From Hell. Steampunk London in a Multiverse

My Super Fantasy Brawl Kickstarter turned up last week. I’d kinda forgotten about it as Covid had delayed it for so long.

For a knockabout arena combat game – the box is ridiculous – bigger even than Mythic Battles: Pantheon. Having thrown away all the silly GameTrayz and cut the box into a tidy square (to fit a Kallax) – I had these 3 lovely statues in need of painting.

Now, I could have gone brash and cartoony to match the game – but nah! I decided to paint them as old stone. I’ve done the gems in the correct colours so they’ll still fit nicely on the board.

A quick but effective paint job.

It’s been a while since my last entry, which I’ll write about a bit later.

I’ve had my eye on the Malifaux Wyrdscapes buildings for a while now – but the price has admittedly put me off. Seeing these for 30% off on Wayland Games – I decided to bite the bullet and go for it.

I ordered Twisted Spires. When it arrived, I as really surprised by the size and weight of the box. I thought it would be a really sizeable kit.

Opening it up, reveals 4 fairly heavy frames… …but a relatively small building.

The weight is explained not by the size of the kit but by the thickness of the plastic. It’s as thick as a chocolate bar in places!

Beautifully detailed – I’m still looking forward to building it.

This is one of the lovely Twisted City buildings by Miniature Scenery. I backed the Twisted Kickstarter a few years back and went in on the scenery at the time.

As a kit, it’s a joy to build and I had fun using offcuts and some GW gargoyles to add a few extra details.

I was a bit worried about doing a full building using the techniques I’ve practised on ruins, but I have to say I’m really pleased with the finished result.

Completed my first 2 cogpunk automata which are all based on Warhammer 40k Necrons. depending on their status they’ll either be wearing bowler hats or top hats.

These two are just for fun.

Litter pickers – just don’t be on the streets when these are on the prowl. Newspapers, heads – they’ll stab anything!

As more and more people poured into London in search of work, so grew the need to keep them fed. Of course, some poor souls were tricked into buying cheap human flesh and became addicted – turning into deformed ghouls.

For others, science was to be the answer. Breeding a type of chicken that was larger, with more meat and able to defend itself from urban foxes (and other predators) – so came to be these terrifying creatures. As soon as they escaped (and genetic experiements always escape) they took roost all over the slums of the East End.

If you can catch one – there’s good eating to be had. If you get caught – there’s good eating to be…

A rare sunny afternoon this week and getting some spray varnish down!

Or, “My Probably Daft Way to do Brickwork”.

I really wanted my brickwork to look like proper red brick with a pale mortar mix.

Here’s my over-complicated way to do that.

Start with basecoating the brick sections in a Terracotta colour. I’ve used a mix of Bugman’s Glow and Khorne Red to get an earthy red colour.

I’m sure if I was a neater painter that painting the bricks over the pale mortar would be better – but for me, I’m happy with the overall result.

A very quick how-to

Done!

A lot of the GW WarCry and Azyrite ruins have sections of wooden flooring. I wanted a way to paint these that looked good, but was fast.

Here’s my method:

• After finishing all the stonework, apply 1 coat of GW Wraithbone onto the wooden parts. It’s lovely warm cream and great for wood/organic.
• Once dry, one coat of GW Snakebite Leather all over. Keep it even and don’t let it pool too heavily.
• Once dry, a drybrush of GW Wraithbone against the grain to re-highlight all the texture.
• Finish with another coat of GW Snakebite Leather.

That’s enough to get a really good warm wood that brings out all the texture and looks nice and natural.

I’ve then pushed it a bit further using GW Black Templar contrast:

• Apply a thin layer of Contrast Medium near the inner corner, brushed out towards the edge
• While wet, a small amount of Black Templar in the very inner corner
• Working quickly, smooth the black into the still wet medium to create a seamless transition into the brown wood.

Once other details and leaves are also added, it creates the effect of a really lived-in wood.

Justice for Bill Stickers!

Posters and newspapers are the elements I’m most proud of on my terrain, and I feel they really help sell these pieces as being part of a slightly squalid urban environment, but one which has society and progress within it. It’s not decay and ruin – these streets are lived in.

This is how I make them.

I made a word document by taking images off the web that I liked and then shrinking them in Word really small. Standard inkjet printing on cheapo A4 paper gives options:

Of course, a dirty city like London is nothing without residents.

Mr Hyde is a metal Dark Eldar Clawed Fiend that I’ve had for years. I was going to eBay him, but then thought he’d make a great adversary for unwary citizens foolish enough to be out after dark.

The top hat is made by tightly rolling a thin strip of metal from a wine bottle, and two circles carefully cut out for top and brim.

Paintjob is all contrast and drybrushing.

I love how he turned out and really feels sinister.

I’m working on a tutorial for how I do brickwork, alongside other tutorials on Dirt, Moss, Posters etc.

In the meantime, here’s a couple of pictures showing some more tiny details.

I can’t remember where I got the bottles from, but they are resin. I painted them silver and then added a coat of GW Waystone gem paint to give them a bit of a green glass sheen.

The leaves are leaf scatter by Green Stuff World, bought from the OnTableTop store!

I picked up a few of the lovely TTCombat Streets of Venice buildings. You might think they are too obviously Italian/Mediterranean, but I think that London has such a melting pot of architectural styles – as long as I give them the right paint job and textures, they should fit right in.

These are lovely MDF buildings to make – but do read the instructions a couple of times before you start glueing!

This one is the Casa Francesca.

I modified it using the Miniature Scenery Twisted building add-ons to add an upstairs bay window. The metal sign on the side is actually a metal wine label (I’m posh like that!)

Next tutorial is how I do a very simple but effective bronze.

Quick tutorial on how I do Grey stone.

After that, we can go in and do any metal details, add weathering and dirt. It’s nice and easy painting terrain and you get great results fast.

As I’m going with a dirty, pseudo-realistic style – I’m keeping all the stonework as grey stone, and will then get the terrain to pop with brickwork, posters and other details.

Getting hold of my usual sprays proved really hard under lock-down, but I was able to get hold of some cans of car primer in Black, Grey and White.

I’ve done the buildings in a kind of zenith style:

• Turned upside down and sprayed black on all the undersides
• Turn the right way up and then spray at about 45 degrees in grey
• Final “dusting” directly from above in white

It’s more grainy than I would ever want for miniatures – but for buildings and scenery it looks pretty good.

After this, I applied a generous wash using a 50:50 mix of Nuln Oil and Lahmian Medium.

I was also able to get hold of a WarCry starter box before lockdown in the UK, so I’ve got those all built too!

So I don’t really know how it happened but flash-forward to now and I definitely have more terrain than I really know what to do with.

But – seeing Warren’s new Vlog to create a shelf-based dungeon has given me the idea (and tacit approval from my wife) to create a full long-shelf “Streets of London” display in our main living room.

But really – so much terrain in the garage of shame!

This one definitely pushes the fantastical side of Steampunk a lot further. I wanted it to look like the ruins of a Scientific Gentleman’s Guild. Again, Azyrite Ruins are the main components of the build, but with some extra bits and gubbins from my bits box.

I made and printed tiny signs on glossy photo paper to act as brass plaques/signage. Not 100% successful but not too shabby.