More Sci-Fi Terrain & Ruined Buildings

    All that remains of this ornate church is its ruined facade -- a 3-D print I purchased at ATC 2022

I'm really enjoying cranking out more ruined buildings for my post-Apocalyptic games, as well as Sci-Fi terrain for Space Station Zero. This update includes the last of the ruined buildings that I bought from Rusty of Jarls Workshop at Advance the Colors 2023. I am really happy with how the two-story facade of a ruined church turned out. I am looking forward to running another post-Apocalyptic game and getting all of these on the table together! Likewise, I'm itching for Jenny and I to get in another game of Space Station Zero soon. This batch of fairly small buildings or scatter terrain should add some variety and color to our exploration of the derelict space station. 

    The rear of the 3-D print -- you can see there is room for 28mm to fire from the 2nd story platform

The two-story ruined church is the eye-catcher of this batch, I think. It comes in two parts, and I used 5-minute epoxy to affix the top half to the bottom part. Rusty's print was exceptionally clean, as always, and required almost no cleanup prior to priming. I followed my usual black spray prime, followed by a 50/50 mix of black paint and water, to get it ready. A dark gray dry brush with light gray highlights was all that was required to paint this model. Next, I did a black wash, which I think "blends" the dry brushing strokes well, giving the model a smoother looking appearance. I added in patches of green grass flocking with white glue to break up the all-gray look. Otherwise, this was an extremely fast model to paint up. I thought about putting more debris like bricks and ballast on there, but as tumbled stones were already sculpted into the model, I didn't think it was necessary. I think a mix of different heights of ruins will add to the look of the table, so I am really glad I picked this one up from Jarls Workshop!

    This Acheson Creations chimney ruin has been sitting unpainted for years

Next up, is an Acheson Creations building that I have had sitting in my unpainted tub for a number of years. It is originally meant for their Frontier America line, but in the end, it is a ruined building and won't look out of place mixed in with the other ruins.  It is a square chimney with some stones tumbled down. I believe it is modeled to represent the rest of the house having burnt down, leaving only the chimney standing forlornly. I really miss Acheson Creations. They were my favorite building and terrain producing manufacturer. Fortunately, some companies like Miniature Building Authority and RRB Minis & More are carrying some of their pieces, and you can still see their stuff at conventions where vendors bought up some of Acheson's products.

    The Green Dragons prowl amidst the ruins of a house where only the stone chimney stands

This was done with the usual method above, except an added preparation step at the beginning. Since Acheson pieces sometimes have a paint-defying mold release agent on them, I run them through the dishwasher at low heat first. I did an extra black wash on the inside of the chimney to represent its smoke-darkened stones on the interior. The wooden beams were done in Howard Hues Camo Brown dry brush and tan highlight. Looking at it now, I should probably added more shrubs or flowers or something growing amidst the ruins for a more 3-D look. Oh, well - I made up for that on the next piece!

    See the lizard outline beneath the flocking going up the column? No? Good - that's how I wanted it!

I almost didn't paint this last piece. I bought it when our former Acheson Creations local rep, Bryan Borgman, was selling off most of his stock. It is a ruined, circular pillar. Sounds great, right? Well, molded into one side of the pillar is a bizarre statue of a lizard with outstretched arms and holding a dragon-headed staff. Obviously, it is meant for fantasy games. However, as I was painting it up, I got the inspiration to simply cover the lizard and staff with flocking and flowering plants. I really liked the way they disguise the outline of the lizard. One more piece for my ruined post-Apocalyptic tabletop!

    This piece is also from Acheson Creations (I believe) that I picked up from RRB Minis & More

Now, on to my smaller terrain pieces for Space Station Zero for part two of this post. These were actually finished several weeks ago, but I simply hadn't had time to take pictures of them and write up a blog post. Speaking of weeks, it has been awhile since Jenny and I played out a mission in this cooperative, solo/multiplayer game. Hopefully, we will get in mission #2 in soon! Anyway, I really like the look of the dark green metallic craft paint that I have used for some previous Sci-Fi terrain. The snaking light green hoses came out really nice, being a three-color base coat, dry brush, and highlight. The dark metallic gray and copper for machinery components looks cool. I went with a slightly darker metallic grayish-silver for the base of the miniature.

    Sci-Fi domed building from RRB Minis & More - will work great as a stand alone small terrain piece

Next up is a piece 3-D printed by RRB Minis & More. I picked it up from them this past December at Shore Wars 2022 in Mentor, OH, I believe. The roof comes off on this one, but I decided that since I am using it for Space Station Zero, I really won't need to remove the roof for games. So, I epoxied it down, and added it a control panel I also bought from them atop the entrance to make it look even more high tech. The color is technically metallic brown, according to the craft paint maker, but I like how it looks for Sci-Fi stuff. I did the accent pieces in Pewter and Metallic Gray. For the glowing control panels, I painted them black first and did tiny dots of red, yellow, and green to look like lights. I like how it looks and am pleased with how it turned out!

    Another Acheson Creations Sci-Fi terrain piece picked up (I believe) from RRB Minis & More

The next piece features a new metallic cover I'd purchased when painting the flying drones for Space Station Zero. Like with the Dark Green, I really like how this Dark Red looks on surfaces that are supposed to be metallic or otherwise shiny material. This one was incredibly easy to paint. I gave it a black base coat and then a couple coats of the metallic red and metallic pink (NOT how it was marketed...it was supposed to be red!). The black base coat would show through, requiring multiple coats to look like this. 

    The final terrain piece is another from Acheson Creations, which I did in a blue metallic

Finally, a smaller version of the Acheson domed structure was done in blue, as well. I probably should have jazzed this one up with one of the control panels I bought from RRB Minis & More. However, things were pretty busy and hectic for me at that point. I just wanted to finish them and feel like I was getting things completed. 

All in all, I am happy with the additions to my Sci-Fi and post-Apocalyptic terrain. Next up, is some even smaller pieces of scatter terrain from Acheson Creations. So, stay tuned!