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Showing posts from February, 2015

Making Mine Scenery Part XI

Greetings! If you're a first time visitor or someone who's been following the series, thank you for reading. My apologies to anyone who came looking on Sunday for the latest scenery post and found none. It was a busy and stressful weekend so I fell off schedule. That being said, we're back on track with our Sun/Wed schedule, so here it goes. As might be expected, this one is very picture heavy.    This is where we left off with the freight elevator car in Making Mine Scenery X . As promised, I worked on detailing it out. Today we'll add some additional rails/bumpers, signage, and the elevator control box which is where we are going to start.   The sunlight was so strong you can't see the hole I drilled, but I had cut a piece of StripeStyrene tube about 3/16" (about the width of 3 pieces of 1/16" rod, pictured next to it. The idea was to create a lever by gluing the rod in the hole I drilled. Here's a shot of the rod gluing in

Making Mine Scenery Part X

Things have come a long way since early play testing! When I made my very first board sections for play testing a year ago, one of the only sections I had created that wasn't just a tunnel, was the freight elevator. I envision the mines having multiple ways out, some being more convenient than others. One would be to walk all the way out using winding tunnels, and likely encounter Prods and work gangs along the way. An extremely inconvenient way would be to try and escape out of the air shafts, because there has to be a way to circulate air deep down into the mines so that the workers don't asphyxiate. A common thing in mines though is to dig a vertical shaft using a hoist and then eventually install a freight elevator to move heavy equipment down, and move ore back out. One of the more consistently used dramatic action movie sequences involves "the elevator." The moments of waiting. The surprise of what might be behind the automated doors. Elevators are excitin

Assembling the Cast - Will Kollis

Will Kollis - Breaker Crew Leader Concept Art by Geng Gendall.      Kollis worked a number of different contracts before he ended up in the FerrumSky mines, though he rarely brings up his past. He carries himself with a thoughtful confidence and props up his crew with wisdom and positive reinforcement. Many crew leaders got to their position by towing the company line and sympathizing with the whims of the Executives, but he earned his position by garnering the respect of his peers.      Though respected by his crew, he is not a favorite among the Prods. Crew leaders are expected to help ensure the crews are compliant but Kollis consistently defends their health and safety. This has earned him a reputation of being difficult by causing the Prods consistent frustration. His muscled arms and lean physique bear faded scars of numerous beatings he's received for insubordination. The effectiveness of his crews is the only reason he has not met with an early retirement by beating or

Making Mine Scenery Part IX

Greetings terrain builders! On this Valentine's Day weekend I'm going with a quick and simple project: rock piles. Rock piles are a thematic addition to the mine setting and can be extremely useful for game play as barriers and cover to hide behind. Plus, they're a great way to reduce your terrain making "waste." First I began with some offcuts, a few 25mm round bases, and my breakaway blade. Personally, I hate waste. I try to get the most out of everything I can. Our hobby isn't exactly the most environmentally sound hobby out there so I try to reduce my impact by using most of my off cuts for other projects. I maintain a bin of off cuts of various sizes and most of the terrain made in this series has all been made from pieces in that bin saved from previous scenery projects. I cut up and shaped the offcuts into rocks of various sizes and shapes using the same techniques I did for the mine walls detailed in Making Mine Scenery Part II . I

Making Mine Scenery Part VIII

Its Wednesday! And that means its terrain time again. For those tuning in now, we've been working on a straight mine tunnel section with an adjustable height hydraulic blast door.We built this piece of scenery in Making Mine Scenery Part VI and focused on the door in Making Mine Scenery Part VII . Where we left off on Sunday was here: At This point the door was complete and the basic drybrushing had been done on the walls. But the "iron mine" specific drybrushing from Making Mine Scenery Part III  had not been done yet. I went through those stages, getting the piece to here: This is the true starting point for today. All of the drybrushing has been completed. Now its time to work on the treadplate. Harkening back to my love of Necromunda when it came out in 1995, I have a thing for "caution stripes". These very dangerous hydraulic doors definitely need caution stripes. I began by painting the treadplate Abaddon Black. This is going to mu