Azaghols mineral extraction operation (Terrain/Display Blog)

[Azaghol]

Hello everyone

Longtime chaos dwarf enthusiast and collector here, whos been in the hobby since 2005 ish. Currently situated in southern Norway, and always down for a game if anyones close by.

I started this display board over a week ago, with the reason for the possible artisan contest here and also for showcase at a upcoming event in autumn. Been stalking in the darkness of this forum for a long time, and joined the pain-ting contest this year for motivation

I am very inspired from greater deamonsmiths before me, most notably the infamous chorf mining complex from 2007? that was never finished on the empire forum, and others that i found on google searches and here. Also alot of inspiration from mordor and durthang architecture, and 1980s MERP books.

And with that, i will showcase the board and some thoughts behind it.

After sketching up a rough idea on paper, i started by making the shape ca. 60x60cm. and test fitted with some models to see how much space i had. I used alot of scrap foam, from former pojects. I made the bridgeway 8cm wide, the idea was so i could fit 3 models. The ramp down (at 15 degrees) was a little short in height, so used some sticks under to lift it.

When you are certain on using scrap pieces, you cant complain when it looks rough hehe

Now its taking shape. I love laying bricks, it gives so much life with the uneveness. Brickwork on the bridge is 2x2cm. Pavement is, 2x2 and 2x1cm, and facade on fortress is 2,5x2cm. Crenellation triangles are 1,5x1cm. I made the arches by cutting a strip on 1cm, and jamming a thin metal rod trough and then bended it to shape, to make it stronger.

Drafted the gate grimase idea down on paper, glued it on thicker paper and cut out with hobby knife. Then traced it out on plasticard, belive it was 1mm, i tried 2mm but it was too hard to cut with knife. And layered some of the detail to give more life. I realy wanted to have some sort of rivets or bolts on all the raised details, but i cant find anything thats small, and either round or easy to cut, so its layed on ice currently.

Very messy. Woodland scenic rock moulds.

Its getting heavy, always forget how heavy plaster is…

Under the bridge there will be a lava pit, and on the middle board it will be a sort of blasted flatland with some lava flowing trough. I will make the surface with cork eventually. In the front hole, i will make a big half chaos symbol in lava.

Some runes on the obelisks. Put in place with metal rods and resin glue

I will paint the inside to make it look like the tunnel goes deeper. The beams were hammered with furniture nails, to make steal beams. Kept the railroad track simple, and avoided to much work to try and make it realistic.

In norwegian we got Æ as a letter, and in the south we have alot of weird un-explainable dialect sounds, in wich the chaos dwarf ve or væ can be used. I cant miss out on this opportunity, so i carved some dark evil south norwegian runes into the sign above the iron door. Vældi Værmt, meaning Realy Hot, a typical proverb here. Hope the camera captured it, will show again painted in fire.

I will try and make some pipes or chimneys on the top of the mountainside eventually

I act before i think and painted the model before texturing the stonework, so went over lightly with a real stone to add texture. Going to fill some of the gaps on the side with spackle filler, wasnt happy with the end result, too big gaps some places…

This is how far the project has come for now, with many decisions taken on the spur of the moment, i am quiet happy so far. I was wondering about peoples suggestion on if i should add triangle crenellation on the bridge or not. and also if anyone has any recipe or idea for black looking stonework. And in general, any suggestions or ideas are very welcome. Thanks for reading so far.

If you wish for a close up pic of something, just ask.

Will continue to update with pictures.

[Phil]

One thought for you, just because I know how much work it is to lay brick down on roads and causeways… You can get rollers that will impress into clay fairly easily. I used to use it for Dungeons and Dragons models and terrain. Options are way varied and it can roll into Apoxy and be rock hard and look really good. Same for cliff faces and rocks, but they only work if the application is rather flat.

I’ll show you an example of what results can look like. This is from a gaming table I did several years ago and I needed a central square. It’s just one example of course of patterns you can find available.

Another even older method was to get foam core and take off the paper on one side and then use a ball point pen to “score” stonework. You can then roll a ball of aluminum or a rough stone over it and get that same uneven affect. My disallusion with that is that foamcore can warp - it needs to literally be pulled into shape. It can take damage too over time, especially if you mean to play on the table.

Lykke till!

[Azaghol]

That’s awesome, stones looks great, and epic terrain.

I have some experience in the past with rollers, from GSW texturerollers, and the result is great. And it’s in general easy to do, shape and cut to size. Heard somewhere that baby powder is good for the clay to release from rollers, usually I just use water, but it becomes messy on bigger projects. Do you use any release additives?

This time I didn’t have clay in the house, and had foam to burn hehe.

Thanks for advice

Tusen takk

[Phil]

Azaghol,

I always use a spray bottle of water when I work with clays or greenstuff. It just is impossible otherwise to get things to work. Several guys online talk about using vasoline too, but honestly, I don’t want to have to use a degreaser after so you can prime stuff… It’s one extra step that seems unnecessary.

I wish you lots of luck on your piece. You know, there’s not really a lot of examples online in general done for Chorfs. It’s kind of ashame really - there’s a lot of opportunity I think for really strong terrain options with this faction. There’s talk of doing an army on parade competition here in the future I saw. I think it will be a really cool chance for some things to get shown off then. When I started my army years ago, I had this whole backstory of my Chorfs taking over an abandoned or lost Dawi settlement that they are using as a staging point for attacks on northern points in the Empire / Kislev - hence all the snow. I imagine that they are being punished for some transgression or another, a kind of isolation from the warmth of Zharr Nagrund. Maybe at some point, I’ll get around to making a bit of scenery for all that. I don’t want to commit though to a project of that scale now for sure; it’s enough that I have started painting again and am staying fairly constant there.

