When Scott asked me if I’d be up for sharing the burden of printing terrain for the Goonhammer Open narrative events in the UK, I perhaps didn’t fully appreciate just how large this job would become. But then I probably wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t excited about the idea of helping to build and create something truly special. My regular role in our tournament events is physical logistics and first aid coverage, which is a fancy way of saying I have a van and first aid at work certificate. Thankfully up until now I’ve only had to regularly use one of those at our events.
Planning Your Table
Figuring out what you want to print might sound like a simple task, but when you’re trying to scale it up to multiple tables there are a few things to consider. We needed something that would be relatively straightforward to paint, while still looking striking on the battlefield. The files needed to be easy to print as well, while covering different shapes and a reasonable amount of area.
We went back and forth on a few creators, but there was always one that kept coming up. I’d been subbed to Sacrus Mundus for sometime, after coming across them when looking at terrain for my local gaming group. They offer a reasonably-priced Patreon with a full table worth of terrain every month. Most importantly though, it’s all large striking profiles that print very easily. They’re definitely not the smallest prints, and some of the centrepiece models could serve as entire skirmish boards.
Broadly there were going to be three themes for the printed terrain, made up of a hive city, factory world, and airfield. With that in mind browsing Sacrus Mundus’s catalogue we selected Omnis Prime Hive District, Phoebian V Struck Airfield, and Phyrus II Forge Planet. All of these packs offered a variety of sizes, with the potential to create evocative battlefields using the largest pieces as narrative hooks.
With files selected and the printing underway, we needed to pick a colour scheme. Scott had offered up the guiding principle of the terrain serving as a backdrop to the models. None of it should be so flashy or so discordant that it takes away from the models and story being told on the table. Grey is always a safe choice, and it gives a decent amount of flexibility with your accent colours, while still offering quick schemes. It’s also pretty common for tables and tournament terrain, so we wanted to do something a little different. Browsing the range of Montana paints, the team picked a pair of cream tones for the Hive City which was going to make up the bulk of the painting process.
Painting Process
Dealing with a huge amount of terrain, and having multiple people work on it, takes some forward planning. With this in mind, it still took us a solid three attempts to actually get the process down and there’s still areas we could likely improve.
As much as possible was primed before the first big day, so that we could test some approaches and agree how the base coats would be put down. Using rattle cans to get the majority of the colour on massively speeds the whole process up, and I started by applying a mid to high zenithal across the whole structure, leaving only the lowest quarter and deepest recesses black. Ideally I would’ve primed brown for this as I feel it’d give a better graduation to shadow, but Colour Forge was out of stock so black is what we settled on.
Once the majority of the buildings were base coated, a much lighter zenithal was applied to the top third to half of the building, catching the roofline and other interesting edges on the top half of the model. Some attention was also paid to the corners of stairs and other natural breaks in the silhouette.
To bring the base coat and highlight coat together, the whole model was then given a drybrush of ivory. Catching all of the edges makes the darkest bottom third pop, while tying together the transitions further up the pieces.
Keeping the process simple, the next stage is applying a terracotta tone using a chisel tip foam brush to any tiled surface the stairs. The warm red of the terracotta gives a striking contrast to the ivory, breaking up the lines of the building while still allowing models to stand out. Stippling the paint on with a foam brush makes the work go incredibly fast, and the hard edge makes working in the angular spaces of the walkways and mezzanines easier.
During the first painting session, we found the metals were taking a couple of coats to look good. Painting over the off white with silver was time consuming and that first coat was incredibly disheartening. For subsequent days, we spent time base coating all of the metallic areas in black. This meant that in most cases a single coat of metal was all that was needed, and it was much easier to spot if an area had been missed during this stage.
Landing Pads and Factories
The landing pads and air traffic control towers followed much the same process as the hab blocks, albeit with different colours. A pair of greys was chosen to keep things simple, with a dry brush to bring up the edges once the zenithal coats had been applied. For the hazard stripes, I spent a little bit of time planning placement with some digital overpainting to figure out what would look best. Once I was happy with the layout of the stripes I masked the border of the area and painted the whole section yellow. With the initial yellow dried, I added the masking for the hazard stripes and applied the black. To help tie everything together some stippling was added in brown, after all this is an active battlefield.
Scott wasn’t totally convinced when I suggested Montana Pan followed by Montana Clockwork. The brown with a touch of green for the base zenithal, followed by the vibrant orange, gave us striking shadows with high contrast while suggesting filth and grime at the lower layers.
Applying Pigments
The final stage for the terrain was bringing it all together with weathering powders. You don’t need to buy hobby specific products here, and generally speaking buying pigments from an art shop is going to be cheaper. We selected a set of colours with some variety, leaning towards deep reds, browns, and blacks to represent the accumulated rust and grime of a planet at war.
Applying pigments can get messy, as you’re working with very fine powders across a large area, and ideally you’ll want to set up somewhere that’s either easy to clean or outside. Using a large soft brush, dab the pigment into the crevices and across the lower surfaces to build up some natural looking detritus. If there’s areas where the dry brushing is too stark, or the metals are too shiny, this is a great chance to knock it all back with a heavier layer of pigment. Don’t worry if you think you’ve gone too hard, when the fixer is applied the pigment application will be brought down.
To seal the pigment, and stop it from shedding all over whoever is touching, and the models around it, there’s a couple of options. Hairspray is by far the cheapest but doesn’t provide long term protection to the paint and over time will rub off. Testors Dullcote is frequently recommended as an excellent sealer for terrain, and will work well to fix pigments in place too. Applying the sealant in light passes helps, as you risk blowing it off the model before it’s stuck if the air pressure is too aggressive. You’ll also notice that as the pigment combines with the fixer, it takes on a more translucent appearance. If it’s not intense enough another application of pigment can always be used to reach the desired level, and this is a great time to start layering to add some tonal variation.
The Galaxy Burns
There was definitely a lot of learning along the way with this build, and even with a little bit of foresight and planning, we still had optimisations to make in our process once we began. We were lucky to have enough space, and good weather, to do the pigment work outdoors for days two and three. Let us know in the comments below if this guide helped with your own terrain projects, big or small!
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