Since my airbrush (and about 400 other bits of equipment, paint, etc) have been on our dining table, I've taken the chance to smash out some more basecoating of scenery before they outstay their welcome.
The two Fallout inspired billboards that were knocked up a few weeks ago are now serviceable (if not yet weathered/detailed).
Following the earlier post at the construction stage, I realised that the boards were just a little bit too high to serve as decent cover... a marine standing behind it can't actually see (since the board is low enough to cover his face), but the lower 75% of his body is visible below the board. Doh.
Unless you subscribe to the 'I can't see you, so you can't see me' school of camouflage, I needed a little modification to make them more practically useful for screening stuff going on.
A couple of strips of 'tile' plasticard were cut up and superglued onto the main beams below the billboard itself. It's not too bad a compromise between quick/easy, and reflecting the lower panel you can see in a lot of 1960s billboard reference shots.
I should have taken a couple more closeups before hitting with the primer, but you can see how much lower the bottom ends up in this shot.
Thorough covering in vallejo black primer, and starting to add a little tone to the lower portion with vallejo bluegrey.
Left (mainly intentionally) a bit rough and patchy... the back has been brought up to a lighter grey. The feet will eventually be covered with GW dawnstone to resemble the bases of the army & the streetscape boards I have.
Since the front of the board will effectively be covered by the posters, they have been left largely black... The paper sheets were cut close to the image at the bottom but left with some dark grey surround at the top and sides so I could trim to fit after being stuck on.
Nuka-Cola poster... the blotchy grey spray on the bottom board adds a little weathering already. The bullet holes in this one aren't too obvious though - might need some wash streaks downward or a bit of black around the entry point to make them more visible.
The iconic vault secure poster... the weathering on the poster is purely from the image file so far - likely it will get some light washes with agrax / sepia to scuff it further when the metal parts are done.
So - that's it so far. Tabletop ready, but worthy of a bunch more weathering.
I'm still not 100% sure what process that will take with these; I've added more battle-damage type weathering to other models, but could go properly nuts with these and make the back/legs virtually pure rust & dirt. That would still be quite fitting for fallout style terrain.
Interested to get thoughts and perspectives on how others might go about roughing these up? Washes, stippling, drybrushing...?
Cool. I'm creating some billboards at the moment, interesting to see how other people are doing it. How did they turn out?
ReplyDeleteThanks - I ended up not taking these too much further... the 'feet' were done up in greys with some brown & grey wash. The lower part of the board (with the checks has had some vallejo orange (rust) pigment added and spray varnished. Should get around to adding some new pics though :-)
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