Staging the Set

The Monastery, test layout

Ever since I finished the scenery, I've been arranging all the pieces together on the gaming board with excitement, staging the set like a young lad building his first Lego city, looking for best balance in both gameplay-wise and appearance. The possibilities are endless...

Here's a mock-up layout for a possible Punk Moth scenario, The Monastery. This is just one of the many possibilities that the new scenery grands us. I'm pretty pleased how the set looks as a whole. There are some hue differences in the greys of the ground and the decayed walls, but I think that just gives them more lively look.

Lonely AA-turret and a Paltry Foxhole

Good news everybody! Today I finally finished the Caterpillar phase of the Punk Moth project by putting the foxhole and AA in paint along with all the rest of the ruined walls. All of these objects will play a decisive part in the scenario as some of them will/might be secondary objectives or otherwise placed in strategically important spots.

The end of the Caterpillar phase means that we are free to continue to the next phase of our project - the Pupation. In this phase we will plan, organise and enrich our first game of INQ28 (which, by the way, has been under preparations for almost two years by now). This game will work as a stage for our two rival Inquisitors, Inquisitor Marius Cassar and Inquisitor Pherion of Mars. The hunt is about to begin...

But first, here's some first close-ups from the finished scenery.

The lonely turret guarding the sky, idle.

The terrain will be filled with improvised obstacles for characters to dive behind in a heat of combat.

The Monastery

Slow but Steady

It has been pretty challenging to enter into the crafting mode lately due to the hectic life that has been keeping me busy. My new job as a project manager is something that I've been dreamed of ever since I properly entered in the advertising business. It's been immensely rewarding but also very demanding and time-consuming experience so far. The incoming summer also brings the good weather here in Finland so it means more time outside with the family.

Despite these factors I've been able to push the Caterpillar phase forward by putting the brief moments in use. The process is slow but steady...

The Weeping Walls of the Monastery

It is time to reveal some of the work I've been able to pull out for the Caterpillar phase so far. Without any further words or teasers, here's the first part of the Monastery, beaten by the dust, sand and filth.

As you can see, the yellowish white repeats all around the surfaces of the ruin. Most of the trims have been painted to represent patinated copper. It does give a nice contrast to the dirty white walls, don't you think?

I have also started working on with the taller part of the courthouse and thought to share some WIP shots with you.

The salt weathering effect does work pretty well on the walls. I did learn from the first portion that I need to fix some of the white paint and hide some of the rusty areas to make the walls just a little bit less weathered, as too much rust and weathering effect makes the larger surfaces look too complicated and busy. I think it's a bit more balanced now...

Gloomy Teaser

The first one of the Punk Moth ruins is now almost finished. I still need to add some minor details here and there, but other than that, I'm pretty much finished with it. Here's couple of gloomy teasers...

Lets Paint Weathered Walls

The Caterpillar phase of the Punk Moth scenario is rolling on again. All the buildings are now primed and waiting for the painting phase. There's a lot of surface to cover so I need to plan the whole painting process with care...

Before assailing any of my undercoated structures with paint I decided to make a test piece with the colour scheme that I had thought to use in the Punk Moth scenario. My plan is to paint most of the surfaces with dirty and worn white and coat the trims of the walls with beutifully patinated copper. The ground will have the similar tone with the bases of our gangs.

I picked up one of the extra walls and had the test piece undercoated with a nice layer of dark brown paint that I had mixed with various paints. Anxious as I was, I had to speed up the drying process with a hair drier. My wife looked at me with a hint of an amusement in her eye...

When the undercoat was dry, I applied some water here and there with a paintbrush and sprinkled table salt over the wetted areas. When the water had dried off and there was only salt left, I went outside and gave the test piece a nice layer of white paint with an airbrush. Actually my white paint was so low-quality that I had to give it not just one but three thin layers before all the areas were white. This had a dramatic impact on the salt which decided to stick on the surface even though I soaked the testpiece under warm water for over a minute. I had to help it with the paintbrush and finally got the salt off.

Now the wall had a nice weathered surface that needed to be shaded. I gave the surface a thick layer of brown wash and after it had dried, finished the effect with some minor details. Finally I painted the trim with bronze metallics and added some turquoise to make it look like patinated copper.

here's the finished test piece...

