Identity's WIPs (Update: 3/07 - Altar of Blood)

My group got back into Mordheim recently after a few months hiatus, so that means more terrain is in the making. My current project is a ruined watchtower inspired by the tower on the last page of the "Tales of Stirland" pdf Mordheim suppliment. Gameplay is at the heart of every terrain piece I make and the idea with this piece is that models inside the tower can leap out through the ruined walls without an initiative test (less than 2" down), while models trying to get in will have to climb (over 1" up).




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You can see from the last shot that the walls were made from 2 layers of foamcore, which worked surprisingly well.
I still have to add some damage to the walls, texture the floor, and add miscellaneous rubble.

PRETTY COOL PIECE! The Rat Guy is REALLY nicely done too!
Keep up the goood work AND keep posting them!

Wicked! Is it going to be a a part of a larger building?

nice, so far, so good man!

Looking good, what is the black square in the middle of the tower?

Today I added some damage and rubble.



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The rocks on the stairs and where the wall has collapsed were "strategically" placed so that they provide a (relatively) level place for bases to rest.

Deafnala - Thanks for the kind words. That rat (as well as the majority of his mates) has only his base layers at the moment, so hopefully at some point in the future he'll look even better.

Chad - it's meant as a stand alone piece, but depending on how it turns out, I'd consider making more like it.

Magnoliafan - The black square in the middle is the start of a basecoat. I had some leftover black paint from another project, and rather than letting it go to waste, I slopped it on the tower where the flooring was exposed (the rest of the floor was covered with painters tape as to not get stray spackle on it).

VERY NICE! AND a clever use of the otherwise-merely-decorative rubble. I look forward to seeing the Tower AND the Rat Guys ALL done up.

Definetly make more! It's seriously cool!

I like it, great work!

Alright. The piece is completed for now. The paint job turned out rather uniform, making the tower somewhat bland on its own, but I think once surrounded by other terrain pieces it will have the right look. One of my unfinished Ostlanders is the first to explore the ruin.




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That is really nice. I agree with you, it will definately fit in well with some more ruins. Can't wait to see 'em!

Cool "tower"! And that Ostlander looks really good already!

Neat! A good way to solve your bland problem (I don't think it's a problem, I think the paint job's wicked) would be to paint some of the cobbles a different colour (you could say that the floor was damaged and repaired, or make pattern of colours).

WOW! It REALLY turned out nicely. WELL DONE!
The Ostlander is cool too; looks good defending the tower.

Maybe a brown wash over some random stones will solve your concern about the plain color. It's quick and easy and will give a more natural look imo.

Also, you can make a brown or green (or both) wash at the bottom of the external wallsto simulate mud or lime.

This way you add some color and breaks the "all alike" look.

Hope that helps.

Anyway, the tower looks good and, most important of all, this seems to be a very good piece of scenery to play, and the reasoning you give (2" fall, more than 1" to climb) make this building very useful and present some tactical options.

Good work.

It looks great!
If you want to add some detail, some brown washes like Magokiron siad would be great, or you could drybrush some catachen green and camo green (really lightly) on the base of the walls for weathering. Or maby a big chaos star on floor, so it looks like the tower is used for sumoning buisness
Cant wait to see your warband man!

So I picked up this thing for $4 at the thrift store nearly a year ago. It was used once to great success in game as a harpy nest for the harpy scenario previously hosted on the SG website. Except for that single glorious effort, it has sat around as I've worked on other projects. However, its time has come, and it will be the next large terrain project I will tackle.



The plan is to make it into an Altar of Blood (usable for necromancy and chaos alike). I'll be constructing a staircase on the back and building an altar on the top right above the waterfall. As far as the altar goes, the present idea is just a big stone slab with decorated sides (something like this). I looked around a bit online for a more interesting design, but didn't come across anything. I'm still not sure if I'm going to paint the blood part so it's opaque, or try to maintain a translucent effect. I doubt translucent would look very realistic for blood, but I'll probably try it out, and if it's horrible, I'll just paint over. I'm not completely decided on what the blood is going to emerge from. I thought I might try to sculpt a giant skull with the blood coming out of its mouth, but that'd be an ambitious effort for my current skill level. In general, I'd like to liberally decorate the whole thing with skulls, but procuring an ample number of them may be difficult. Hopefully having posted here will motivate me to make good progress on this thing.

Also, thanks for all the input on the ruined tower piece. I'm planning to test out a brown/green wash to dirty it up some as well as add some plant growth in the cracks and maybe up the walls.

You picked that thing up for FOUR $? That's what I call a bargain. It's a great piece and I can well see it coloured in greyish stones with a decayed wooden staircase leading up to the top (along the stones and maybe through the waterfall at one point?). Most important thing to do is prolly to cover that Friends of the Feather logo (whatever that is).

Awesome piece. I look forward to what you come up with with it.

VERY COOL PIECE! It's ALMOST a shame to do anything with it other than an improved paint job on the rocks. If you can hold out until late July-early August, Michael's [the craft store] carries a wide variety of skulls of varying sizes for Halloween. I've been skocking up over the last couple of years for a Vampire project I may never get to [ ].

Update on the Blood Altar piece. I constructed a rock stairwell around the back and have the foundation set for a rope bridge across the front (there wasn't enough room to make stairs behind the waterfall, so it was decided a bridge in front of it was the next best option). Also dremeled off some of the animal features and covered them with spackle. In hindsight, I should have taken some pics from the side, and with models for scale purposes.



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OH MY GOODNESS !!! What a platform for thunderers !!!
With a mystic fighting on the top, and a hero who dies in fallin' "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAH ! I'll be BAAAAAAACK !" So gorgeous

Can you imagine how many hits you would take for falling off that thing???

That one is easy : a D3
But how much is the Strengh? THAT'S the question

Thats some nice scenery and terrain! Job well done and cant wait to see the finished cliff face.

I've been pretty occupied with life beyond Mordheim lately, but I just made some progress on the Altar/Fountain of Blood. The rock has been painted, and the blood has been based. There will still be a lot more more added, including the rope bridge, some sort of altar, etc.



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