I think in your case, that walkway has a lot of presence. One thought that popped in my head was the idea of stone sorcerers lining the approach, but the flayed slaves on posts is equally as cool. I think it helps to bring the theme across of these being mines. I would push that theme on the piece to tell the narrative. One print I really love that I think would work to that end - Brawniac has a goblin with a piece of straw in his mouth, that leans against a fence. I could see some sort of addition of him, maybe modified, like he’s the sole observer and he got away from the hobgoblin overseers at one point…

[Azaghol]

I agree, there isnt a whole lot of chorf terrain examples online, the few that show up are always awesome. And the opertunities are plenty. Total war gives alot of inspiration for how a zigurat town can look like. would be fun to try and make some regular chorf houses in the future.

Would be cool to see your idea come to life. Definitly understand focusing on painting instead, i gotta paint 60 hobgoblins and 28 black orcs for a event in september… my focus is everywhere else.

I didnt even think of petrified prophets watching over the process, that a great idea. gotta look in on that. Found the goblin, what a charmer, now i must have him hehe. Do you need to subscribe, the you get access to him?

Thanks

[Nicodemus]

Absolutely brilliant start!! Definitely do not give up!! Looking amazing so far and I can see the influence of Teb’s artistic work and Marcus Leitdorf’s interpretation. Can’t wait to see more of this!
~N

[Phil]

Azaghol - I know Brawniac has a presence both here and on Patreon, but it’d be best if he speaks for himself… I’m just a fanboy…

[Azaghol]

A little update on the mining operation

After weeks of waiting on materials to arrive, they finaly came and i started to paint the mountain and stonework in a sort of black and blue stone, that i thought looked maybe lava touched.

I used as base colour, Amsterdam black, with some black oil paint and water just to make sure i reached most cracks and deep spots. After drying i mixed ca. 50/50 amsterdam black and neutral grey and did a heavy brushing over. Then prussian blue dry brush, followed by neutral gray, and lastly a very light bone white in some high raised areas.

The lava landscape is shaping up. I am thinking about using wood glue to make some lava flow / texture, since its very thick. anyone have experience with it? or other methods

The obelisk runes are supposed to say : Enemies of chaos dwarves sees the fortress.

Hashuts slaves sacrifice death

Inside the mouth of the gate will be depicted some hellish flames

The metal colours are balthazar gold, brass scorpion, and iron warrior. Still need to shade it

Thinking about making a Doom anvil in the front of the board.

[Jasko]

So God damn glorious!

[Phil]

Azaghol - I know for shallow pours, you can get a UV resin that gives that wet look lava has. You can go back after and add texture with a second resin over that, and incorporate cork for dried lava chunks (or just paint it… it works well that way too…) Really like what you’ve done so far, it’s taking good shape!

[Azaghol]

Phil - Thank you for feedback and tip

That seems like a interesting idea. I have only tried resin for small projects before. At bigger scale it seems more room for fail or risk, but there are probaly plenty of youtube tutorials on the subject hehe.

I do have some of the greenstuff world UV resin in a drawer, that i intended to try and make lava-falls, down to bottom tier, with some plasticard or pistol glue as support.

Also my coin pouch is howling like a tortured deamon soul, begging for release from all my bad purchases and warhammer ideas

[Phil]

Everything a proper Chorf would need to sort his lava needs, all on one page… LOL Water - Woodland Scenics Seriously, water effects is decent from these guys, not the resin though. That’s a pain; the UV stuff is way better and easier to use from all accounts. I forgot to mention - bubbles of molten lava? - don’t fear - bb’s for those can shooters are here to save the day! You can get styrofoam balls too that you can cut in half, but you do you…

Waterfalls can be done with clear plasticard and water effects. You can just work on a CD case too (if you have one around) and let it cure, then put it together. If you use white as the base, you could fluo the hell out of it (no pun intended seeing how we’re talking fire and brimstone) and get cool effects I think. I’ve not tried that yet though… Just some thoughts, I understand the coin pouch dilemna; boards can suck all forms of currency out of you like a Von Carlstein in an Araby harem when no one’s looking! LOL

[Azaghol]

Today is a day of great labor… sweat, blood, a 20 degree hot sun and a UV index on 5,1 breaks even the strongest slave tolling away in the black mines

Black sand must be made to cover the cracks of my laziness on the board and i am very picky of what type of sand i use on models. Geek gaming scenic used to sell Black sand before, wich was perfect, full of black dust and different shape sand corns, but now only volcanic sand is available, wich is too glossy / shiny for my liking.

So we gotta make our own. Starting with some fine crushed coal, i then put on my ancient grinding table and crush with a flat small stone i found on a beach in denmark

After some work this is the result, that looks similar to Geek gamings black sand. I may add some woodland scenic black ballast in the mix.

Here is a picture of GGS volcanic sand, that sparkles in the sun

I will make a test piece and glue it down just to see how the coal works with glue.

I also made lava falls coming out of the pipes, using plasticard and UV resin

Here i decided to use pistol glue and UV after.

I liked the idea by Phil to make lava bubbles with BB bullets, so its on the way in the mail.

[Phil]

This is really starting to come together… I like it! Glad I was able to help a little bit…