A pair of ruined buildings based off a Pegasus Hobbies ruined Gothic building kit. Built up in much the same style as earlier jungle terrain, but thanks to the model detail and some extra painting, weathered to look the best of any of my terrain so far. I'll outline the steps I took to make them, but this is mostly about showing off pictures of my work.

The process for each building was about the same. I cleaned up the sprues built the kits (slightly modified the top level on one). I glued the kits to some sheet plastic base, then glued down the normal texturing mix of sand and talus I use on my bases - I used some on the building itself for a little extra texture and made a few small piles of coarse talus material for again more interest. I also plugged the holes in the side of the kit's largest column - it lets you assemble it on both sides, but then there's a set of holes on the opposite, so I filled them with air-dry clay, let the plugs dry, and glued them in place.

Following drying everything, I sprayed on primer, then did the dark brown for the base, a dark gray on the building, a lighter highlight on the building, and then touched up the brown base and did a single highlight layer on it. This let me control the overspray on the building on parts where the airbrush didn't have great access. Next up is drybrushing, a sort of orchre yellow on the dirt and a light gray-white on the building. Following that, I blended some brown, red, and orange to get a fully-oxidized iron (rust) color and painted the muntins (the bars between the panes of the windows, if there were any glass) as well as the girder bars holding up the second level. I went back to touch up some of the walls to finish off the basic paint job.

With the basic colors done, I set out on the weathering, which was basically the new part of this build. I used a rust wash (Vallejo light rust wash) slightly watered down to make drips from the iron parts of the windows and drip down from various cracks and things. I tried to show some trails, some divergent paths, some little pools, and some drips that didn't go down the wall, just a line up to a ledge, then resuming it below. The first layer looked nice, but was not very pronounced, so I went back with the wash without watering it down and made some finer drip lines in the existing ones for much more definition. Following the rust, I went over much of the stone with a gray wash (Vallejo gray wash) slightly watered down to give some variation in the stone color. I also did a little bit of streaking like the rust to emulate the look of old stone structures, but it's not particularly pronounced. I used this wash some on the ground to add a little more contrast and color variation. Finally, I went over a few areas with a dark green wash - it didn't look as pronounced after it dried, but the color variation is a nice step and it again darkens crevices to give some depth.

With my freestanding painted ruins, I went about making it jungle terrain. I used the usual method of taking pieces of aquarium plants, encasing the base in green stuff epoxy putty, sticking them in place, and then super gluing the base again when dried (plant to putty and putty to ground). I tried to weave them around the building to make it look overgrown, but tried to keep the ground mostly clear to allow models to be there - I want it to look nice, but I want it to play well. With the plants in place, I put down a bunch of PVA glue mixed with water and flocked everything to get some more texture and greenery. After a day to dry, everything got a coat of matte polyurethane for protection and we played on it the next day! The scale of the building makes for very tall levels for 40k scale, but given the grandiose Gothic style and the need for space for large models in the game... it works out well.

Febryary 12, 2015