Necron Tomb Citadel Forgeworld Tile for Jungle board.

Here's the complete board. I'm really very pleased with how this turned out. I've had my smug face on since I did this last week. It's the first project I've done with my new airbrush and compressor so I'm pleased it has come together nicely. It has also boosted my confidence to get back to my other forgeworld tiles and see if I can get the finished for the red planet Epsilon 0001. Here's the walk through for anyone whose interested:

After giving the board several washes in hot water with fairy liquid to remove the release agents and waiting for it to dry completely I began by undercoating the entire tile with army painter matt black primer. I then used army painter gun metal in two thin passes to cover all the tomb sections, trying to leave a little shading into black near the earth areas and in spaces such as the curved trench through the main courtyard section.

I cleaned up the earth areas with a little black undercoat again. I used a large drybrush to apply some thinned washes. Agrax earthshade, Biel Tann green. Nuln Oil and Athonian cammoshade to do a little shading and to provide some drips and streaks on the more vertical areas.

Air brush time! I used Vallejo burnt umber (in fact all the paints I used are in the Vallejo air basic colours set 71178) to paint the earth areas with a good coat using two passes with the air brush set to its widest coverage setting. I then narrowed the airbrush's coverage and used the burnt umber to shade all the metal areas hitting any corners, and all the edges on the detailed panels on the flatter areas shading only the side away from the pyramid as if it would leave it in shadow. I also did the small earth patches that have collected in corners on the tile and a few lines down the larger verticals on the pyramid.

 I didn't want to make the metal look rusted or corroded but tarnished from millennia of jungle gribleys and plants , mud and water from running over it. My idea for the planet was that of something like a mangrove swamp, where the jungle is flooded and drains frequently.

I used mud brown to lightly air brush over the earth areas. I mixed light grey, burnt umber and black to spray the rock areas. Once dry I sprayed over again with more light grey into the mix and again with almost pure light grey.

I used a large drybrush to further pick out the rock areas with terminatus stone dry.

Here's another shot of rocks. Sounds dull but looks nice.

Here you can better see where I've used burnt umber air brushed onto areas I felt might be in shade or might be tarnished. The wash effects such as the green up by the circular whatssit where I would later stick some vines and the nuln oil, athonian cammoshade and agrax earthshade patches that I wet stippled and pushed around with my finger to leave some areas of colour tarnish and more circular stains to represent the effect of water, flora and fauna on the terrain. Also just to break up the surface from being one big silver patch.

Main sections complete.

The umber that represents tarnish and soil build up looks sufficiently different from the earth outside. I gave the mud areas a dry brush with underhive ash dry using my large drybrush. Dry.

Time for some object light sourcing. The board has a portal and some random circular thing. Being necron there had to be some glowing green somewhere. I painted the areas with Vallejo air olive green being careful with the thinner paint not to put so much down it dripped over everything else. I then used the air brush to spray with a thin but wide coverage of olive green, then added progressively more white and then cleaned the brush before spraying pure white for the final layer.

Here's a close up of the circular thingymajig. I needed to clean out the brush and so there was a little splatter I had to clean up when wet in one of the final green/white layers. It also ended up being concentrated slightly to one edge rather than perfectly central because frankly I've not used an airbrush like this before but over all I'm happy with how it came out.

The portal I was very careful to aim centrally and narrow the air brushes spray with the progressively lighter layers. Through luck and hope rather than talent some of the spray bounced off the portal area as I painted and lit up the inside edges of the portal and spread a little onto the floor area. Yey.

Here'ss the board fully painted from above

I used army painter highland tufts 6mm (just a few) and wilderness tufts 4mm (about half a pack) on higher areas of the earth and in some of the earth or stained areas on the tomb itself. I then used army painter poison ivy (the whole pack), cut to shape with a pair of kitchen scissors to climb up and fill some of the corner areas of the tomb. Complete board!

Here's a close up of some of the ivy and tufts, the tufts have their own glue, the Ivy I attached with liberal application of PVA.

Here's a final shot of the portal and plant life on the complete board. I look forward to our friend Sam's Necrons marching out of it soon.

Tempted to do a necron army now....