Get your spooky brushes and clippers, and welcome to the second annual Spooktober event! Like last year, I'll be focusing on miniatures and terrain that fit in well with my death armies in celebration of Halloween, one of the funnest times of the year and (in my opinion) the gateway to the holiday season. In the second post of the event, I've created terrain to match my homebrew lore: the ruins of Ravenmarch.
Last Spooktober, I created some lore for my Legions of Nagash army that discussed their old country of Ravenmarch. Well this year, I've brought some of that lore to life by creating the ruins of Ravenmarch. Of course, I can always use this as generic forest ruin terrain, but I like putting elements like these my games that give them a little bit more story.
The base models are from the excellent Reaper Bones V Kickstarter. The kickstarter included various terrain packs, and the two I used for this particular project were Encounter: Shadows of Ravenhome and Encounter: Charnel Pit of the Ghoul Queen. The kickstarter is in a late pledge status at the moment, but a lot of the models should be going to retail fairly soon. You can check that out on Reaper's website. I also included a statue bit from the Dungeons & Lasers II Kickstarter, which I've talked about before on this blog.
For those that haven't worked with Reaper minis before, the plastic is rather soft and pliable. It usually comes warped in the packaging, but that can be resolved by reshaping the plastic with hot water. However, even with that I still had some warping, so I decided to glue them all to some MDF bases and just be done with it. I ran out of super glue but PVA glue was enough to do the trick. I used some clips to keep the models attached to the base while it dried.
To blend the models into the base, I used some pre-mixed grout, which I discovered makes excellent basing material after using it on my Stardrake. It also has a finer texture than playground sand, so works better for the scale of the minis. It also dries very strong, so it gives the entire model more durability. While I was at it I added some Woodland Scenics trees to the model to add some vegetation and fill in the empty spaces on the bases.
Once totally dry I started the painting. The models and the bases lent themselves very well to drybrushing. The stone was just a basecoat of black with successively lighter drybrushes of grays to whites. The earth is my standard umber brown drybrushed with khaki. I use this color for all of my terrain as it is a neutral color and fits in well with all of my armies' different basing schemes. After that, I just flocked the base and added the trees. I threw in some grass tufts and leaves as well for added variety, which I think added a nice touch to the overall look of the models. Anyways, enjoy the glamor shots from here on out!
-The Space Dinosaur
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