Zero Hour Terrain Round-up

Over the last few months I've made quite a number of pieces of terrain for Zero Hour, so I thought I'd better post up some pics. It's also useful for me to record the paints, etc used so that if I want to add more items, I have a helpful reference. Plus I can then easily share my "recipes" for those interested.

Here's a pic of some battered houses (which I've blogged about before but will recap here for completeness), a railway station/warehouse plus tracks, crashed French plane, water tower and rubble piles, etc. These have already appeared at a couple of ZH events 😎

Brickwork Recipe

• Prime with AP Leather Brown spray
• Cover all bricks (and chimney pots) with VMC Burnt Red
• Optional - patchy wash with GW Agrax, but may not really be needed* 
• Pick out a random scatter of bricks in variety of colours - dark brown/purple through to orangey/red
• Have more darker bricks near chimneys
• Drybrush with Foundry Brick shade, then a few patches of Foundry Brick mid (this is quite pink!)

That's the basic recipe, but there a couple more steps to go for a better finish. I'll discuss this in a future post.

*Note - if "grouting" the bricks then forget the wash - again more on that another time.

A closer shot of one of the buildings - only the chimney pots to do.

Floorboards

I felt that the exposed floors needed proper floor boards, so these were simply coffee stirrers trimmed or broken to the appropriate lengths. I also put a few extra bits of rubble, etc on the exposed floors although I was mindful of Dave's mantra "It's not a daft skirmish game..." so I ensured there was plenty of room for figures.

Prime with VMC Leather Brown - probably a couple of coats - then highlights of Americana Bittersweet Chocolate, Dark Chocolate, Milk Choc and finally a little Honey Brown.

Fireplaces

I used a bit of 3D design magic to create some simple fireplaces for the exposed rooms. Painted much like the buildings as they're basically brickwork.

Internal Walls

These were VMC Iraqi Sand, Dark Sand then Americana Bleached Sand. But there's nothing stopping you finding some suitable wallpaper patterns and printing them!

Shutters & Window Frames 

Any of the more muted Foundry blue or green triads work well, e.g. Storm Green or Night Sky.

For the red ones I've used VMC Hull Red followed by GW Khorne and Mephiston. 

Tip - window frames - heavily drybrush these in something like Iraqi Sand before doing the brickwork - then you don't have to be so neat as the brick colours will tidy things up.

Roofs

Grey - I used a range of AP greys Deep - Uniform - Ash

Brown - VMC Leather Brown or Flat Brown then highlight with Americana or Foundry Terracotta 

With both, try to pick out a few scattered tiles in similar lighter/darker colours.

Here's part of the shattered railway shed roof

Railway

More printed tracks although you could easily use "proper" models rails. Anyway, prime them black, then drybrush the sleepers in VMC Chocolate Brown then VMC Gold Brown or any light grey, if you prefer a colder look. Rails are just a little dull silver on top only.

See the above pic for how to apply ballast - use kebab sticks as "retaining walls", pour the ballast dry, then apply some (very runny) scenic cement with a dropper bottle. It was rather messy! I then added another kind of ballast for the edges. It really needs a few tufts for the hardy plants that grown in these places.

Rubble Piles

Irregular shaped base . Add some polystyrene and filler, then cover in bricks, planks, tiles, pipes, etc. I 3D printed things like crates, dustbins, etc to add visual interest. Paint as the buildings.

Water Tower

Greys!

I'm very please so far, but additional weathering etc will really improve how they blend in with the terrain and give them a lived in or used look. They needed to be ready for an event, hence the extra steps were postponed.

Thanks for looking!