Sector Imperialis: Summary

With the main pieces completed, I can breathe a little sigh of relief and reflect on the success of the project, because I'm super happy with the outcome. But here's how you can get similar results.

Resources
None of the little tips and tricks here to add detail on these terrain pieces are new.

A good number are stolen from the excellent RichBuilds.com. He's awesome. Especially his Dino Gas station (http://www.richbuilds.com/articles/build-review-tt-combats-dinogas-filling-station-28mm-mdf-wargames-terrain/) which is honestly inspiring and encouraged me not to be so lazy when making my terrain pieces - his pieces look so lived in.

I went on a basing course with the excellent Mamikon Khachikyan aka NokiStudio (https://www.instagram.com/nokistudio/) and gained some great insight into thinking about themes, colour choices, contrast and texture. I've tried to pull some of those learnings through.

Clutter
Magazine clutter is TV listings from a local newspaper. Glued on the back and folded over, then flattened.  This gave me a slightly wrinkled texture because I used PVA, which worked really well.. Then cut up into tiny magazine-sized pieces, put in different coloured paints, taken out and left to dry.

Rich did 5x5mm, but I've made mine rectangular for the most part, but no specific shape, so there's a little more visual variety when placed at random angles. It's glued down, then weathered to dampen the colours.

Posters
These were from a, now, long-lost, PDF someone made available on AmmoBunker many moons ago. I printed out a number of these onto photo paper and kept them in a drawer. They've been weathered in the same way as everything else - so crumpled up, covered in translucent paint, then stuck down to things.

Mold
I never pay attention to ceilings, or the inside of terrain generally. But since Noki's course, I will be doing more detailing. First step here is giving the feel that it isn't an arid environment, by adding effects to convey moisture being present. The mould in the ceilings is a mix of ground down clump foliage and fine flock from Woodland Scenics.

Experimentation with a few different medium as the transport method to place and secure it yielded a winner ... cheap glue from Hobbycraft. It's sticky enough to hold the flock in place, but thin enough to push around where I want it to go. If the mould needs to creep a little further, then matt medium is surprisingly good in combination.

Video Screens
Every working screen is painted differently, and they're all a homage to the Amiga. Only one is on display in this set of scenery, but there are more coming! This is entirely the fault of Tetrisdroid (https://twitter.com/Tetrisdroid/status/1023205770018676736) who started painting up retro computer screens on his, and it just fired my brain! Ridiculous, frankly, and a detail that will go overlooked everywhere ... but I love it.

Hope you enjoyed the pieces, and I look forward to sharing more in the future.

Sector Imperialis: Sanctum

Here's the final piece of the terrain build, the Sanctum. It's dull, a curious shade of grey, and literally rotting from within. I felt that was an appropriate metaphor for the grimdark Imperium.

There's blood splatter, control panels, candles, posters, gang markings and old papers. I do love adding the detail on these.

Phew.

Sector Imperialis: Schola Progenium

This building represents a ruined training facility for the Adeptus Ministorum.

An execution against a proclamation, more gang graffiti, torn down posters and everlasting candles. Details, details, details.

I've had a lot of fun with some of the smaller details, like the blown out windows having dust gathered in the corners.

Sector Imperialis: Administratum

The speed is coming back a little now ... so here's what's left of an Administratum.

Some fairly major damage here, literally just a corner of this fine establishment left now. They even blew the bloody doors off. Few shots with the interior detail featuring a ruined terminal, clutter, gang graffiti and a functioning control panel.

And the mobile-shot mold angle.

I enjoyed painting this such a dull and boring colour, then working out how to add life and character. The Martian earth basing scheme I've applied across my models works really well here in contrast, but keeps the warm feeling.

Sector Imperialis: Synod Outpost

Building names outside the scenery sets are far and few between, so I've called this my Synod Outpost. It's deisgned to be a small bunker for the priesthood, albeit ruined.

Random blood, hazard striping on the doorway threshold, a crude attempt at an Amiga Workbench 1.3 ROM screen on the display panel, little posters on the back of doors - where you'd literally never see it. This is the kind of detail I love adding.

Sector Imperialis: Manufactorum

Loved painting this probably most of all the buildings. Packed with ridiculous, fiddly details to fixate on and fuss over almost indefinitely. I opted to keep this building quite clean and free of Martian dust as I felt there'd inevitably be a Mechanicum invention that prevented the climate conditions impacting it.

Painting the hazard stripes was contagious. It started with the blast windows, then moved to the fans and threshold of the door too. So many buttons, vents, pipes, cables, fans and corners to fur up with rust and mold.

What a blast this was. But they swapped out the million skulls for two million rivets instead. It does take a toll on your sanity after a while!

Sector Imperialis: Honoured Imperium

The fastest pieces in the set. Take some heavy body acrylic black and white, add a little green wash and brown wash, and that's literally it. Pleased with how the stone effect turned out.

I did add a second, darker wash to the statue base just to encourage your eye to look at the statue and not what it's stood on.

Sector Imperialis: Basilicanum

Phew.

This has been a rough couple of months, but I think there's light at the end of the tunnel and it isn't oncoming traffic. Finally.

Quietly, when time allows, I've been painting up my 40k scenery as my mental capacity for anything more complex has been zero. This is the first of the buildings, my Basilicanum. It isn't the same as the new Kill Team themed scenery, it's part of the older, Imperial Sector releases. Hard to believe I bought these nearly a decade ago and have only just started painting them.

My gaming board is set on a red earth planet, so let's call it Mars for the moment as I don't have many other reference points, and imagination isn't my forte.

I've really enjoyed painting these. From broad sweeps of the brush for the terrain, down to fiddling over little details in the scenery itself. From a little gas cannister pushed up against an oil drum, the Martian earth catching in shattered window frames, old propaganda posters, deactivated control panels, to mold on the underside of the roof tiles - which is a hidden treat and not in the photos.

You will be bored of scenery over the next couple of weeks, I promise. But this has been a form of therapy for me, and it's brilliant to have painted terrain to accompany my army on the table.

A little scruffy bonus shot, just to prove that I am painting the underside of the floors too. The introduction of mold, which may be a work in progress as I perfect my techniques for this.