Prickly Terrain Studios

Hi Guys,

Thanks for stopping by!

Well it's October the 1st and officially today is the day my commission terrain making business is launched!!! It's all very early days and for the most part I'm currently working on some pieces for various competitions or friends who have asked me to make bit's for them. I'm also working on some pieces for +Fritz 40K but more to follow on that in another blog / vlog. Here's a quick run down of the general blurb for Prickly Terrain Studio:

HOW WE WORK
Here at Prickly Terrain Studio we make bespoke terrain pieces to suit your needs and requirements, this could be anything from a set of objective markers through to a full gaming table. After contacting us for a quote we will get in touch to discuss the project and identify your requirements so as to give a more accurate indication of time-scales and cost, all of which is free and your under no obligation. Once your happy we will arrange a contract and take 50% upfront, the remainder to be paid upon completion. You will receive regular updates, photo's and video's throughout the duration of the project allowing you to see exactly what stage it is at right up until it is safely packed and on it's way to you.

SIMPLE PRICING STRUCTURE
We don't believe in confusing matters or making things overly complex when it comes to pricing and your quote will reflect this. Simply put, you will be paying the cost of materials, my time at a basic rate and shipping. I don't agree with offering a multitude of different levels of work, you'll get my best work every minute I'm working on your project. You want something basic with not so many details it wont take me as long to make it, if however you want something intricate, large or with a lot of detail in it then it will take me longer and the number of hours I quote for the project will reflect that.

EXAMPLES
An example piece of terrain would be a small ruined building this would take roughly 4 hours to make(basic rate of £7 per hour), the materials would cost roughly £4 and postage in the uk would be around £3 giving a total quote of £35. Each project is different and if there were multiple buildings being done at the same time the average time to make each building would be less than 4 hours as a lot of the work would be done at the same point.

Now that's out of the way you can find contact info and a gallery (I know how some of you out there prefer the pictures over words.... yes i'm looking at you +33claydog) on the studio website here but also please like the facebook page and help spread the word!

On the desk 23.07.14

Hey guys,

Thanks for stopping by!

So things have been all go here recently, I've been focusing a lot on example pieces for starting to do commission terrain making, I still need to get on and make some video's for my youtube channel though I'm pretty chuffed to be up to 49 subscribers which might not sound like much.... but I have only got 1 video uploaded and that was my entry into +33claydog's subscriber comp.

I've also had my first quote request for some terrain so I need to get on and sort out the logistics behind working out a quote for that, more to follow on that front in future blog / vlogs.

Here's some eye candy of the niddy terrain I've finished and the next bit I'm working on, I have another 2 pieces to make after this one and then have another showcase piece of some necron terrain to make and depending on the quote I may have another 7 pieces to make.

This is the completed piece, some capillary towers surrounding a gloopey / bubbling slime / spawning pool. This was tailored to fit in with +Mike Scott 's Hive Fleet Pestis colour scheme and also forms half of my entry into his feast fest competition running throughout July.

These 4 pictures show my current progress on the second terrain piece I'm doing for Mike's competition and sending on to him, it's an alternate take on the Mycetic spore pod which even though it's no longer 'playable' in game it will still make for an interesting terrain piece.

I've been on the look out for cool looking or useful bit's and managed to pick up a bargin from gumtree for someone's orky bits box, but if anyone has any random bits they want to get rid of them keep me in mind!!!

Thanks for stopping by guys and I'll see you in my first vlog at the weekend!!!

What i've been up to.

Something a bit different for me recently, partaking in some painting comps and events and decided to do something a bit different, this blog is a bit more of a showcase with an update of what I'm planning in future.

Here's my entries into the warmaster painting contest for this month.

 

 I'm pretty happy with how these have turned out considering I was a muppet and left myself little time to actually paint them, I still need to base them and i'm leaning towards desert themed terrain, which if your into the lore side of things fits the praetorian guard well due to the battle for big toof river.

As for what's up next, I'm making some terrain pieces for +Mike Scott 's feast fest and have been in a few of his hangouts even had the pleasure of doing the introduction for one of them. I'll put together a video tutorial if I can for the niddy terrain I'm making as I'm really liking the look of them.

