Forgeworld Imperial Emplacement Area Terrain piece for Red Planet Board WIP

My red planet board will consist of three forgeworld realm of battle tiles (Manufactorum, Generatorum and the Imperial Strongpoint) and three tiles from the realm of battle board. You can use the labels at the bottom of the post to go and have a peek at these if you haven't seen them before, use 'board project' for just this project. This means there will be two tiles almost completely filled by tall line of sight blocking terrain and one that has walls prebuilt into the centre of the tile, to contrast there are then the three realm of battle tiles (two flat and one with a hill) that are almost completely empty. Some area terrain and perhaps one or two line of sight blocking pieces that can break up this area and allow interaction space for infantry and vehicles would really help the board make a good gaming surface. Enter the Imperial emplacement piece from Forgeworld:

This piece visually ties in with one of the forgeworld board tiles with the sandbags and the metal grate pieces for infantry/ vehicles to stand on. It's got walls around three sides of the piece to allow cover for infantry or a tanks hull. It is not high enough to block line of sight which seems important as so much of the board tile terrain will. Here its sprayed to fit in with the board, I need to do some brushwork to add definition and shades to the sand bags as well as the crate details and metal plates.



Next I would like one more piece of area terrain, perhaps a GW Manufactorum building kit. I'm undecided if I should  make this a ruin or a complete building. I'd also like some taller pieces with a small footprint purely to block line of sight, these could be rocky outcrops or simply ruined wall sections from the building kits. However we have another urban board to be a ruined cityscape, It would be nice to have terrain that looks very different so I'm currently in favour of the idea of the rocky outcrops however may have to go for wall sections for purposes of ease. Some sort of industrial slagheaps or crates could also work for this, I'll have to work out which direction to go.

Red planet board 3 Forgeworld Imperial Strongpoint

As its tile number three and I'm doing exactly the same thing as last time I didn't bother (/remember) to do the WIP shots of the red oxide pre shading, the grey walling, red crating and then red oxide basing. Here I'd done all that and just added the leather brown spots on rubbled areas. For a full step by step follow the labels at the bottom (board project) to have a look at the other board tiles I've done so far.

Here's the tile after some bone spray has been added to sandbags, large ground areas and rubble, I went a bit heavy with the bone so went back in with the oxide, also a bit heavy sadly.

heres the three boards so far, sorry the light died outside and I was left with my woefully inadequate room lights. You can see I added a bit more orange to the Manufactorum base to tie in a bit better, although this one still looks a bit lighter. The strongpoint seems to fit in quite well, I might just tone down a couple of the oxide red patches by the sand bags and in the bottom right.

Hope you like the progress! Thoughts and comments welcome!

Red planet board 2 Forgeworld Manufactorum Sector tile

Here you can see board tile number two in its 'ready for brushwork' state. Oh and my foot... whoops. 

You can use the labels at the bottom of the post to find earlier and future posts in this series and similar posts, the 'board project' label will give you all of these. Again for those who are interested here's the step by step:

I'd learnt a few lessons from board one so I began by spraying the oxide red colour into all the cracks and areas that dust might collect as a sort of pre shade/ pre weathering. I did this on all the areas I would paint grey and red.

Here I went in with the grey, light short bursts were used to leave the oxide red looking like collected dust in the shade areas. you can see this best in the building and fans.

Lesson number three: Wait for your layers of paint to dry properly! here you can see the still wet oxide red bleeding through the drying grey. Luckily this wasn't an area I wanted to leave grey but it was another lesson for me to learn when excited by speeding into the project. It was corrected just by spraying over when dry but I was lucky that the pools didn't show through!

Here I went in with mephiston red spray to get that mechanicum feel and to break up the otherwise all grey buildings.

I got a bit keen and skipped a step here! Oops! Lesson four: WIP pics are tough to remember to take, if in doubt take more rather than less! I've based the tile in the Oxide red here, then once dry gone in with leather brown on highlighted areas and on patches of rubble and occasionally just where I felt the oxide red needed breaking up.

Here is the shot from above again. here I'd gone in with the skeleton bone spray in the same way as with the leather brown. I also tidied up the red and grey areas a little more.

Here are the two boards so far, I think I need to add a little more oxide red to my second board to make them a bit more uniform, I got a little keen with the bone due in part to the fact the second board has alot more rubble. I still need to get some brushwork detailing done to these and to go in with the varnish to stop chipping so there will be plenty more posts to come as and when I get around to them!

Thoughts, tips and advice very welcome as always! Hope you like the progress so far!