The Painting Bunkerc y

I’ve been very busy over the last two days working on the scenery for the recently completed Forge World Realm of Battle Cityscape boards.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I really want the white marble Shattered Plaza board to have a massive Cathedral on it.  No serious 40k board is complete without one, and well… they just look good.  So I’ve set out to create a monster.  Lets take a look at the pictures and you’ll see what I mean.

Please keep in mind that these are works in progress shots.  The floor sections and different sub-assemblies are not even glued together at this stage.  They are just resting together for the shots.  I’m waiting on a critical piece to finish the floors, some 1/2 inch square Evergreen styrene tile sheet.  My local hobby shop has run out and I’ve ordered it in, however it hasn’t arrived yet.  With any luck it’ll rock up next week and I’ll be able to hook in and get it done.  Until then, I’ve taken this about as far as I want to go with it before I can put the floor tiles in and then complete the assembly and detailing of this behemoth.

One thing I didn’t really like about the Shrine of the Aquila kit was the entrance doors.  They seem too small and didn’t really say “your entering a really important place now”  So with a little modification I added what I think is a much more suitable entrance and I’ve also created a small balcony where I’d imagine a Cardinal would address his loyal Imperial subjects in the Plaza before it was shattered….  And what sort of place of worship wouldn’t be complete if it didn’t have a bell tower…. complete with bell taken from a pet bird cage accessory…  I can imagine a Vindicare Assassin in the bell tower picking of enemies of the Emperor while muttering “Blessed be the Emperor my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight”

I’m very pleased with the silhouette of the Cathedral and the way it “meets” the sky/space around it, it has a real sense of place and will also offer a great piece of terrain for gaming purposes.  It’s got plenty of vantage points for soldiers to take firing points from and will be a real focal point in any game, both visually and tactically.

One aspect of scenery making I’ve noticed about myself is that I’m really struggling with the line between “its for gaming on” and “its a diorama” I think I’m slightly being egged on by the great “canvas” I’ve been given by the guys at Forge World to put my scenery on too.  I constantly find myself having to cut down the level of detail I’m adding, while reminding myself that its a gaming table I’m making that models have to move around, hands have to get in and a degree of robustness needs to be incorporated…  All features which are generally absent from a diorama.

This is the right side of the Cathedral, as you look at its front.  This is the most intact side of the model (apart from the front)

The rear of the Cathedral, as you can see its been hit pretty hard and has extensive structural damage.  To be honest, its unlikely it’d still be standing with this amount of damage but hey… it looks cool.  Points to note are the exposed “I” beams and service ducts on the 2nd and 3rd floors

The last side, again some catastrophic structural damage to the building, but it means players can easily get their hands in and models on the piece.

An above shot of the damaged floors so you can see some of the detail present.

Bet you weren’t expecting that!  Ceiling paneling.

Ok, I hope you’ve enjoyed this WIP.  I’ve really had a great time making this piece.  Its the first piece of terrain I’ve made in many, many years and I’m having a great time doing it.  So much fun.  I don’t know why I haven’t done this sooner.  It’s nice having a break form making soldiers and tanks I think.

I’m trying out something a bit different below.  As some of you know, I am very thorough with photo documenting what I do, however I don’t generally post those pictures.  I do them mostly for myself as reference material should I need to remind myself how I did something at a later date.  The pics are low quality and poorly composed but do the job.  I thought I’d included them in this post incase some of you would like to see how I get from A to B.  Let me know your thoughts about whether or not its worth while putting them in future posts, or if I should just stick to the staged shots which I post up.

Ok thats it for this post, thanks for dropping in.

Comments very welcome

John