Pretty Pictures of Burkittheim.

Recently, I was commissioned to build $400 worth of Mordheim terrain for a sinister man from Sydney (ie: Mr. Alex Burkitt of the Infernal Muppets, a group of sinister sydneysiders who throw dice at one another on a regular basis. That or play Warhammer. I'm not sure.) 

And now, for your delectation are the photos I took of Burkittheim before shipping it. I was going to take more, but my camera batteries went flat, and I forgot to take more once I had recharged. In the immortal commodore-rear-window decorating words of Ned Kelly, Such is Life.
(note that I did not resize these before posting, so they are at the original camera file size, which is pretty chunky.)

Ah, beautiful downtown Burkittheim.

Which can be viewed from a range of angles and directions.

Such as this one.

Ruined building No.... er... I think this is No. 4? There were numbers...

The mighty carriage factory of Herr K. G. Benz & Sons. Also possibly known as Ruin No. 4.

The side of Burkitt Bros, dealers in finest reconditioned arms and armour.

And here we see the side of the house of ill repute. Which is most ill-y reputable.

The strange sort of tower-and-grave yard might of Ruin 5. This is definitely ruin 5.

This is ruin 3. I'm almost certain of that. It has an interior. Because such things are good, or so I am told.

Ruin 3 connected to one of the corners with a bridge of great sturdiness. Note also the ladder.

Yet another view of said ruin.

This is the back of Burkitt Bros.

The Burkittheim Guardhouse, featuring it's mighty round towery-thing. Which would be a wonderful place to deploy a warmachine in WFB, or KoW. Let us hope Herr Burkitt resists the urge to use it thus.

Another view of said guard house, which features EVERY kind of stone technique I use.... apart from one.

But it does have a multi-level interior to make up for missing out on one stone technique.

Ah, Burkitt Bros, you return to end the article. huzzah!

I can now also reveal what ACTUALLY happened to Mordheim. It was not struck by a twin-tailed comet. It was struck by a single tailed giant mutant space cat with warpstone eyes.

Well, there you are, about a month's worth of Mordheiming it up like a mad mad. I'll be posting the TFH Annual Compometition results on the weekend, so keep and eye out for those too.

Duelling Paintbrushes 5: And so it begins.

And lo, here we are in October, the month of the Duel of Kings! I have chosen to paint up more Dwarves (I already have a small WFB Dwarf army, but even for WFB it needs considerable expansion) and by the simple expedient of rummaging in the stash, I have uncovered most of what I need. Having run various ideas through EasyArmy, I have come up with the following:

Ironclads:

Horde of 40.

Using vintage GW plastic Dwarfs.

Sharpshooters:

Troop of 5.

Using converted vintage Harlequin Thunderers.

Berserker Brock Riders:

Two troops of 5.

Using the official Mantic figures (because who wouldn't want to use a unit of guys on giant dire badgers??)

Shield Breakers:

Troop of 5

Using GW's mid-era metal Longbeards. You know, the ones with actual long beards they made until the plastic Warriors/Longbeards came out and paradoxically made Longbeard-dom dependent on wearing a mask instead of having a long beard.

Flame Belcher:

Warmachine.

Using the old metal Flame Cannon model from GW. The one which is basically a barrel.

Greater Earth Elemental:

Monster.

Using the Mantic Dreadball Iron Ancestor (a sort of giant Dwarf robot) which I will convert by adding lots of steam generator equipment and arms and weapons, probably from Khador warjacks. It will not exactly be an earth elemental, but it will be a potent masterwork of Dwarven engineering.

King:

Individual.

Using the old GW Queen Helgar model. So a Queen then.

My cat does his best of ignore my Dwarves.

My WFB Dwarves are painted up in a red and yellow brewery theme. The idea being that each regiment is made up of the regulars of a certain pub or staff of part of the brewery, who band together to defend the main brewery or any of their beer convoys. I've never been that happy with the colour scheme I used, so I've decided that this new KoW detachment will consist of those Dwarves who have lived above ground longer, and have thus discovered... TREES! Or more specifically, apple trees. Yes! Dwarven Cider Drinkers! Thus Ironfoundersenn's Brewery will be re-inforced by the forces of Forgedottir Cider; their new hipster cider making division. This means I will be using different colours for the forces of Sigrid Forgedottir, but more of this later.

Developments and goings on at Terrain For Hippos.

Age of Shenanigans:

It seems that the current fashion is to write a mournful article on one's blog mourning the passing of 8th edition Warhammer and bemoaning the round-based skirmishy shenanigans of Age of Sigmar.

