Ladders are boring
Here is a small and not overly demanding project to get fully into making terrain (editor's note: the text was written in 2010, he still hasn’t gotten fully into it :D ).
Since the integral part of Mordheim is climbing / descending from various buildings / obstacles etc. ladders are a vital part of the game. In order to get little diversity of the terrain, I started making rope & hook terrains that will mark in the game where models can climb without penalties in the same way as ladders do.
1. I took an old CD and cut out irregularly shaped bases from it. The bases are slightly smaller than small round GW bases to fit more easily on balconies, narrow aisles, and generally crowded Mordheim. I glued lead to the bases to gain weight and then put it DAS modeling clay all over it.
2. In order not to make eight piles of earth with a hook and rope, each base has its own theme or detail that makes it more interesting.
A dead skaven made from the body of a gnoblar, a skaven's head, tail and shield. This was a relatively easy conversion because I could cover all the joints with sand and not waste time on green stuff and converting in the true sense of the word.
One base that looks like a bunch of rubbles due to a bad image, but it is not. The picture shows a bad depression that I will fill with valleyo still water resin after painting and thus make a puddle / hole filled with water.
The base, which was originally conceived only as a bunch of rubble, but in the process of making it, I had the idea to insert one gruesome detail that will have to wait to paint the base first. About that later. (11 years later, still waiting… editor’s note)
A piece of broken beam with a blade stuck into it. Nuff said (by the way, the rings on all the woodworks are carved with an engraving tool).
Classic warhammer motif - battered shield & sword. I added straps to the shield to attach it to an arm.
Wooden loom / shaloporka. Made of FIMO mass with carved slats and rings. Metalwork made of cardboard, handle and hinge wire, green stuff rivets. Whoever finds out that I f**up ... gets ... a finger in the eye.
Again a broken beam with a bell still attached (inspiration from a local pub). Bell and chain from a zombie sprue, carved beams, metalwork from cardboard, rivets and wooden pegs - GS. A little wire and plastic and that's it.
This base is somehow my favorite and I spent the most time on it. The chest. From a piece of slat I cut off the base for the coffin, carved the rings. From cardboard I made shackles along the edges, and from wire hinged lids. From an ancient night goblin quiver, I carefully cut out the skull (approx. 1.5 x 2.5 mm), glued it to the front of the chest to act as a keyhole, drilled a keyhole, and inserted a small key made of wire (0.5 square mm of wire - in cross section it is almost half the size of the paper clip). With fine sandpaper, I aligned the GS and added to the sides of the chest from the same wire from which I made the key of the handle made of intertwined wires (to emphasize even more that it is not an ordinary box - but something, yes, a little finer, no).
Bases on a pile with added triangle hooks (bought in a fish shop for about 2kn / piece - probably not worth fishing for, but they are great for this). On the hooks, I removed the pointy bits myself so that the players would not catch themselves when moving the pieces.
That's it. This is followed by adding a chain on the hooks (approx. 3-4 links per piece), undercoating and painting.
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Science behind Acrylic Paints
- Binders (eng. resin) – form a film – in our case probably pure acrylates, I suspect they are styrene acrylates.
- Fillers – in addition to adding volume to the paint, they also affect the viscosity, coverage and appearance of the dry film
- Pigments – the main division is into organic pigments and inorganic pigments. Inorganic ones are more covering but have less vivid shades, while organic ones are often quite poorly covering (yellow for example) but their shades are vivid and bright
Additives:
- Anti-foam
- Rheological modifiers – affect the behavior of wet paint on the substrate (e.g. spillage) and the behavior of the paint when a force is applied to it (brush, roller, spray, airbrush). Rheological modifiers also include thickeners that affect the viscosity of the paint.
- Dispersants – envelop pigment and filler particles and prevent their agglomeration during standing. Good dispersion of pigment and filler affects the coverage and uniform appearance of the dry film. There are a bunch more but I won't go into too much detail
- Solvent – in this case water.
Contrast paints and speed paints – high pigment content, but not so much that it causes high coverage. They are formulated to spread, not to stay where you put them. The result of spreading is that the paint collects in the recesses, where a thicker film of paint remains than on the protruding parts of the miniature. Where the film of paint is thicker (the recesses), the shade of the contrast paint is more pronounced, unlike on the protruding parts where the film is thinner, which is why the shade is then influenced by the color of the substrate.
