet hands. THis makes the putty stick better and work easier. Something I learned from the TerrainTutor. Oh be aware that your hands will be covered in clay and your workspace will smell like DAS modelling clay after.

I sawed 2 barrels in half to fit them in the pond and selected 3 others to use in the terrain piece as well. 1 of them will be laying down and leaking liquid into the pond and the other 2 will be standing up somewhere. I have not yet decided on final positions.

Before I threw this miniature against the wall because I couldn’t get the fucking face right I decided to just leave it here for now. ??

Now things have finally cooled down I can do some more painting. I primed the square base with Vallejo Black primer through the airbrush. I the applied a coat of Vallejo Panzer Aces Dark Mud (70.316) in the place where the pond is going to be.

I have however decided to leave the miniature where it was last update, it looks acceptable to me.

Soon after the paint was dry I glued the bubble mountain the base using PVA glue.

When the glue was fully dried I noticed some gaps etc. So I filled them up with DAS modelling clay. I used the same clay to cover the back of the bubbly mountain as it is this bubbly polystyrene and I want it to stay this way. I then used some clay on certain areas on the surface in order to get some of the trees in. I know I wouldn’t have had to prime the cork for this, but I did that anyway and I don’t remember why. I do need to do some clean up paint work on the pond bed, most of the other clay will be covered with textured terrain pastes. For the dead trees I’m using some of the Woodland Scenics Dead Fall set. I will use more of these to fill it up a bit more after the terrain has been painted or pasted on, depending on what you want to call it.

At first I primed the barrels black and sprayed a layer of Vallejo Model Air Rust (71.080) with my airbrush.

I then decided to look up a reference for rusted barrels on the internet, why I didn’t do this before hand, I don’t know.

I then stippled on some Citadel Technical Typhus Corrosion (99189956010) all around the barrels. I then applied a thinned coat of Vallejo Panzer Aces Light Rust (70.301) around the rims on the top and bottom of each of the barrels. For the on laying sideways I put some on the top and the bottom. Then for those standing in the water I gave them an extra rim of Typhus Corrosion around the bottom. I then applied a coat of Vallejo Model Wash Rust (76.506) on the top of the barrels and streaked it down the sides quite heavily. And to finish them up I applied a light drybrush of a mix between Vallejo Model Air Rust (71.080) & Vallejo Model Air White Grey (71.119) over the top and in a top-down motion over the sides.

For any thinned coats or mixes I don’t know the ratios, I do this by eye until I get what I need. And I used a lot of paints with rust in the name, because well they’re kind of the colours I needed.

To texture the terrain I’m using two different terrain pastes.

• AK Interactive Dark & Dry Crackle Effects (AK8032)
• Vallejo Earth Texture Dark Earth (26.218)

At first I applied both in a mix with the Crackle Effects at the edge of the pond and the Dark Earth around that. In order to soften the Dark earth I brushed on some water which did not go well with the Crackle Effects. The Crackle Effects was already pretty thin and did not work well on the cork bits.

I the decided when that was dry and not looking good to cover everything in the Dark Earth and cover areas that I want in Crackle Effects after the Dark Earth was dry.

When this dried I finally got the result that I wanted. I then applied a coat of Citadel Shade Agrax Earthshade (99189953018) over the Dark Earth and the Crackle Effects to deepen the grooves. When this dried I applied a drybrush of Vallejo Model Air White Grey (71.119) to achieve this final result.

Looking at the picture when writing this entry I think I’m making a chocolate wonderland for some reason.

I glued the mini into place with PVA glue. The mini is mounted on 2 1mm brass rods which I covered in PVA glue and just slid it in the bubbly mountain. I glued the barrels and a couple more twigs in place using super glue.

Now to fill in the pond I used AK Interactive Puddles (AK8028). I first mixed a bit of Vallejo Model Color Fluorescent Green (70.737) with some water to dilute it. I then added I think 4-5 times the amount of the AK Puddles in the mixing pot. Might be more actually. I mixed them all together to create the water effects for this pond.

I was thinking of trying to make some bubbles in there, but had no clue how I was going to do that. But by the way I mixed them together it created lots of bubbles in the water effects which kept while dry.

In total I applied three coats of the puddle mix and applied them in layers. The stuff is self levelling and should really be given plenty of time to harden between layers.

My Happy Radiation Pond is finished!!! And I’m quite happy with my first terrain project apart from doing bases on mini’s.

Since this was my first terrain project I found it a good idea to look back and see what in hindsight I would do differently.

• Get a hot-wire cutter and/or a hot knife to sculpt the polystyrene instead of just breaking a piece of something I had laying around and just going with that.
• Not use card as a base when using water on it. There is quite a bit of warpage in the base due to the water I used with the clay and some other materials. The heatwave probably assisted in warping it as well.
• Some texture paints don’t go well over a textured surface like cork, so adding a base layer over it is a good idea to get it the way I want it.

And the most important one:

• Planning. Instead of just having a rough idea of what I want to do and just winging it from there, having a plan on how I’m going to do this would be handy. Writing it down would help as well, because of bad memory.