The (final?) touches

 It's been quite a long way until we've reached here, but I think I can say that I declare myself satisfied with the results. You got to see essentially everything on last post, but now I had to add some details here and there to see it all finished.

Well, "details" can be sort of an understatement, given that the first thing I'm bringing is a whole piece by itself, but you know how these things happen.😅

If you recall the last post, there was an open terrace up on the top left of the board. It's meant to be a dock, but it needs a platform where ships can load and unload their stuff. I had been keeping this child toy for ages. It originally had some wooden pieces and plastic marbles going all the way down.

But, once upside down, it will be a decent landing pad

 

In fact, as you can guess, I designed the dock on the building thinking of the height of this platform. But of course it will need a base:

Can't even remember the source of that

 

I kept that... thing because in my mind it would be a Tyranid egg/organism/whatever. But fate turned different and will serve this way:

I'll make it look like rock or something

I covered all the surface with cardboard and glued some random gubbins here and there. All the base was heavily covered (and filled) with DAS to add weight and stability:

I do hope it won't fall

I also needed a bridge to connect the landing pad and the dock. Using my recently discovered technique of adding handrails, I got this:

It will have to do

OK, so some paint then!

Ta-daaa

It looks big, but it hardly can harbour any ship

Definitely nothing larger than the Arvus

 

Well, once I have the large piece finished, now it is really time for the tiny details all over the board. Nothing too elaborate, just these tiny flowerpots from GreenStuffWorld. I filled them with tufts, as I wanted just to add some colour, but not to provide any garish sense that would be out of place:

Still the most colourful thing of the whole board

I placed them randomly on different windows, just to give the impression of people taking care of what scarce life can grow here in the depths of the desert. In the pic below you can see a couple of them and another tiny silly proof of life in the town: look up in the corner, you'll see the laundry hanging on the rope:

Cozy corners

So, after five long years of interrupted work, long periods of procrastination and a final rush of frenetic activity, this is what I've finally got:

Remember, it all started with a Danish butter cookies box

Let me show a few close-ups of the whole monster:

Some strange visitors approach the bazaar to bargain their lavish products

The fellas in the Cult didn't expect to find another underground dweller here

You better keep an eye on your purse when entering here!

Hard neighbourhood, but interesting to visit in any case

Traffic can be an issue though

Apart from that, everyone has a place in Qala Debdou

Problems with the Administratum can be dealt quietly and in civilised manners

Planet Express delivers here too

When you have a labyrinth of streets, these encounters quite logically tend to happen

 If I add some of the stuff I've built along the years, I get this:

I should have put the desert mat for the pic

And what about a few pics with my recent silly idea of adding lights?

Let's sing some carols!

Blade Runner meets Mad Max

This could be the stage for a Broadway musical

The sign only reminds you that you can also play Firefly on this board

Scary? Dangerous? What makes you say that?

Private security escorts the lady to her home

If you are patient enough, here you have a puny video to show the whole thing:

 

I've never edited or prepared a video of this kind in my life, but if you find it useful, I may try better attempts in the future!

SO.

WHAT NOW?

Little shock. Please remember that this is just the first module of the board. It is by no means finished. I will try to add a second module upwards, on the back section of this board. It won't be as half as large or elaborated, of course, but it will avoid that sense of rectangular shape and will allow more interesting interactions with the third dimension, providing (I hope) some fun gaming options.

How will I build it? When will I dare to build it? Honestly, I cannot tell at the moment. I simply don't have room enough for such an element at home, so first of all I'll have to sort out the logistics of storaging such a piece and then I'll be able to design it! I don't think it will happen in the next weeks, so please be patient with that.

I'm declaring this module of the board finishe... Hmm. I'm declaring this module of the board almost finished. Esentially finished. I may still add minor elements (I'm not entirely convinced with the flatness of the entrance tower; the antenna on the front building doesn't look as satisfying as I originally thought...). But in any case there will be really small changes.

For the moment I have to say I'm happy with how this board came out/ is coming out. I may take a break of this kind of scenery projects for a while, as I need to do any kind of different stuff. Whenever I'm ready to come back to Qala Debdou don't worry, I'll let you know!

Almost there

 Cruise speed! I'm almost done with this! Unfortunately I'm not bringing the finished thing today, but we're just this close to it! Let's start where I left last time, the street lamps:

Now with posts attached

Easier to photograph with the lights off

The street lights will add some flavour just on top of the bazaar, as well as fill in to some extent that empty area. Now that I have the light garland on the left side of the board, it is time to plan the general shape I want to give it:

Just by this pic you can tell it all escaped out of hand (again)

Step by step! Let's close spaces little by little

Build, wire, paint, repeat

At this stage I had to build, set the lights, close the building, spray over it and keep building. Why couldn't I wait until the end to paint the whole thing? Because I'm planning to have some open spaces:

The old trick of printed paper

This is why I have to paint before glueing the pieces

Besides, I had to plan the lights in advance. In advance! Madness!!

