Painted Hex Protoype

Hey peoples got a huge box of stuff from ModestMagic yesterday. Spent some time painting a few pieces up today.

Many of you who've been following this project on youtube and the infinity forums are probably thinking, "wheres the engraved hexes?" WELL they didnt work too well. They tended to gum up with paint way to much and just weren't looking great. Nick sent me a single pocketed hex that I instantly liked ALOT better then I thought I would just from the video (which reinforces why its important we take our time getting these products right before adding them to the webstore). So I painted some stuff up and used a gloss varnish over a lime green color in the hex pockets and they look sick. I also tried OSL on the stairs, lemme know what you think, OSL or plain?

Exciting Project with Modest Magic

Hey guys,
Over the last few weeks I've been working with Nick from Modest Magic http://www.modestmagic.com/ on an exciting project. I approached Nick after watching some of Terrainaholics videos on youtube and seeing the fantastic terrain Nick was churning out of his CNC machine. My idea was modular platforms to use to add height on Infinity tables. This is what I sent Nick...

And this is what he did with it!

Check out Nicks youtube channel and his awesome next project, sweet sci-fi walkways!

Infinity Forest Table WIP

Heres some more shots of the hills. They're all ready for paint now. To get them to how your seeing them they've been textured using fine playground sand and some pink aquarium gravel. After I glued the sand down using straight PVA glue and it had dried completely. I used a large paint brush and brushed away any loose sand, then I used a 20/80 mix of PVA and water and "washed" each of the hills to seal them. This is an optional step but I always do it cuz I'm slightly OCD and if I'm putting this much effort into them I mine as well make them extra tough.

 Look what I found at Hobby Lobby for like $6! They came in a farm play set in the clearance section so I scavenged them and gave the kids the rest. Pretty sweet for a few dollars, very detailed too, there gonna paint up sweet! I'll probably base them and have them overgrown and use them on the forest table.

 This is probably my favorite hill. I just love all the nooks and crannies.

All right so thats it for now, please stay tuned. Im going to hold off on painting for a few days cuz its been super hot in So Cal this week. I'm hoping it cools off on Thursday so I can spend some time in the garage.

Alpine Forest Update

Quick update. Our 2 feature hills all ready for texture. These have been coated in polyfiller and then sanded smoothish. Both of these steps are very messy and time consuming but really help un blockify the hills.

Alpine Forest Infinity Table WIP

Here are some WIP shots of the Alpine Forest terrain. You can see that the foam has been shaped, attached to MDF bases and the plaster rocks have been attached with liquid nails. Tomorrow I hope to smooth/even everything out with spackle (sp?)

 Now anyone who plays Infinity knows that that is no where close to enough terrain for a 4X6 table. Well directly below my feet is a stack of bases that will become the forest sections once the hills are finished and I have some $ to buy the trees. To see my inspiration check out TerranScapes youtube channel. Trust me, this will be as terrain heavy as the winter board, if not more. These won't be your typical forest sections either. My goal is for them to be so thick/lush that they completely block line of fire.

Repost of these 2 photos cuz the blogger app screwed up the last post :/

These 2 hills were gonna follow from start to finish.

 And just another shot of my proof of concept with a figure for scale. 

Infinity Alpine Forest ...

Its coming...

Hill and beginning of forest table

So I did an experiment recently to see if I could make realistic looking hills with rocks using Woodland Scenics Rock Moulds. Now I had 1 of these lying around and some hydrocal because my Dad was going to use it for a model railway and after a bit of trial and error (hint: follow the directions exactly) I was able to make some cool plaster rocks and then using a piece of 2inch thick pink foam produce a pretty cool looking hill.

Sorry I don't have any WIP shots but this one turned out so well that I'm going to be doing a whole tables worth! So stay tuned for WIP shots of my upcoming 4X6 forest board.

Finished Infinity Board (Winter Ariadna/Haqqislam Medical Research Theme)

Here are pics from the finished board. Very happy with how everything turned out. Like I've mentioned before the water affects pissed me off and need more work once it cools down in the fall but of now, they're good enough. All the stuff from Sarrisa Precision turned out sick. Very easy to do. Light gray spray paint, dark gray spray paint, white spray paint/stencil, stippling of silver on edges and rails, and a wash of water/badab black/devlan mud mix. I'm hoping my group starts playing again so we can use the board. I'm going to demo a game for a buddy next week and am going to look into demoing at a few local stores once things calm down at work. Im now working on some scratch built buildings, I'm going to try and see if I can make enough terrain to cover a 4X4 cheaply/easily. Stay tuned for that. Also hoping to pick up some cool terrain at SoCalSmackdown next month.

As always, comments and critiques welcome.

I know its been ages since I've posted anything but here's my latest progress on the Infinity table. I'm also now accepting terrain commissions so if your in the Southern California area and want something down drop me a comment below.

 The board was re-textured. Painted, and snow flock added. I started the water effects. Due to the stupid extreme heat in SoCal lately the resin has shrunk and is doing some interesting cloudy things that are frustrating me to no end. The board is basically done but I want to add another thin layer of Realistic Water to the stream and then use Modge Podge to add some texture to the top.

