SF MONTH: Artic Terrain Showcase

About four months before I decided to start Terrain For Hippos, I decided to set myself the challenge of building a whole table worth of Arctic 40K terrain in one week. I've shown a few bits and pieces here, but never the whole thing together, so what better time to share it that SF Month?

For this project I used Bicarbonate of Soda for the snow. This looked great until I varnished it, and it slowly turned yellow. I've since bought Woodland Scenics snow to redo things, but I just never seem to get round to it...

Incidentally, there's a complete work in progress thread on Modelling World for this project, including discussion of how I built the mines.

Ishoo Twenty-Six Ay: My First Underhive Phase One

So, you've just picked up Necromunda (and why, may I ask, did you wait so long?) and you need to build yourself an underhive. And first it's a very daunting prospect – a whole four foot table of multilevel industrial terrain and walkways, very different from the sort of terrain you'd use in Warhammer 40,000. Of course you want to start playing as soon as possible, so you don't want to spend ages building your underhive. You could buy some of GW's plastic 40K building kits. You could take out a second mortgage to be able to afford them.

Or you could build My First Underhive.

Relax, your kind uncles Grot and Pudding have it all in hand. A quick, simple and attractive way to build your own underhive. And cheap with it. You will need to buy a few things, and it might seem a touch expensive, but it's considerably cheaper than buying all your terrain (and you can remove all the PVC pipe if you want to save money!). Because there are a fair few things you'll need, we've put together a shopping list of all the major stuff you will need to complete the project. There are plenty of things which are optional as well, so don't worry if you don't have them.
2X Large sheets of foamcore
3X 15mm Meter lengths of PVC pipe (Bunnings, and other hardware super stores have these)
14X 15mm inside diameter PVC pipe joints
4X 15mm inside diameter PVC elbow joints
1X Roll corrugated card (or you could strip one side off a sheet of corrugated card)
1.6mm plastric rod

In this project we'll be building three different basic buildings, the Central Pump, The Hab Block and the Industrial Block. We'll build two each of the hab and industrial blocks, and decorate them differently for variety. What's more the Landing Pad from Ishoo Twentee A, and the Pumping Station from Ishoo Forteen are both fully compatible with this set – in fact, the landing pad was designed with this set in mind.

This is a pretty big project, so we'll be posting it in two parts. Phase one (this ishoo!) will be all the industrial buildings, while phase two will be the hab blocks and walkways.

Confused? Don't worry, it's all so easy a hippo could do it. Which is a good thing, because a Hippo WILL be doing it!
Take it away Grot!

PART ONE: CENTRAL PUMPER:














TIP: PVC pipe is a very slick material so the paint will not stick perfectly first time. Give it a douple of coats and it should be fine (or use a spray paint)


PART TWO: INDUSTRO BLOCK ONE:













PART THREE: INDUSTRO BLOCK TWO









And there you have it hippo fans! Be sure to come back for Phase Two, where we'll build a pair of Hab Blocks and several bridges to connect the buildings (and all the connecty bits will be explained!)

And don't forget to vote on the Ishoo Twenty-Ate poll either - I've extended it a little since I won't be up to Ishoo Twenty-Ate for a while.

SF MONTH QUICKIE: Concrete Walls.

When you work on large terrain projects like My First Underhive you tend to find you have a lot of downtime - waiting for paint or glue to dry mostly. This time can be put to good use working on quick little projects which will enhance the whole thing. Like these concrete walls designed to give cover at ground level.

These really are quick - I made six of them at once, although not all of them as as fancy as this one. And they are handy too - you can never have to much cover in a game of Necromunda!

Anyways, My First Underhive Part One should be up in the next few days, there are just a few more details to take care of before painting.