Composition:
- Binders
- Pigments
- Additives – all listed above + surfactants that reduce the surface tension of the wet paint film, which is why it flows
- solvent
- I would say they do not contain fillers, or contain very, very little of them
Washes – similar in formulation and behavior to contrast agents, only they have a much lower proportion of pigments, certainly no fillers, a higher proportion of surfactants, lower viscosity, and probably less binders.
If we want to greatly dilute acrylic paint or contrast, it is better to use a product intended for this purpose from the manufacturer of that paint rather than water, because it contains all the necessary amount of binders and additives for that paint to retain its properties.
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U ovom članku, naša Dunja nam otkriva znanost iza akrilnih boja.
Akrilne boje – visoki udio pigmenta i dobra pokrivnost. Ako su dobro formulirane ostaju tamo gdje ih naneseš, ne ostavljaju „brush marks“ i suše se dovoljno sporo da stigneš napravit što želiš na minijaturi a opet dovoljno brzo.
Sastav:
- Veziva (eng. resin) – formiraju film – u našem slučaju vjerojatno čisti akrilati, sumnjam da su stiren akrilati.
- Punila – osim što dodaju volumen boji utječu i na viskoznost, pokrivnost i izgled suhog filma
- Pigmenti – glavna podjela je na organske pigmente i anorganske pigmente. Anorganski su više pokrivni ali manje živih nijansi, dok su organski često dosta loše pokrivni (žuti npr) ali zato su im nijanse žive i jarke
Aditivi:
- Protiv pjene
- Reološki modifikatori – utječu na ponašanje mokre boje na podlozi (npr razlijevanje) i na ponašanje boje dok na nju djeluje sila (kist, valjak, sprej, airbrush). Pod reološke modifikatore spadaju i ugušćivači koji utječu na viskozitet boje.
- Dispergatori – obavijaju čestice pigmenata i punila i sprječavaju aglomeraciju istih stajanjem. Dobra dispergiranost pigmenta i punila utječe na pokrivnost i ujednačen izgled suhog filma.
- Ima ih još hrpa ali neću toliko u detalje
- Otapalo – u ovom slučaju voda.
Kontrastice i speed paints – visoki udio pigmenta, ali ne toliki da uzrokuje visoku pokrivnost. Formulirane su da se razlijevaju, a ne da ostaju tamo gdje ih staviš. Posljedica razlijevanja je skupljanje boje u udubine gdje onda ostane deblji film boje nego na isturenim dijelovima minijature. Tamo gdje je film boje deblji (udubine) nijansa kontrastice izraženija, za razliku od isturenih dijelova na kojima je film tanji zbog čega na nijansu onda utječe boja podloge.
Sastav:
- Veziva
- Pigmenti
- Aditivi – svi nabrojani gore +
- surfakanti koji smanjuju površinsku napetost mokrog filma boje zbog čega i dolazi do razlijevanja
- otapalo
- rekla bih da ne sadrže punila, ili ih sadrže vrlo vrlo malo
Washevi – po principu formuliranja i ponašanju slični kontrasticama, samo imaju puno manji udio pigmenata, sigurno ne sadrže punila, veći udio surfakanata, manji viskozitet i vjerojatno manje veziva.
Ako želimo jako razrijediti akrilnu boju ili kontrasticu bolje je koristiti za to predviđen proizvod od proizvođača te boje nego vodu, jer sadrži svu potrebnu količinu veziva i aditiva kako bi ta boja zadržala svoja svojstva.
" ["created"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" ["modified"]=> string(19) "2025-11-20 13:03:37" } ["Member"]=> array(10) { ["id"]=> string(2) "64" ["group_id"]=> string(1) "1" ["first_name"]=> string(9) "Krunoslav" ["last_name"]=> string(8) "Belinić" ["first_name_mask"]=> string(9) "krunoslav" ["last_name_mask"]=> string(7) "belinic" ["username"]=> string(5) "Kruno" ["password"]=> string(40) "eb3fda45fbec0258e90d809803b10491c548b22f" ["born"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:19:00" ["created"]=> string(19) "2015-01-18 09:20:39" } } Krunoslav Belinić, 20th November 2025 - We attended: ModelMania 2025 Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025
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