Planetary Survey Complete!

Hive City Bloodholm towers over the expansive waste land on Belsbeth known as The Ravage, and now it does it painted!. Last night the final seal was placed on the last of the 43 tiles I had to paint to build my map for this evening, garnering an exclamation of, "Hell Ya!" at a time in the evening and a volume that my wife deemed inappropriate. Whateva! I was stoked!

In the D&D and version of Bloodholm a guy named Monoch raised an undead army and laid waste to everything living. He did this because he discovered that a Tarasque slumbered beneath the land that came to be known as The Ravage and he wanted to awaken it and force it to march on a rival kingdom, since there was nothing to eat in the one in which it was awoken. Monoch was stopped, but he left this war torn gouge in the land, and that came to be known as The Ravage. I am not really sure what the 40k equivalent of that event is at the moment, though I know it involves Necrons and a Necron lord named...you guessed it Monoch. Fortunately I don't have to decide much of anything so much as just use it for inspiration for this last little sector of tiles.

From Stuff I Have Painted

From Stuff I Have Painted

I took the basic "wasteland" look GW has used in a number of their projects and just modified it a little. Looking closely you might see some purple underneath. I did this mainly to break up the gray. I "borrowed" the idea from a zone in World of Warcraft when I played it back in the day called The Blasted Lands.

Since Pieridium is the much sought after mineral, and since it in some way ties in with necrons, I kinda mashed it all together to make those bright green deposits. I tried to make them look crystalline, but since the bumps were blunt and rounded, it doesn't translate as well as I like. Even still, looking at it the players should be like, "Oh hey, the rocks here are green, maybe they are special?"

For the sake of anyone ever wanting to duplicate or experiment with the color progressions I used they are as follows:

Gray Wastleland- Based with P3 greatcoat gray then painted with stripes of P3 Beaten Purple-I think, whichever one is the darkest-then washed over with CW Badab Black. Dry-brushed with P3 Underbelly Blue, then dry-brushed again with P3 Frostbite.

Structures/Hive City- Based with P3 Bloodstone then washed with CW Devlan Mud. Dry-brushed over with P3 Skorne Red, then again with P3 Midland Flesh. The metal parts were based in P3 Blighted Gold then washed with P3 Turquoise Ink and water. They were given a highlight, albeit sloppily, of P3 Solid Gold followed by another of P3 Radiant Platinum.

From Stuff I Have Painted

Pieridium (The Green Rocks)- Based in P3 Iosan Green then washed with CW Thraka Green. Given a highlight of P3 Necrotite Green, followed by another of P3 Necrotite Green/P3 Morrow White (About 50/50) mix with a some water added to thin it.

Tonight I get to put it all together, probably with my wife's help, and a few buddies. The other five players were tasked with painting their own space port tile, which is why I only painted 43/48 tiles, and four structures (One of each type). I can't wait to see how they all turned out. I will post pics, of course, of the individual tiles, as well as the surface of Belsbeth one it is assembled.

All I have left now is a few structures that will be added throughout the campaign and then my Planetary Empires set is fully painted. At which point I can get back to my Tau. I marvel at my own ability for sabotage at times. As I was painting fire warriors I was thinking I would rather be painting anything but fire warriors. As I have been working on Belsbeth I have been thinking how I would kill to paint another fire warrior.

With this planet stuff being squared away I am going to try and get one of my Shas'els done, and his two body guard suits for this. However I also really want to do Pathfinders...or my stealth suit team, so we will see who wins out. Either way, it is nice to have the better part of a project behind me so I can move on to the next. The structures will be done by Sunday, and then my brush goes back once more to the space-fish-men.

Thanks for reading,
T