And I made some progress on my System Infinity buildings from Sarrisa Precision. Mainly base coating them. I used cheap spray paint in a light and dark gray. Im happy with the way they look at the moment. My plan is to add some details, a few washes and maybe a dry brush and they'll be done. I had thought to add some ice cycles/snow to the buildings themselves to help them blend into the board more but I think ill leave them without winter accessories so I can use them on different boards. I'd like to do an urban 3X3 or 4X4 next to use with some of these with lots of different layers and a canal system BUT ill only have the funds for that if I start doing more commissions. I hope to start posting more regularly, maybe once a week? but I'm not making any promises. As always please comment below and feel free to ask any questions.

Infinity Table WIP

Hey people who read this (?). I know its been a while, I'm still here and slowly making progress on the Infinity front. Here's some pictures of the board I'm working on. Its either going to be a Ariadna outpost or a Haqqislam research facility. Something like that. The board itself will be black/gray drybrushed with copious amounts of snow flock and the stream in the middle will be a toxic waste glowey green. Itleast thats the plan as it stands right now, just waiting for funds to buy paint.

The pictures are extra crappy with a side of bad lighting. I just wanted to give you guys a feel for the project. The System Infinity buildings went to together without any major issues. I found a really cool way to make clear green windows (pictures coming). Nothings going to be glued down so these pictures just show one of many possibilities. Also the silos are missing the ladders which had been left out of my order. I contacted Steve at Sarrisa Precision and he mailed replacements out immediately, great chap. Hope this provided some inspiration and ideas, Cheers!

Sarissa Precision "System Infinity" First Thoughts:

2 Posts in 1 day, Holy Crap this guy most be bored and/or motivated!

 Ok guys, after looking at Home Depot, Michaels, AND Hobby Lobby for a light gray FLAT/MATTE spray paint and coming up empty handed I found the perfect color at Wal*Mart of all places. The best thing is its their super cheapo no name brand spray paint. Like $1.50 a can or something like that!

 But first what my first impressions of Sarissa Precisions ( http://www.sarissa-precision.co.uk/ new ) " System Infinity" line are. I ordered 4 shipping containers (by 3 get 1 free) and the smallest pod, I believe its called Explorer Pod and it cost just over $50 USD. Thankfully Steve at SP offers FREE WORLDWIDE shipping for orders over 30pounds (money, not weight). Although the prices are very reasonable the exchange rate is a bummer for us Americans. My order shipped the next day and I had it 5 days later, not to shabby coming from overseas. Ive waited longer for packages from TheWarStore. All of his products come flat packed. You have to "punch" the pieces out. Everything smells like a campfire from the laser cut MDF. I actually had to take it out to the garage cuz my wife wasnt to keen on the scent. The detail on these things is amazing. Enough said. They go together with just a little bit of glue (I used Tacky Glue) and are VERY sturdy. I cant wait to buy and assemble some of the larger kits. Overall I am very pleased with these first kits and will be placing another order ASAP. Enough words, heres some pictures.

Heres a shot with the spray paint I got from walmart. Theres been alot of discussion on the INFINITY forums about MDF absorbing paint and the need to seal these before hand, either with watered down PVA or even hairspray. I had no issues using this paint straight on the MDF. I havnt noticed any absorption and as you'll see below I havnt lost ANY of the detail.

In this shot you can see that not only have I not lost any of the fine line details but this particular spray paint goes on so fine I wont have to go pack and pick out the lines again. SCORE!

 

Before and after shot of the SciFi shipping containers. You might notice that I didnt put the braces in the middle as recommended. I just thought it looked silly and prefer having them on the end much better (Thanks Steven)

 

There you have it. Expect more posts soon as I finish painting these. I also might do a top 5 list of my favorite Infinity models. Cheers!

INFINITY

Its been a while BUT I am back. I actually thought I lost the blog briefly when my lovely, well intentioned wife deleted my Gmail account on accident. Thankfully I was able to recover it and were back in business.

I havnt done much hobbying (new word) since I finished the trench table. I ordered some Infinity miniatures with my gaming group back at the end of December from SciFiGenre.com and had them sent to MiniaturePaintingAuthority.com to be painted. Ill be writing a review on my experience with MPA as soon as I get the models back. Its taken quite a while longer then I expected but hopefully theyll be in the mail by the end of the week. We ordered Panociana, Haqqislam (pictured), and Nomads.

I also ordered some scenery from the guy(s) at Sarrisa Precision. They make some amazing and affordable laser cut MDF (or HDF) terrain. I ordered the smallest "pod" and 4 shipping containers and will be doing a review of those sometime this week. Long story short I plan on ordering much more from them.

 Im currently brainstorming what I want to do for my Infinity table. For those of you not familiar with Infinity, its a 28mm TrueScale (as opposed to 40K which is Heroic Scale) scifi skirmish game. Terrain is VERY VERY VERY important to this game. Unlike alot of games, where if you have too much terrain itll just slow the game play down, in Infinity if you dont have enough terrain your game will be over very quickly. Right now Im leaning towards re-purposing a 4X4 board I started to make for Warmachine a few months ago and doing a mountain hill stream snow sci-fi outpost Ariadna type board. Whatever, it makes sense in my head.

Thats all for now, hopefully ill be updating much more often. AND hopefully ill have some beautifully painted miniatures from MPA to review soon.