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Scenery Brainstorming Lustrian set, specifically buildings

Discussion in 'Painting and Converting' started by Scalenex, Apr 12, 2016.

  1. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    After a long hiatus of very little modeling or painting I decide to tackle my old ambition of making a terrain set.

    My goal is to come up with enough terrain pieces to be able to use this homebrew chart.


    Lustria/Southlands
    2-Inpentrable Jungle (raised impassable feature)
    3-Wizard Tower or Acropolis of Heroes
    4-Lake (1-3 Ordinary, 4 Boiling Flood, 5 Necrotic Ooze, 6 “River” of Light)
    5-Building or Ruin
    6-Mysterious Forest (1-2 Venom Thicket, 3 Abyssal Wood, 5 Fungus Forest, 5-6 Wildwood)
    7-Ordinary Forest
    8-Hill (1-4 ordinary, 5-6 Scree Slope)
    9-River (1-4 ordinary, 5 Raging Torrent, 6 River of Light)
    10-Mysterious Marsh (1-3 ordinary, 4 Khemrian Quicksand, 5 Earthblood Mere, 6 Mist-wreathed Swamp)
    11-Obstacle (1-3 Fence, 4-5 Wall, 6 Blessed Bulwark)
    12-Sinister Structure (1-2 Sinister Statue, 3-4 Banestone, 5-6 Charnel Pit)

    I have a couple tropical trees that can designate a forest when placed on a generic base, but I've arbitrarily decided to do buildings first.

    I figure there'd be two types of buildings in the Lustrian jungle that would make up the niche of prominently intact building. Skink Huts and Watch Towers. I figured a Skink Hut would just be a thatched hut on stilts with a rope latter. The huts are at strategic intervals so Skink patrols don't have to sleep on the ground while away from the city (at least not EVERY night). Also a good place to store supplies. The stilts are to keep heavy rains from washing away and to keep the smaller biting predators away from the Skinks while they sleep.

    Figured a miniature Pringles can is about the right size and shape.

    Step One: Eat the potato chips
    Step Two: Strip the shiny coating to remove potato chip smell and so glue doesn't slide off
    Step Three attach legs.

    [​IMG]

    Note, no floor, of the hut. That won't be visible on the finished product and no floor allows a greater surface area to glue the legs on. They shouldn't come loose barring someone deliberately pulling on the legs.

    [​IMG]

    See, from this angle, you can't tell it has no floor.

    Step four is to paint the cans light brown so the red doesn't show through. I don't have a photo of that yet which is fine because it's a really lousy paint job that's going to be 99% covered up.

    Step five is to make a slightly slanted roof out of popsickle sticks. (not done yet)
    Step Six, paint the exposed wooden parts.
    Step Seven, apply the burlap (lower right) to be the main texture of the walls.
    Step 7.5
    Distinguish a door flap somehow. Not 100% what to do for that, probably a thicker layer of burlap with some dark paint applied to it.
    Step 8. Apply the fake fur (upper right) to the roof to simulate the thatch.
    Step 9 Make a rope ladder out of string.


    I'm not sure how to make a watch tower look like a Lizardmen watch tower. I don't want a pyramid shape, too bulky. Probably a square tower Not sure what kind of stone I want it look like that but that can be accomplished towards the end.

    First design challenge: shooting the bad guys. Arrows slits are pretty easy but given that Skinks throw Javelins you'd need more then a slit. Unless you could somehow slide them out like a modified murder hole. I know 90% of the time I occupy a building with Lizardmen I choose javelin Skinks. So I'd like to figure out how to design a stone tower that can make this look logical.

    Second design challenge: the entrance: Lizardmen are diverse. I don't need a Slann to fit through the door. In the even a Slann wants to take up residence "in"the tower, he can float over it while minions garrison the tower. Definitely need to make the door Skink sized. Probably Saurus sized. But is Kroxigor sized doors a good idea or a waste of effort given that buildings don't require any door at all for models to occupy it?

    Third design challenge: Terradons. I like the idea of the top being a Terradon nest, perch, or simply landing pad, but any Terradon related junk on top would make it harder to place Slann or unit standard bearers on it in game play. Also, trees would probably be taller and make better nests. Assuming I choose to ignore paleontologists who generally believe real pterodactyls probably nested on the ground.

    Fourth design challenge: Where and how should I incorporate Lizardmen iconography? I like the idea of snake gargoyle/water spouts on every corner but that may be out of my skill level. Remember I make trees out of receipt tape tubes and huts out of Pringles cans. Still, my watch tower should probably be the centerpiece of my terrain collection, though I am fond of my general plan for a charnel pit: a tar pit full of dinosaur bones, elephant graveyard style.
     