My cat reacts to Age of Sigmar.

Age of Sigmar is not going to kill my hobby, and will not stop be hammering wars. I don't play much WFB anymore, but it is my favourite setting for terrain making. Fortunately, it's also a fairly generic dark fantasy setting, and the bulk of the terrain will work in other settings. It will also not stop be in my ambition to build at least one themed terrain item for ALL the WFB races in 8th ed. Depending on what I think of the new setting, I will probably end up making some terrain which fits into AoS somehow.

Annual Terrain Compomeition:

Yes! It's that time of the year again! The annual terrain compometition is now open for entries until the end of September. Here's Grot with the rules:

For those who either cannot or will not learn the art of Hippospeak, here are the full, complete and utter rules:

• Build something which has either appeared on TFH or uses techniques which have appeared on TFH.
• Email pictures (NOT links to photobucket, google drive or similar) of same along with:
• Your name.
• A description of the project.
• At least FIVE photos of it (not all of these will be published, but more pics help the judging).
• Your mailing address for prize sending purposes.
• Chew your nails as you await the announcement of winners.
• Juniors (under 18s) is only open to people under 18. Seniors is open to all entrants.
• If anyone REALLY young enters, a Super Juniors category will be added.
• All entires must be in by midnight, September 30, 2015 Australian Eastern Standard Time (GMT +10).
• Entries which do not include all of the details required will not be considered.
• Minimum bribe level: one turnip. Oh hang on, I don't want to price myself out of the market!*

Prizes are as follows:

SENIORS:

• Glorious and magnificent Certiwotsit of Winneration, signed by Grot himself!
• Shiny and wondrous $50 TFH terrain commission voucher!
• Awesome and lustrous TFH official mug-wot-holds-liquids-and-also-paint-brushes!

JUNIORS:

• Glorious and magnificent Certiwotsit of Winneration, signed by Grot himself!
• Shiny and wondrous $30 TFH terrain commission voucher!
• Awesome and sort of matt-black hot glue gun of power!

*Baldric; Black Adder the Third.

Cosplay For Hippos Ishoo Wun: Orc Princess Shield

Lately my day job as a media teacher and my hobby have been running into one another and melting into a lovely, gooey mess of prop and costume crafting. Since no terrain is being made, and since the blog is not getting updated as a result, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce another article series to the blog, looking at how to make props and costumes. Instead of separate series for both, making just one under the catchall category of 'Cosplay For Hippos' seemed fitting, although there will almost certainly never be anything which is not an original design, and a lot of it is intended for film making...
Look, just go with it okay?
Anyway, in this first ishoo we'll be looking at making a shield. Because my esteemed flute-riddled opponent, Juzzy has a five year old orc-obsessed daughter, it'll be an orc princess shield. It will sort of match some armour that I crafted with her a week or so back.
And yes, my esteemed flute riddled opponent's daughter is a five year old princess with orc armour. It's nice when your kids and hobby align, eh?
Anyway, here's Grot to show us how to make the shield... and he's in pink. But that's okay. Real men wear pink.

And there you have it, hippo fans!
I don't have access to an orc princess to model the shield right now, so you'll just have to imagine how it looks.
The foam used for the main shield is EVA foam in the form of an inter-locking floor tile. You can get them at places like Bunnings for putting on shed floors, but they also come from places like K-Mart and Big W was yoga/exercise floor mat things. One side is textured, the other smooth. It's about 20mm thick, and responds well to heat-and-bend techniques. The thinner foam came from a craft shop, and is available in a range of colours. It's about 1-2mm thick. The blue foam is also from a craft shop, and about 10mm thick.
Naturally, you could paint the whole shield, but since I wanted those colours anyway for the design, I decided not to. Buying black foam would remove the need to undercoat the blue foam too, but my local dealer was out.
More exciting and bizarre things coming in future hippo fans - I'm working on some costume and prop elements for the RPG session Gippsland Gamers is running at Little Wars, and also some more SBH terrain...
And Grot is working on getting me back for making him wear pink, even if it WAS manly Orc pink.

2014 Critmoose Special: Critmoose Treeses

Hail oh Hippo Fans! Have you been thinking of buying a christmas tree only to realise they cost more than the gross national product of a small European nation? Do you wish you could put your terrain building skills to decorative use? Are you seeking a way to introduce the little hippos to terrain making? Behold! Grot in a santa suit with the solution!

And there you have it Hippo fans! Sorry about the image quality, I was experimenting with taking the photos on my phone, which struggles with taking pics of my cat for some reason...