A City: Frozen, Cursed, and Ruined?

Well I’m pretty sure no one in particular was worried about the potential death of my project but I finally put some paint on something. I blame it mostly on my purchase of an Elegoo Mars and the focus on printing the models I want for my Frostgrave warband and some for friends. That said I did combine a product of my new toy with with some old techniques! A while back a buddy printed me some barrels in fdm but also this little Ghal Maraz plinth like the one outside GW headquarters. I was going to plop a Stormcast on there but wanted a statue of Sigmar. I cannot remember where this one came from but was labeled Sigurd and struck me as the early barbarian Sigmar. I added some supports, printed him out, glued some jewel stickers to his integral base, puttied over a very Gaelic looking design on his base, then glued it to the fdm plinth. I painted the plinth in the same manner as my Warcry terrain and painted the Sigmar up as a bronze statue with verdigris. Debating added bird poop on him but overall pretty happy.

So I just finished a few pieces of scatter that my buddy printed for me. While the PLA leaves visible lines, I’m pretty happy for some additional table dressing that paints up pretty quickly to add some more character to the table.

I’ve requested some more from him and also asked him to mirror some just for some slight variety in the stacks. I think these will go a long way to making the table indicative of how I perceive a Frostgrave table to look.

I’ll plan on sharing the paints I used in the future in case anyone else is interested in the scheme.

So real life really slammed me for awhile but I managed to eke out a little time to make some additions to my terrain set. A friend had printed some magic circles for a Frostgrave scenarios as well as some crate/ barrel scatter to start giving the set a little more character. The crates and barrels will likely be worked on today but the magic circles were painted in the same manner as the Warcry buildings with the hopes of maintaining a cohesive look. I am seriously debating trying to add an blue osl in the arcane symbols that would match the blue veins running across the Warcry board. Time will tell if I try it but am leaning towards the attempt.

The circles, crates, and barrels are all available for free on Thingiverse if anyone else if interested in printing them as well.

So I have been laying bricks and just exhausted my “worn” pile. Man does this devour them, kudos to the guys that do this for their entire build! I hope to replicate the engraved turquoise floor of the mat that comes with Warcry on the top and currently thinking about the small railing I plan to have around some of the top platform. Currently thinking tacks might give a somewhat ornamental look.

I needed a little break from painting the buildings so returned to my scratch build “hill” that I had made some progress on. The base is foam and stairs mdf but for some of the additional stonework wanted to try my hand at sprue bricks. Cutting them at roughly the same size as the mats I plan to use, I threw them into a cheap Walmart blender and hit the button quickly a few times as I had seen from Miniature Hobbyist (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qkoMwX2EK50).

I filled some of the gaps from my cuts with milliput then began laying the individual bricks with my tweezers. Some may find this tedious but as I listened to some Critical role and watched my wall grow I was pretty content seeing it shape up.

I made a few press molds (again using that excellent instant mold!) of a few shields to add to the piece to give it a little extra character. Might be tough from the picture but can anyone id all five? I plan to add a few discarded weapons and perhaps some broken vases and maybe a crate for more variety.

So as I previously had stated, I didn’t like how my first attempt at the “rusty” grates looked. Not sure if anyone else has this realization but I’ve found if I have to tell myself multiples times it looks cool and keep looking at it I’m not satisfied. So I went back and redid the metal on the smaller building before working on one of the larger ones from the Warcry starter set. Top. Bottom. Left. Right. All the while trying my best to avoid splashing paint on my stone walls I was happy with. I’ve got three more buildings currently sprayed and ready to paint then will likely transition to the bell tower and broken sigmar statue head.

I have included a picture sharing the paints I’m using on these buildings and as I had stated previously am sticking to cheap craft paint. The krylon primer forms a great bond and I’m sure after I seal the finished set I’ll have no issues with chipping. Realistically, I’m sure I could have colored matched the other p3 and citadel paints and likely mixed up a typhus corrosion substitute. I simply neglected to match the browns and figured I’ve been sitting on this unused pot of typhus corrosion so why not?

As some additional clarity the following colors were specific subs for their expensive GW equivalents:

Krylon black primer -Chaos black primer

Rustoleum Army Green – Death Guard Spray

Winter Blue-Celestra Grey

White-Corax White

Georgia Clay -Mournfang Brown

Spiced Pumpkin – Fire Dragon Orange/Ryza Rust…ish

I doubt all are perfect matches but the swatches aligned pretty closely and for .99-$1.49 at Hobby Lobby and Micheals I’m pretty happy with the results.

I’ve been almost exclusively using color matched craft paints and diy washes at this point but realized I really needed to redo the grates so busted out my pot of typhus corrosion. Much happier with the look now. I had started a larger building today so used a smaller side section of grate to confirm it before repainting the smaller building.

On Thursday I completed the first building, one from the catacombs layout. Despite the simple scheme that consists primarily of drybrushing and washing, the time involved was longer than I anticipated due to size and desire to still be neat. I shortly followed up the first building with the smallest one from the starter set. I tried to adapt a rust scheme I had utilized on some miniatures previously but don’t think I think I executed it as well on the grates as it simply looks red to me. Unfortunately I anticipate going back to the tedious painting of the grates in order to achieve the nasty, rusty metal I envision.

On Tuesday I was able to try out my desired scheme on 3 of the little ruin pieces that came along with the set. I was sticking to the schemes detailed on Youtube by the Painting Coach (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4Pkg3XcO8Z8) and Putrid Painter (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FEgpYSbRJQg) but as terrain eats a lot of paint I rarely use anything other than craft paint. I’ll share what I felt were appropriate colors matches later. I also didn’t feeling like paying for tons of Agrax Earthshade so I tried my hand at making my own wash. While it is a little lighter than GW’s offering I am very happy with the result. Both Luke’s APS (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6vFcRT2wOh8&t=201s)  and Black Magic Craft (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IokSYHu58V8) shared solid insight on quality diy washes.

It’s possible I revisit the brickwork and paint it differently like the Putrid painter but as this point I’m unsure if I’d like another series of colors added to the mix.

So with the rain and humidity throwing off my painting plans I turned my attention to some crafting. While using the Warcry terrain in Frostgrave I knew I’d want some more varied elevation so I decided to craft some pieces of my own. I liked the Warcry terrain aesthetic so sought to replicate the look when possible using instant mold to copy some of the more detailed pillars. I mapped out plans for two “hills” and using foam, mdf, and a brick mat from Lemax (holiday purchase from Micheals) I started getting it going.

So I had started this project a few months ago when I assembled the terrain. I did the sets according to the layouts as suggested in  the Warcry starter and Catacombs set. Rain and humidity have been persistent thorns in my side but I was able to prime 6 large structures and 3 small ruin pieces I used to test the scheme.