After this I'll be making some orky terrain based on some of the dawn of war style buildings and potentially looking to establish my own mini terrain studio but more to follow on that front through my youtube channel.

Anyway that's enough for now, that's for stopping by and checking out my new guard guys, let me know what you think.

on the desk 07.01.14

Hi Guys,

Thanks for stopping by!

So what have i been up to recently while i've been slacking on the blogging front?

Well Ive been trying to expand my networking / exposure online through interacting with the hobby community on Google+, you can see my most recent Monday morning hangouts on +Cryptek 's youtube channel which you can find here. These are a lot of fun and have introduced me to a whole host of people who all partake and encourage great things in the hobby. Through this i've been introduced to +Mike Scott  who is running a competition throughout the month of July for which i'll be entering into the terrain category. For details on the feast fest comp check out this link. There's also a hangout on there where you can see some progress on the jetbikes towards the end of their completion for another thing I've been up to but more on that in a bit. Also on the hangout is another guy I've met through the Google+ community +Martin McNeil he's set up a full commissions service where he can help from the point of interest in a particular army, through to making a list, buying / converting the models and then painting them, not only are his models painted to a very high standard but he rattles them out super quick here's a link to his facebook page for the studio.

Back to the jetbikes, these were painted as part of a painting threat that runs every month over at the WGC site, really great way to get yourself motivated and stick to painting your pledge.

Last but not least the Warmaster painting competition is well under way and finished on the 10th of July so I need to crack on with that this week, but i'll pick up more on that in another post.

Thanks for stopping by!

Warp Hunter Pt2

Hi Guys,

Thanks for stopping by!

This week i've carried on painting the warp hunter, i've finished off the black lining in between all the panels and then covered all the green areas with a biel-Tan wash. Following this I then set about adding a line of green around all the panel work, with the exception of the white and red areas which had a lining of skull white and scab red respectively.

















I then set about adding the OSL to the main weapon, both at the barrel end and then also further back on the hull of the vehicle, this was achieved by spraying blue followed by lighter blue followed by a fine spray of skull white in the middle.

I also added a drakenhof nightshade wash to all the white / grey areas prior to edging the white bits.

You can also see more detail of this over on my WIP thread on +Fritz 40K 's Warmaster forums.

Incidentally if your after a bit more info on the bastion I have a regularly updated post here.

For the most part the warp hunter is done, I need to detail some of the gems but everything is magnetised where it needs to be and with the exception of the gems were done!!

What's my motivation!???!?!

Hi Guys,

Thanks for stopping by!!

A lot of people talk about how they find painting boring, or tedious or simply they don't enjoy it. Some people enjoy painting and collecting more than gaming with their miniatures for me I like to dabble in all aspects of the hobby, I enjoy collecting, painting, gaming and creating supplementary aspects to the hobby such as gaming terrain etc.

While sure you can play games with proxies models, or even just assembled models without paint on them I think that by not painting your models your missing out on an aspect of the hobby that can be enjoyable. I used to hate painting, never could find a way to not be doing something else other than painting and as such I've amassed a large collection of mini's that are still in their boxes, but I'm slowly working through them. The trick to painting if you don't enjoy it is to break down what in particular is it that you don't enjoy about it? Is it that it can be time consuming, or you just think your not good enough at painting to warrant spending the time doing it. I guess everyone will have their own reasons for why they put it off or just don't bother with it, everyone's reasons i'm sure are valid to some extent.

As I said I used to be one of those guys who actually detested painting, I didn't think I was good enough and the whole process in truth I found a bit tedious. What changed? It was a slow change at first but the first step in changing my mindset towards painting was actually joining a community, in my case it was +Fritz 40K 's warmaster forums. I got chatting to one of the guys on the forum about how much I had to do and how I could never find the time or the will to do them. The guy turned around to me and said "do me a favour, go get a glass of water, a paper towel and pick up your paint brush." there's more to the story but i'll focus on this element to begin with. I laughed it off initially and said maybe later or something along those lines but upon reflection this was probably on a subconscious level where I first realised that I was the reason that my models were sitting there crying out for some attention. All of the excuses I was making to myself were obstacles I was putting in the way to avoid doing something that I didn't enjoy.