I'll have to give a second hand there. Let's hope I can keep the interiors clean!

Ohhh, more weird shapes! What's going on in here?

I added a 3D printed piece I had abandoned in the bits box. At first I thought it was some kind of bank-like armoured door, so I reserved this wall for it. It wasn't until I painted it and the details made themselves visible when I realised it was in fact some kind of power device (and most likely designed to be placed on the floor!!)

I don't know what it is, but it works this way

With some general idea of what I wanted, I wired the piece:

If it looks weird, I'm doing it right

Closing this section offered me a number of possibilities. I chose a relatively easy one, just a giant block growing upwards. I made the upper terrace to provide anything interesting to the large shape:

Will it be a dock? A garden on the upper town? Who knows!

Let's recap and see a few pics of the whole board so far:

You can tell the part in which I planned the lights in advance

It's like Christmas all year long

Now I can finally envision a glimpse of the final result

Oh, it all looks tto plain, doesn't it?

Let's solve it with more printed designs downloaded from the internet!

Time to add details

It's a little challenge every time I have to throw some spray at the thing, as I have to move it all to the window, spray it, let it dry and then get it back into the room.

Of course, every time it's inside, the kids populate the town with literally anything they can find:

So they provide me this thriving settlement!

I believe that all I've shown could provide a blog post by its own, but the thing is that I've kept on adding stuff, so there's no reason not to show!

First thing, the upper dock. Here you have a mini for scale reference:

It's quite an inaccessible dock, but I have plans, trust me...

In this pic you can see the handrail. It's but a bbq stick, it couldn't be easier:

Dirty tubes are mandatory, you know

Seeing how easy was to provide some safety and comfort to my beloved citizens, I made a few more for a few spots where they were much needed:

It's all bbq sticks and pillars of foamboard

But they give a (false) sense of safety

Now falling dow will be less usual, but more spectacular indeed

Let me show the way I'm concealing the batteries. I made this piece as a front cover, which can be retrieved by simply pulling using the ladder:

Power grid indicators!

Oh, just so you don't have to zoom in, the sign is of course in High Gothic:

Like two minutes of Photoshop

When in place, the piece looks like this:

Who could suspect there's anything behind...?

Surprise!

Is this all? NEVER! These have been incredibly fruitful days!

I'm about to close the lower piece, the entrance to the mine itself.

This way it looks dull and unimaginative, I give you that

I hope lights can make it look any better

The stairs have a sad, yet unavoidable story behind. They belong to the Genestealer Cult Dungeon I once started building. However, I had to make a hard decision. I really run out of any storage space left at home. In my mind, a full campaign would be comprised by combats on the surface of the mining town and later on taken to the underground tunnels of the mine, intertwined with those excavated by the Cult. However I did it wrong! I started building the Space Hulk-like dungeon before I built the town, and now I reached a point in which I cannot storage any more large structures.

Given that I still must build some stuff for this board (and with any luck run some games on it!) I really didn't see myself using the dungeon in the forseeable future. Then, the pragmatic solution was to dismantle it, release some quite useful space in the cupboard and, when the time comes in a few years, reset the project again.

That means that I'm cannibalising anything I can from that project, which you will immediately see.

I'm building the entrance to the mine. I need some raw rocks and less straight lines. I used these, coming from the Skaven Gnawhole kit:

Skaven runes sealed with putty

Wiring this proved tricky again!

Caves! Tunnels! Mayhem!

I'd say that something nasty lives in there

The Gnawhole kit also provides some wooden structures, and they look absolutely in place here, so I came up with this:

Finished!

There's a little entrance to the left, the main on in the centre and a mysterious cave on the left

"0 days without accidents". I'm pretty sure the sign isn't really necessary

What's in the cave? Hmm, looks like a shrine of some kind, something where the miners can pray when they got in or out the mine. It's relatively hidden, so I guess the local authorities don't usually get a glimpse of what's inside...

Hey, that's not the Emperor!

Right, it's the Genestealer Venus of Willendorf, which I rescued when dismantling the dungeon. I had to reuse the icaon, there's no debate about thet

With some lights on

There are some devotional prayers, candles, portraits of relatives...

 

If an Inquisitor would ever peep in here, I guess some people would have quite a bad time. Maybe even the Inquisitor...

Ok, I guess I gave you quite a few pics to handle today! Please stay with me, as in a few days (I hope!) I'll provide you with a post having the final details and some elements I deem necessary here.

The end is nigh!