A simple complex

Today a quick update on my quest to put together some modular, scratch-built, sci-fi industrial terrain for my toy soldiers to fight over. The idea is to be able to use a small collection of buildings in varying configurations to represent not just different areas of my WH40K city, Kruenta Karoliina Arx Rotunda, but also different styles of board for different types of game – like a larger, clearer board for 40K and smaller, more detailed, multi-level boards for skirmish games like Necromunda and Kill Team.

I've built and undercoated three pieces so far, with each one sat on a 12" by 6" base plate. This standardised size means that in the final design the buildings will be easily interchangeable to suit the needs and aesthetic of any particular game.

In my mind the aim of a modular project like this is to create the minimum amount of pieces to give you the maximum amount of possibilities. I won't go into any more detail about this now, but will probably discuss the plans when (and if) I ever manage to build the larger floor sections.

In terms of painting, these are by no means finished yet. The roughly highlighted undercoat, along with the beginnings of some of the metallic sections are just there to unify the models and give me an idea of what they could look like.

You can see earlier, work in progress versions of two of the buildings, prior to their undercoats here and here. But the third one is new, so I've included photos of the unprimed model below.

A lot of the techniques I've used in these models, and in the modular approach itself, came from a series of brilliant scenery articles in White Dwarf, way back in 2001. For anyone interested, I've collated them all here.