Mark's Trench Display Board Part Two

If I tell ya what I'm doing today
Will you shut up and get out of my way
Someone ask me what the time is I don't know
Only know I gotta know now
No time, tryin' ta get a watch repaired
No time, never got a thing to wear
Little ringin' on the telephone
Oh no, hear a ringin' in my head now
-Anthrax, "Got the Time"

When I was a kid, I rocked out hard to Anthrax, especially the albums Persistence of Time and Among the Living. Great painting music. If you haven't listened to it in awhile I suggest plugging in and cranking the volume.

Anyway...The old saying goes, time is of the essence...And I've certainly had less of it in order to escape reality of late. The painting list continues to liveth and groweth upon the earth, I've been mulling over a new army and I really want to build some tables for Evil Dice. Yeesh.


When I first started playing Warhammer 40,000 I was unemployed. It was a great thing. My friend Sean gave me some genestealers and I eventually built and painted a tyranid army in a very short time, probably three months. Now I can hardly find the time to paint one goddam model. Oh well, such is life.

At any rate, newfound energy has gone into the display board I'm building for Mark. It's the most intense thing I've had the pleasure to build and I keep delaying myself by coming up with new ideas. Take a look at Part One to see the beginning phase. At any rate, I wanted to put some water effects into the craters and the trench itself...But there was a logistical aspect that bothered me. The trench is much deeper than the shell craters, but I planned on putting the water levels about the same. It didn't make sense. If water had been drawn from a shell blast then wouldn't the trench fill even more if it were dug out?

So I needed a solution. This problem would only really matter to me. Or would it? Does it matter to anyone what level the damn water is at? Well, it matters because I want it to look a certain way. Although this is just a board for a fictitious game I still don't want it to appear unreal. So, in order to fix this problem I came up with a solution--A drainpipe and pump that sucks the water out.

 I started with some random bits, mostly imperial stuff, and a few items from the hardware store.

 Here's a water pump. It'll look better primed and painted.

 I outlined where I wanted the water to spew out...

 And started cutting. Ouch! this was not fun to do...I've got lots of sweat into the board already.

 Here we are with the drainpipe glued in and primed.

 Basecoat applied.

  A quick wash of Seraphim Sepia.

 Some Boltgun Metal for the pipe.

And here we go with the final touches--Some drybrushing of Bleached Bone for the rocky bits and a wash for the drainpipe.

Water effects will be next.