Tabletop Commorragh

OK, so I have this insane idea:
There are so few drawings of Commorragh in the Codex and/or BRB, that I've decided to make some of my own artwork of The Dark City. Then I realized, that drawings are not what I can/like/need to do, and decided to go straight for the gaming terrain.

I have a few ideas of my own, I've seen and outstanding Craftworld tabletop pictures from Italian Games Day, so I think I am able to do it really well.

I had to find materials to begin with.
These will of course be: paper, cardboard, hips (polistyrene), wood, resins and... anything that fits actually

So the first "buildings" will be:

The Pit / The Arena:





A generic tower with a Landing Pad:


All the parts come from... an old clutch to my Suzuki Vitara X-90 They will be of course fixed to more elemnts like walls, balconies, etc., but I wanted to show you the beginning of the process.

Any feedback is highly appreciated - especially new ideas and materials suggestions.

thumbs-up on that. Didnt think a suzuki would be of any other use than to crash it...

I'm interested to see where you go with this!

Enfernux wrote:

thumbs-up on that. Didnt think a suzuki would be of any other use than to crash it...

Apparently, Suzuki has been making fully-functional automobiles for decades now.

very creative, it's very much a case of seeing the potential in something to come up with very cool and original scenery. I'm thinking of making some dragon-scale towers with some off-cuts from a window blind i got a few weeks ago when doing some DIY.

so, after an afternoon of cleaning the clutch parts I've decided to "go live" and start the tower. I want it to be quite high, as buildings in Commorragh, but not really Commorragh-scale high as I still want to use it on my tabletop.
At first I wanted to use a paper tube from kitchen paper towels as the basis, but I decided it's too weak, and I choose an empty spray can:

(sorry, the model is upside down - the glue is drying)

the next part was to make it more Commorragh like, so I added "engaged columns" with sharp shapes made of cardboard (not glued yet)



again - upside down. an upright shot will come once it's glued and dry

So now it's cool and nice, but still impractical - I'll make a base for it, and I have to figure out one thing.
it is a landing pad, raiders/venoms land there, and the Commorraghians (?) disembark and... have nowhere to go. Need to think of a bridge, or a staircase down, or a lift or something so that the landing pad actually makes sense... any hints?

Stick a manhole in the middle and pretend there's a lift inside
Seriously though, that's starting to look very cool indeed, I'm dead jealous

So the next stage looks like this:


From the top (with Raider for scale):





The next step will be adding a base.
Then it will be entrance door (bottom), some decorations, and then painting.

I know it probably becomes boring, but posting pictures daily here makes me more motivated

Not boring at all Wilku, I wish there were more terrain threads.

This looks like it will be a great piece. I do wonder about the weight, but that's mostly just a transportation issue.

Keep the pics coming!

Thanks for the feedback and motivation

Currently it's 0,9 kg (ca. 2lbs), but I don't plan to transport it - when I play casually I usually host the game at home, and when I go to a tournament I don't need my terrain.

If you are interested in some specific terrain - let me know, maybe you'll inspire me and I'll make a stage by stage like here.

That's looking pretty evocative of Dark Eldar architecture. Impressive! For some reason I'd assumed the clutch pad was going to be the base.

you could make a idunowhatsitcalled see through plastic circle thing with the same see through rods on which you can place those raiders, like the center of the spyre was the lift and the raiders would be parking next to the edge, awaiting liftoff.

Foo wrote:

That's looking pretty evocative of Dark Eldar architecture. Impressive! For some reason I'd assumed the clutch pad was going to be the base.

maybe because of those pictures I posted upside down...

Enfernux wrote:

you could make a idunowhatsitcalled see through plastic circle thing with the same see through rods on which you can place those raiders, like the center of the spyre was the lift and the raiders would be parking next to the edge, awaiting liftoff.

I was thinking about a similar thing - a levitating platform (I've got, like... 30 HDD disks laying around - they're nice, shiny, and dark)... I don't have a transparent plastic available now, so I will have to figure out how to do it - maybe some fake smoke (that looks like from liquid nitrogene), but I don't know ow to do it yet.

Pretty cool! I'll just stick to the sandbag barricades of the DE victims...

No modelling update today (nor yesterday) - I'm thinking on the base for the tower. Meanwhile - on my way to work - I did some sketches to get the concept of Commorragh right. So far it's just a bit of building tops here, but I will work in this direction for some time:




And another one on my way home

OK, so the drawing turned out to be rather uninspiring (I have to work a lot on drawing skills and choose another painting app) and I got stuck with the project.

I've added some old RAM parts (stripped of the actual RAM chipsets - these will be used as an armor plating, pavement and / or for a bracelet in real size) to the semicolumns, so that they are not that boring, and glued the whole piece to a base.
I will add another level of the base (to create stairs), and it seems that I've run out of ideas.



Any help on what to add here?
I've got some spare parts from Raiders/Ravagers (sails, keel blades, blades, etc.) and was thinking about adding them, but I can't figure out anything reasonable.

incredibly inspired work. love the sketches. maybe add some segmented plates to the main parts of the structure like the deldar vehicle hulls? walkways? blades/keel blades on the pointy bits?

The idea with segmented plates is a really good one - I'll go for it.
I gave it a try in a most basic type (rectangles), but it's not what I actually thought It'd look like, so I've cut the corners (like on a raider). It's still not, what I want, and even painting it doesn't do the trick:



(right bottom - the plating is basecoated and highlighted a little)

I'll get back to my project file (vector image) and look for something more eldarish. But it's a good direction, so thatnks for that.

Blades and other stuff will definitely be added, but this will be the last stage.

That's really cool and inspiring! Keep it coming!

ok, I'm (slowly) getting to the final stage.

I took the advice of making a segmented wall very seriously and I've spent some time trying to figure out the way to make it. I decided to use the most scientific approach I could - iteration of subsequent experiments until a a satisfying result is obtained... er... ttrial and error that is

I first took some cardboard and cut it in simple rectangles. You've seen the effect. It sucks.
Next, I took some old business cards (my own, when I was a scout group leader) and designed new shapes:

better, but still not what I wanted. And the business card was to small. Yet I've made another two walls this way.

So I took a bigger cardboard and made a completely new set of plating. I liked it, so I prepared three sets:


And finally I've glued them in place and trimmed to fit the wall shape.




They still require some putty, filing / sanding etc. but I finally got what I wanted.
Next buildings will definitely use this theme - thanks to mot666

Tips:
- use a really sharp knife whenever you have to trim something like here - along another element
- don't use too much glue - it bends paper/cardboard
- don't use paper/cardboard - it bends when glued (use plasticard if you can afford it)

So it's some small modelling left and I'll start painting it soon. I'll keep you informed - wether you want it or not

Looks like I'm loosing audience here

Anyway - the boring paper cutting and clueing stuff is over. I've done some priming:

Tower - Priming

and some painting

Tower - Painting Stage 1
(two colour layers - liche purple and liche purple + russ grey).

Next, there will be some washing, highlights and probably some more details added.

my biggest concern would be that the clutch plate is gonna make this really top heavy.. IIs that not a problem?

not at all - as I've said before - it weighs about 1kg / 2lbs (remember it's just one part of the clutch) and thanks to that it is really stable. And so I'm really not afraid to place a nicely painted raider on it.

Very nice.....can definitely work as a dark eldar bastion. And never though of using spray cans as commorite terrain

well, it looks sweet..

Very nice!!!