Creating my first Paper Building for wargaming

Hello everyone. I have always wanted to make my own paper buildings for wargaming, and for many reasons, I have was unable to do so - Until Now. Here is my first attempt a creating a paper based model/terrain piece for a wargaming table.

It is a small brick and plaster house, with a slate roof. It has no windows (at the moment), and was created using Photoshop and Illustrator. It is about 28mm in scale. I have photographed it, with a Flintloque mini for scale comparison.

I can already see some changes I want to make to this model, as well as a plethora of future models, but I think it is "not too shabby" for a first attempt. Comments and feedback are always welcome.

I am influenced by the Dave Graffams Models (www.davesgames.net). The quality of his paper models are top notch.

Enjoy the pictures:

I'm taking a little break from the hobby

I have not had much time for the hobby in last few months. I have spent most of my free time on getting myself into a more health state. I have some ongoing health issues, like I am sure most of us do, but in the last 4-5 weeks, I have just foucused my energy on my health, which means my hobby time has completely diminished. I plan on coming back soon, I am just not sure when. I am thinking it will be a few (5-10)weeks before I return.

Paint Tips - Paint Additivies - Windex

I have started using windex as a paint addititive, primarily to thin my paint, especially to use it as a wash and also as a glaze/juice. I really like what windex does to the paint, and with my style of painting many thin layers, as opposed to one (or two) thicker coats, I find the windex is a great additive.

Here are a couple of pointers

• I dillute my windex with water, in about 1:3 ratio. That is, 1 part Windex and 3 parts water.
• The blue tint of the windex does not effect the tint of the paint.
• Windex has been used by air-brush users for years. So it is not a "new fad".

I will post some photos of minis, painted with paint thinned with Windex, shortly.

Flintloque, Imperial Guard and The Goon Squad

I have still been painting, but not as much as I would like to. My new Graphic Design course is taking up a lot of my spare time, and so I don't get time to spend at my painting table. I don't have too much to report,so I will simply post some pictures of what i have painted recently.

These minis were painted for the "2012 Painting League" over at CDO.

Thor Modelling Studio

 Thor Modelling Studio

This blog was recommended to me by a fellow wargame painter/modeller, so I went over and had a look. It isis a really great  site. This guy has a lot of modelling talent, and has produced a good amount of tutorials, which are quite useful to any wargamer. Go over and have a look.

The blog is written in Thai, and I had Google translate it for me, but it does translate very badly. If you can get past the bad english translation, then this blog is certainly work a look. I am going back there now, for another good look around.

Enjoy.

Quar Posters

It has been a while since I have posted something here. That is because I now have even less free time than I have ever had, as I have returned to school, to study my life long passion of Art & Design, in this case Graphic Design. I am really enjoying it, and my spare time is now spent reading and doing homework for this course. It is now the mid-semester break, and so I have taken the oportunity to combine my grpahic design skills (I have gained some), with my love for wargaming and modelling. I have started creating some 28mm posters for the Quar world. The following question was asked by 'magog001' over that Quar forums;

the turn of the century was the advertiseing heyday for household goods what sort of adverts would be on qaur billboards for example = "thrips patented moth suace!, all the mothy taste non of the mothy waste!" or "lwrs soap" with picture of a comedicly dirty qaur kit basicly thngs i can paste posters to the side of biuldings im makeing and such

Here is link to whole thread: http://www.quarinvasion.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1933 That was enough for me to spend some time using Photoshop. After a few hours, this is what i came up with;

I hope you guys enjoy. Feel free to download, print and attach these to your wargaming terrain. If you do, please post photos, I would love to see them. Note: Most of these are "Derivative Works", which means they are based on other artwork or images.

Autumn Leaves

This is my attempt at making Autumn Leaves. They are made from real autumn leaves which have been "crushed". They look alright, but not as nice as some other Autumn leaves I have seen on the internet. Mine don't look like leaves, as much as it looks like ground cover in general, and the main reason is the shape. If I had crushed these leaves more, then they would make great "scatter" material. - Maybe that can be my next project.

My Autumn Leaves

My Autumn Leaves

My new mini Tripod

I have been trying to take better photos of my minis, and an article I read recently about taking photos of miniatures, suggest a good quality tripod. This keeps your camera very steady, which is always a good thing. While I was in an office supply store a few days ago, I came across a mini tripod, which looked a lot better than my original mini tripod. It was on sale for AUD$16 and so I bought it. I havn't tried it out yet, but I thought I would show you a comparison of my my "before" and "after" tripods.

My Original Mini Tripod

New New Mini Tripod

Snow, snow and more snow

I made a small diorama for a competition over at CDO (Chaos Dwarf Online), and it invloved making model snow. What an experience that was, and so out of context for me. As it is the middle of summer here in Australia. Anyway I learnt how to make snow, and here is the final result. It needs a little touch-up here and there, but it is finished enough, to be uploaded. Enjoy.

Space Marine Colour Scheme

I remeber buying my first box of Space Marines, back in the early 1990s. It was a box of plastic Rogue Trader marines. I painted them blue, and then green ... and then brown. That was the extent of it. I never really returned to 40K, except purchasing a few Imperial Guard to paint. I realised I am more of Fantasy fan than a 40K fan.

About a year ago, I purchased a box of 2nd hand Space Marines, and I had intentions of painting them up into the "United Nations" colours. I tried a few test models, but I wasn't entirely satisfied. Which was more of an issue with my painting skill, rather than my colour scheme. So, instead  I looked for a different colour scheme, and I think I have found something I like. Here are a few samples of what I want to do.

Here is the original colour scheme for th "United Nations" Marines.