Now I just need to repeat the whole process in much larger scale...

Sector Primed

I've been off-radar for the past couple of weeks. It is the Punk Moth's Caterpillar phase that has been keeping me busy lately. I've been building ruins, bunkers and garbage like a rabid squirrel, getting this project back on track.

While building the scenery I got some neat ideas how to spice up the terrain with little details, giving it some more depth to the surrounding that where Cassar and Pherion will have their confrontation. Here's the primed sector at the moment...

Lonely AA-turret guards the sky silently...

Courthouse's front wall is filled with notes, appeals, notices etc.

"Deep behind the frontline stands an abandoned guardspost. There lies secrets within these ruins..."

Mikko will be bringing his entry to the scenery - a crazy cool loading platform - next weekend to our hometown, where we'll hopefully be able to sit down, catch up and share our latest ideas and visions, regarding both Punk Moth project and our solo projects. I will then get that piece back home, prime it and start to ponder what will the colours of this planet be like...

New Year, Old Tricks

So the year changed.

The past month was pretty quiet in the rat nest, humble apologies for that. But we have not been totally jobless! The Punk Moth project has been taking some small steps forward, even though the Caterpillar stage was yet again restarted. After moving to the new flat I realized that the diorama style gaming board wouldn't have a change to fit in my new space. I had to make a hard decision and toss the almost finished plates away, get back to the drawing board and rethink the whole process from the roots.

Well, I can only hope that third time's the charm. After some pondering we decided to make the scenery to stand on their own shaped bases made out of Forex Classic foam PVC sheets. This way every piece can be made look like an individual building (or a ruined part of one) and together they can be used to form a larger structure. We won't either be tied to use the terrain for just this one scenario but can actually re-use them in our future plans too.

For the board I was thinking of Zuzzy's elastic Terra-Flex Gaming Mat. I ordered couple of speciments from them (cheap as they were) to check out the surface detail and the overall quality of the mat. If any of you have any experience of Zuzzy's Terra-Flex mats, please feel free to share your thoughts with the rest of us!

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So that is what I've been able to pull together for the Punk Moth project's Caterpillar stage so far. I still need to add some serious amount of junk and other bits to make the ruins look more lively, like if something had really hit them while bombing the planet.

Mikko will be taking a journey to the Caribbean Seas in the end of the month, so I guess it is up to me to keep this blog alive for the next couple of weeks to follow. Speaking of the Caribbean, I have a little announcement to make that has something to do with my next project - but that can wait 'til the next post...

Stay tuned!

- Kari

Caterpillar Planning...

OK, the Punk Moth project is back in action, hooyah! Time to wipe out the dust and continue to model the base. As you can see, I'm almost done with the first half of my 2-piece base. Not quite there yet though, still need to add hell-of-a-lot of dirt and junk all around... and paint it!

Designing the interior of the Basilica was very fascinating. I really had to think how the building would work more like a playable diorama rather than just a bulky terrain piece blocking strategic LOS. Also, my intention was to make it look like a real administrative building with an interesting and very playable layout yet easy to move around and manouver. That's where I came up with the idea of separating the building in half, "blowing" its core to the pieces and giving it some air to breathe. When we'll be photoshooting our game, if there's any action happening in the centre of the building, we can just separate the two boards and take nice low angled shots.

But now, lets take a closer look of those numbered areas...

1. Defence turret might be one of the secondary objectives to either of the Inquisitors. Maybe other side needs to destroy it before their pick-up can land on the hi-ground nearby?

2. Cargo area will be filled with the supply boxes and barrels to make the area more like a small labyrinth. It will be great place for some of those okkiW's CQC-specialists to hide and make ambushes.

3. Ruins of Basilica hide many horrific secrets within...

4. This was the southern defence line of the XXII platoon (Fifth Imperial Airbourne Brigade) before they were beaten and forced to flee by the overwhelming counter attack of the opposing force.

5. Public Halls of the Basilica was the main entrance to the building before it was bombed to the ground by the fierce artillery of the opposing force. This hall has many entraces and is perfect spot to ambush any unwary scouts.

Here's some more WIP shots of the board so far...