    Last edited: Apr 12, 2016
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  2. Bowser
    Slann

    Bowser Third Spawning

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    I think with the door keep it skink sized. It is a skink outpost. Big enough for saurus to crawl through, but I wouldn't worry too much about the Krox, they climbed up through a much larger floor hatch with a rope ladder that you can't see. Or maybe throw in a rope ladder. Simple enough to design.
    As far as the javelin slots, + only with a crcle hole in the middle more like celtic cross, just all hole in that shape.

    Other buildings could include an aviary or stable where the handlers keep their Terradons or Razordons.
     
  3. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Well the huts are for Skinks. I am pretty much 100% sure I have the steps down for my huts. Obviously they don't need to have bigger doors.

    The design questions were for a fortified watch tower. A separate terrain project. Rope ladders are too crude for that. The point of cross shaped javelin slots works though.

    If I expand to buildings in a Temple City I'd probably want a Razordon/Salamander corral, but on patrol or on the march, they can sleep on the ground. That's what their natural instinct is. What is going to mess with them?
     
  4. Warden
    Slann

    Warden Tenth Spawning

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    So many design challenges! I will do some research and find some stuff for you.

    For now all I have to offer is pictures of jungle tree houses that look cool

    jungle tree house 1.jpg

    jungle tree house 3.jpg

    jungle tree house 4.jpg

    jungle tree house 5.jpg

    This ones not a jungle house, but I like the idea of skulls on spears at the bottom by a cave...
    tikiisland.jpg

    Maybe you can do some removable bridges that can connect the houses to each other? So the skinks can move from tree-to-tree during a battle?

    Also found one example of a terradon landing platform: from @strategiccommand's amazing Thunder Lizard!!!

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    Thunder Lizard Terradons.jpg

    Looks like he connected them to his Thunder Lizard using wire, even had platforms for more stones and ropes! This could probably done with some of the tree-platforms as well, just maybe not in as much detail because this guy went to extreme lengths to use extra Stegadon howdah bits.
     
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  5. Bowser
    Slann

    Bowser Third Spawning

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    That thunder lizard what a great project!
    Something Big this way comes....(***For Sale***)

    Also the treehouses are awesome! You could do like the old Ewok Village Playset! It would work out quite well!
     
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  6. n810
    Slann

    n810 First Spawning

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    [​IMG]
     
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  7. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    Those pictures are all really awesome. The thing is I'm not going for really complicated stuff like that at this point.

    This simpler hut is my baseline.

    [​IMG]

    I hadn't considered tree houses. If I decided I want a super hut I may go that direction. At the moment I'm thinking a four legged hut would work because I could stick it on a river, swamp, hill, or empty table spot. A tree house would require it's own full base. I'm too lazy to try something that complex. I'm trading some aesthetics for deployment flexibility.
     
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  8. pendrake
    Skink Priest

    pendrake Well-Known Member

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    I kinda thought skinks were tree lizards. If they go feral they just lurk/bunk in trees.

    5th edition book had something called "barrios"? But were those craft halls?
     
  9. tom ndege
    Skar-Veteran

    tom ndege Well-Known Member

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    I made some small towers back in the time of fifth editon... Found one of them in the garage the other day... Was easily made by skewers and toothpicks... Might work for huts as well...
    Will take a picture of it when I'm home from college...
     
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  10. eron12
    Saurus

    eron12 Active Member

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    I think the tower should echo Mayan pyramids in style of stone and arrangement, but not in shape. So look at what Mayan buildings look like and replicate that in a square tower.

    I think a sarus sized door is enough, you aren't likely to put a unit of krox in a building often.

    Iconography is good above doors and windows and along parapits. I like the snake water spout idea.

    Teradon nest is a good idea, just don't have it cover the whole top. Leave a bare square inch to put a standard. You can also sink a small magnet up their and put another in one of the small holes in the bottom of the spans base so you can stick him up there.

    I think balconies are your best bet with javelin.
     
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  11. Scalenex
    Slann

    Scalenex Keeper of the Indexes Staff Member

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    The Skink barrios in 5th edition were based on homes of the Pueblo.
    [​IMG]
    That would work great for @Tlac'Natai the Observer 's Desert dwellers but would be impractical in a tropical rainforest.
     
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  12. n810
    Slann

    n810 First Spawning

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    In the jungle it seems to be windowless white adobe huts with thatched roofs.
    or in wetter areas wood huts on short stilts and thatched roofs.
     
  13. tom ndege
    Skar-Veteran

    tom ndege Well-Known Member

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    Here is my early attempt of a tower...
    WP_20160414_22_46_09_Pro.jpg
    WP_20160414_22_45_11_Pro.jpg
    I think it's not exactly what you want to do, but maybe you can use the idea for the upper part of your tower... Like base and first floor made of stone and two of these on top... Might manage to fit a terradon nest between them...
     
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  14. pendrake
    Skink Priest

    pendrake Well-Known Member

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    Right. I remember a picture that looked like Mayan squared block structure with white wash over the top of it. But, I think the same book called them tree-dweller lizards.. ..but also aquatic. o_O
     

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