ScarecrowBoat's great thead of WIP Mordheim city

hi everyone. With a little time away from the terrainbuilding hobby I am now back I started work on a plateau this time as I felt that my board lacked height. (and different levels) So here are some pictures of my current project, which is supposed to be a kind of ruined manor which later has been taken over/defiled by undead. Possibly I'll make it a shrine of Sigmar which has been defiled and turned into a chaos shine. I'm not sure yet. Perhaps some of you could give me some ideas?

First just the humble beginnings, two slabs of foam.


Then some carving and gluing later the backside had gotten a stair:


The front was carved out into a double stair becoming one further up:


Carving big stones all around the plateau:


The front of the plateau got some individual stones to fill out the front:


Made a stone fence around the top of the plateau (things are coming together):


Added a gallows (which will have some stones around the base of it later), railings on the front stairs, and a small pillar with some skulls:

This is sort of an action shot to show how it would work in play.

Now here is the ruined house added to the top:


Added wood boards to the floor of the house:


Then added a mix of pva and wood filler over all the places where I wanted mud or grass:


I'm pretty happy with how it is turning out so far, but I really want to give the house some more flavor. So I am thinking of adding a lot of rubble, grass after painting, and also give the house some kind of meaning. There became much less space on top of the plateau than what I had planned so perhaps a shrine or something. Was thinking of making perhaps a sigmar shrine and then make it look like either chaos warriors or undead have desecrated it and made it a shrine of their own. (as the skulls and gallows so far fit in with)

If anyone has any proposals to things to do/change then I would welcome it

Excellent stone work! The platform is really interesting and well done.

I'm not so taken with the rustic wooden floor of the building, which doesn't seem to fit with the formal nature of the foundation of the building. A tiled or stone floor would seem more fitting to me.

Making big square tiles (like the ones seen on the last picture in the stairs up) was definitely considered. I just felt that I needed more different materials since so much was stone already.

Basically the foundation is saying that this is a grand house, but the size of the house says something else. I guess making a 1x1 foot foundation like this is just a bit too small. When I make something for Mordheim I always think about how this would have been before it got ruined, and then work out the destruction/style afterwards. However with this project I am having problems figuring out what kind of house this was.

OUTSTANDING! The stonework & the stair cases are WONDERFULLY crafted. GREAT WORK!  

Great piece!

A little update. My plateau is now finished! Didn't go crazy with the painting, as I find painting terrain quite boring and I'm not that good at it. Still I felt that the piece turned out fine.

Here are some in progress pics of the painting process:



And now the finished pictures:







The models on the piece are from my new Warriors of Chaos warband (Wyrdwars) that I'm currently working on. I'll post some pictures of them once they are all finished.

SPLENDID! It looks WONDERFUL in full color. You did it to a fine level. VERY WELL DONE!  

That is a really nice piece. Its a pity you don't enjoy the final steps, as it could be something really special with just a bit more work.

Still you have done very well.

Actually I don't think that it's boring to paint terrain, it's more that there is so much to paint which makes it repetitive after a while. I also feel that when I have spent a lot of time on a piece I want it to be done soon so I start rushing things.

My new chaos warband figures came in the mail not too long ago so I started working on them, but when I am finished with painting them I will continue with terrain.

So what steps or suggestions do you have for making it look better? I think if I do just a bit of work on a piece at once there will be no "burn out".

I am a big fan of ink washes (or just washes of thinned down color) on walls to give that aged look. For examples I recommend Blessed Knights recent post on his scenery thread. On stone I like to do green or brown washes.

Also some tufts of grass growing out of the steps and walkways and some lichen or vines on the walls. Like I say just little touches

I really like the grass you already have growing out of the paving stones in the courtyard.

Ah I see. I was actually planning on doing some green washes into recesses in the stones to resemble moss growing there. I watched a video by GirlPainting on youtube about painting a sandstone ruin piece, and I got the idea to do moss and a gradient of darker wash on the bottom of the piece, and making it gradually lighter.

edit: I was thinking of adding some more things to the piece for flavor and usefulness. My plan was that the warbands would have understood that the plateau was a good tactical spot and thus created some kind of camp there. Perhaps some scaffolds set up by the walls in the courtyard to make it easier for archers to fire over the walls and down. Also add some rubble in the house itself, and take the wall behind the house and cut into it a little to make more variance. The way the foam behaved there makes it looks so different from the rest of the piece. I think adding some brokenness to it would make it better.

Very cool. I Like it