Walkways

I've been wanting to improve my stock of 40k/Necromunda/Shadow Wars scenery and as much as I love the new GW stuff it's ruinously expensive. So I started to think about how I could build things up without breaking the bank.

The key thing for all the skirmish games I like is to have some height and different levels, so creating some sort of gantry or walkway looked like a good place to start.

A few people has talked about buying aquarium filters and using those for walkways. No-one had ever really said what they would use so I looked on ebay, found a cheap set and took a punt.

When they arrived, I was immediately impressed: they connected together in six different ways, allowing any set up to be completely modular. Even just slotted together, they were able to be lifted holding the weight of quite a few miniatures.

So, how to paint them? I needed something fast, simple and durable - the filters are made of quite soft plastic so I had some concerns about the paint adhering. 

I primed them with Halfords black and then hit them with a dusting of Halfords silver. This gave me a basecoat to work from. I give it a quick drybrush of a lighter silver and painted some black stripes here and there.

Why the black stripe? Well, the most iconic Necromunda colour is the hazard chevrons so I knew they wanted that on them. But how to get them done with the minimum possible? 

The stencils were made out of one of casefile folders. One about 1cm wide, one about 1 inch wide. 

I stippled the yellow rather painting it as this basically makes it 'pre-chipped' and worn. 

Next I started weathering. This was basically Vallejo rust weathering effect painted on then wiped off with my thumb to colour the metal and then stippled back on to create some texture. 

A drybrush of orange finished off. I painted a few sector marking with white and then toned them down with Vallejo smoky ink (if you don't have this, it's a bloody godsend for terrain features, like a liquid Typhus corrosion from the GW line).

I also added some drops of Nurgle's rot for chemical spills here and there. 

So here's all 16 pieces laid out on 36'' by 36'' table. That's a lot of coverage for £6. 

Obviously, I've ordered another set. 

And here's a couple of shots of it against the rest of my terrain. 

Next up - legs.