EXT: Fortified Bunker

Right! March is going to be Terrain Month for me.



There's a splendid heap of MDF buildings to paint up, courtesy of a commission job for Stylus. And I still haven't got round to putting the finishing touches on the jungle stuff, let alone actually blogging about them. So those last few Blackstone models are going on hold, as a carrot to help me stick to getting all the flat building sides done!

First up is this tremendous kit from TTCombat. The TT stands for Troll Trader, not TableTop as I first assumed, they're a Cornwall-based company who do excellent and very cheap MDF battlefield stuff. Great kits, affordable and easy to build (mostly, anyway), and very quick to paint up.

This one is particularly good as it's got a functional interior from the word go, without having to twiddle about or make your own furnishings. It's a great line of sight blocker even before you run inside to cower, plus there's even a secondary reactor to hide behind once you're there!

Maybe the walls are a bit bare? A bit of cabling, a panel of dials and knobs, something like that wouldn't go amiss. But I kept to the stuff in the kit for now, which is a few warning signs and the optional lightbulbs.

My source lighting isn't terrible, but it could certainly be better with these. More shadows for the corners of the room, maybe? I decided that it's not going to be on display most of the time, so I wouldn't get stressed and try and redo it. Not exactly a glowing review of my own work, I suppose, but the bulbs aren't exactly glowing either.

The doors work, you can slide them open and close. 'Slide' is a strong word, 'Cautiously Force' is probably nearer. I didn't help by putting the warning signs inside the door slightly too close to the edges, so I had to go back and scrape the corners off to allow the doors to close all the way. But varnished MDF is not particularly non-stick, either.

Krycell snow powder! Gosh, it looks good. But if you follow their application manual (I did, religiously), you don't get a tough finish that will stand up to much use before the nice powder flakes off. Even after two heavy sprays of varnish and an extra one of spray mount glue, it was still fragile. A misting of very watery PVA will hopefully toughen it up, but I suspect it's going to need maintenance over time. Luckily, the rest of the sample bag of powder I was using it going to Stylus, so he can do just that.

Painting Guide:

• Concrete - Panduro Structure Paint (Concrete grey), lovely stuff from the Swedish hobby chain that needs a couple of coats but dries with a nice concrete texture. Plus it smells faintly of custard, which is an extra bonus. Skavenblight Dinge sponged over for more texture, a little Black at the edges too
• Greens - Caliban Green edging
• Generators - Black plus Rhinox Hide mix for the body of the machine. Blue glow done with Ultramar Blue blended up via Teclis Blue towards White. Same on the doors (without the glow, obviously), a bit of weathering done with various metals and browns
• Skulls - XV88, Ushabti Bone and then White blending
• Metal - Balthasar Gold blended up to Auric Armour Gold for the eagles, Leadbelcher otherwise for scratches
• Yellow - Averland Sunset washed with Ochre Weathering Powder, first a light watery mix then a heavy dabbing
• Lettering - Laundry Pen black for all of it

Just the one winter building - next, we're off to the desert!