Making a Dark Elf Tower

 

Making a Dark Elf Tower

Battlefield Terrain is used to make warhammer games more exiting to play, but that's not all. If you have some great looking battlefield terrain it gives your campaigns just the right mood.

In this guide I will give you an example of how you relatively simple can make a looming Dark Elf Tower. The key thing to make such buildings is imagination, the ability to look at an empty noodle box and see an entire building. If you are able to make your own terrain you will surely feel the difference in your economy because it sure isn't cheap to buy the finished terrain pieces.

 

How I made my tower

The first an probably most important thing is to find some suitable objects that looks a bit like the tower you want, in form that is. I chose a "Pringles" cylinder and glued it onto an upside-down "Cup Noodle".

Then I wanted to add some details to my colourful tower. I took a warhammer box, which is made of thin cardboard, and cut a lot of 0,5x0,2 centimetre squares. I then glued them on the tower here and there so it would look like the outermost layer on the tower is peeling off to show the bricks behind.

I saved some of my cardboard squares to make a gate. First I cut out a arched doorway. Then I glued my bricks on around the entrance to make it stand more out.

I also had to do something to the surface of the tower, give it some texture. I decided to glue on some fine grovel. I coated my tower with PVA glue and was careful not to get glue on the bricks. I then scattered the sand and pebbles on it until every inch of the tower except the bricks was covered with a thin layer.

To make the tower look more Dark Elf I added some decorative cardboard things to the top of my tower (I don't know the correct name, but look at the picture to the left). I made a sketch of how it should work on some cardboard and then cut it out. I then used it to draw 8 identical forms and then cut them out and glued them on top of the tower.

The tower was then ready to be sprayed with black undercoat. You should spray the tower from a short distance (about 15-20cm), more close than when you undercoat normal miniature models. This is because the details on the tower is more rough and because the the grovel makes it harder to cover with the undercoat. I undercoated the tower in sections because it was difficult to survey the whole tower when I undercoated. The tower was then ready to be painted and I chose a very simple way. I just highlighted the tower in different shades of grey with a drybrush (If you don't know how to drybrush look at the guide: Painting & Modelling - Tutorials - Drybrushing). The top cardboard thingies is painted with Dwarf Bronz.

Now I could easily say the tower is finish, but one could also make the tower a lot more impressive by adding torches, a door, banners and such. However the tower is fully functional now and could be used for exiting campaigns or just to make a normal pitched battle more interesting.

Tutorial By: Pia Have Pedersen (31-07 - 2004)