Later on in the discussion the guy pointed me in the direction of a motivational paint thread on the forum and also made a bet with me, I would paint 5 models (in this case chaos terminators) in 7 days, he would over the same duration paint some of his to do list ( I think it was 20 daemonette's he was part way through painting and a Demon Prince), however he added an extra element to the bet in that if I met the deadline he would also paint up a unit of something else over the course of 2 days. He'd upped the anti so I felt obligated to add my own sweetener to the deal and added a unit of dire avengers to the bet with a new deadline. This might seem convoluted but by having a bit of fun or an ongoing bet with a friend over something you both agree to that gives you an excuse to do something rather than put it off.

One of the big things I did to help speed up and remove one of my other excuses was to buy an airbrush, i now use this to prime my models, undercoat them, 2 stage highlight them and when trying to use stencils etc and honestly it's one of the best investments i've made. I save money on not buying spray primer because the airbrush does it better anyway, it allows me to put layers of detail on the model simply by spraying it removing the need to learn how to layer with my brush and those large areas of space on your tanks that used to take hours with a normal brush and ended up with brush strokes etc are now done in minutes with a very even coat which just makes it look better. Airbrushes are expensive!!! Well I used to think this too, but actually you pick pick one up relatively cheaply (for the same cost as a riptide or  stormraven gunship!)

The point of this was that sure painting wasn't fun but by turning it into something else I had to get the models done, and I did but this led me to another realisation. Painting while still being dull and somewhat tedious I could make it interesting by finding the right motivation, and you know what I kinda enjoy challenging myself, pushing myself to do models in a short space of time in this case but I now have made a bet with myself if you like whereby every time I pick up a new model / unit to paint I find a way to add in something new each time, be it learning a new technique or learning how to use a stencil just something to challenge myself with.

I also find something distracting to put on in the background to distract myself from the passing of time, be it music or a bat rep or just some random videos on youtube.

I'd be interested to hear about your motivations or lack thereof when it comes to painting and what you do to overcome them, if the idea of making a wager with a pal sounds like the right way to get you in the right frame of mind then go for it, if you can't find anyone to make that wager with then head over to the warmaster forums, make an account and drop me a message!

Thanks for stopping by!

A new collection / labour of love and a bit of a bastion.

Hi guys,

Thanks for stopping by!

I've been spending a lot of time recently working on another terrain project and pretty much nothing else. I was inspired by the original card punched terrain sets GW put out when I started in the hobby many many years ago, in particular the Imperial bastion and the imperial firebase. not you can pick these up on ebay 2nd hand and i'm sure you'd derive just as much enjoyment out of them as the end result of my project however being the glutton for punishment I am I decided that no, buying a 2nd hand kit would be far too easy and seeing as I'm trying to challenge myself why not built my own one from scratch.... well some might call me mad, inspired, some weird wobbly line somewhere in the middle of the two however with nothing more than some old necromunda bulkheads,some plasticard, a rough idea of how the bastion looked and plenty of glue, sweat, tears and cuss words later i've arrived at something that closely resembles the original piece. I will touch more on this in another blog post however as being the complete tool that I am I decided that i'd leave the WIP at home and not have it to hand to take awesome show off style pictures of...

So while wallowing in my nostalgia trip to ages past when I had a lot less going on in my life, I was scouring ebay.... never a good thing when you suffer from Magpie syndrome when I stumbled across some old limited edition (read expensive on ebay) models that a friend of mine used to collect (he actually still has his models and wont part with them, believe me I asked!!!) called the praetorian imperial guard. You can read all about these models and why they were created here at the massacre at big toof river.

So I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the following which i'll strip back to metal and repair where needed.

This is enough to get me started I think but is a far cry for where i'll probably need to be for my usual 1k points games, sadly I have no clue how to play guard other than the usual image in my head of a big gun line with tanks supporting but I hear they have some pretty good flyers. If you have any advice on how to go about establishing a decent 1k list then please do drop me a line, offering advice, suggestions, tips or just general comments are appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by!