painted minis – Greatwall Studios Graphic Design

I know I have a model kit on my work bench at the moment but I’m starting to think about building a small self contained terrain piece. Like a specific set of ruins for a church or temple. I have a couple of good chunks of foam board left, and a whole bunch of air dry clay that I recently recieved. I guess if I can find a brick pattern stamp I could do the flooring aswell inside the terrain piece. Then using industrial adhesive, super glue, and a hot glue gun, I could put it all together pretty quickly. Give me the chance to try properly ruined architecture.

I don’t have any more trees on hand, but I do have grasses, scrub brush, and a few shrubs and flowers. So it’s not like it’ll end up barren looking. I have sand, stone and grout too. I could do something from a desert climate. This is when I wish I had a closet full of rock moulds, plaster, trees, and static grasses & an applicator. Damn!

I don’t have a whole lot of room left to store stuff, so it’ll need to be shoe box size or smaller. My shelves aren’t that tall, so I can’t make the whole temple or church ruin. I guess it would be more of a diorama piece. Damn. Now I’m excited about it. It’s going to stay on my mind for ages now. But I already bought a new paint series of eight colours for my VF-1 Valkyrie model. I should really complete that first. I should… but.

Box of parts that need to be cut off sprues, and partially assembled before I can prime & paint them.

The other day I had an idea for a new sculpted bust too. So I’m going to need to make a bunch of new bases on the lathe. That takes a day or two as I have to glue up a bunch of Walnut pieces, or find a suitable maple log portion to be turned into fancy rounds. That’s a good way to get my wood working fix in without having to touch a hundred icy cold hand tools. If I use a long enough chunk of wood I can get at least four or five bases out of it. Plus sanding and slicing it up, more sanding and finish. That will satiate a bunch of create pangs I’ve been having.

I think I am slightly more interested in painting my model kit, than the initial (and very important) build up. I need to be more slow and methodical, so that it looks better generally than the last one I constructed a few years ago, and only recently painted. I can see several rough spot where I didn’t cut all of the tabs away. And my build was sloppy. Forgotten pieces, and glued on elements that shifted or fell over entirely. My decal application left much to be desired as well. Yikes.

Previous build up, with recent amateur paint job.

Plus a new larger paid project came in so I can’t jump on any of this stuff right away until the majority of my day job projects are well under way. Glad for the work though. So now I just have more time to day dream about my hobbies before I actually start any side projects. Not to worry. Once I’m in a comfortable spot with my open design jobs, I can pick up a brush, nippers, or a file and chip away at all of this stuff. Plus somewhere in the middle I will find the time to play guitar/bass and the keyboard songs I know. Sometimes I think I have too many hobbies, but they really do add a dash of something extra to my daily life. So not all bad then eh? Right.

If I had the money and ample storage space I would spend so much time building war gaming terrain, that it isn’t funny. There is just something about it that is very therapeutic, and satisfying. Turning blocks of foam, paper and paint into a vivid playable landscape is really a tonne of fun. I’d make waterfalls, river beds, canyons, open plains, castles and mountains, as well as dungeons. Hand built houses, and guard shacks, sheds and windmills, the types and styles of out building to create is nearly infinite. Oh the possibilities are endless. Alas, the flocking, static grass, miniature trees and supplies are neither free to a good home nor cheap. Those awesome tufts, and miniature flowers all come from Europe with a hearty shipping cost per item. A static grass applicator or any provenance will set you back nearly $200 bones after shipping and import fees. Plaster of paris, rock moulds, sculpt a mould, paper mache, glue, it all costs money to keep, and space to store it all. I do love it though. And therein lies the rub. I do love to build things, of all sorts, but our house is small, so where on earth do you keep it all? Plus all of the additional tools of the trade for scratch builds, and modifications to store bought materials. Paints enough to fill racks, boxes of moulds, and cartons of flocking. No wonder the Youtubers work out of warehouse spaces. Not to mention the fumes from cutting styrofoam with a hot knife. Phew! Stinky. Not good for you either. But still, isn’t building terrain awesome!

Keep in mind that I am no expert, I turn to Youtubers like Geek Gaming Scenics and Real Terrain Hobbies, or Squidmar Miniatures for all sorts of helpful insights. Those folks all get paid to build amazing terrain, dioramas and such. I have to imagine, that just like any hobby, once you start to get paid for it and have client demands it loses some luster and gains added layers of stress. Things I don’t want. I just want to build it. Loud music, imagination, and testing the boundaries of what I am capable of bringing to life. I hope my kids need to build dioramas for school someday, so that we can kick ass and go for broke!

I haven’t made anything new, terrain wise in more than a year, perhaps more. I moved into furniture to satisfy that bug. But here’s a gallery of some miniatures, pre built purchased sets that I painted, and my hand crafted terrain tiles, that are a uniform 2ft by 2ft square.