It’s been a busy week! Me and @BrittneyStucklessArt on Instagram were vending from Friday to Sunday at Avalon Expo. We were also fan-panelists, with Brittney reprising her role as Prof. Mangrove to teach the childrens about Pokemon biology, and I donned the Bob Ross wig once more and taught a little class on miniature painting, and gave out a couple pre-primed and pre-built miniatures. As such, this week’s post is gonna be a shorter one, and one that’s been in the works since the last Avalon Expo! Avalon Expo events often feature a Shrek-themed dance on the Saturday night, and to bring our swamp saga to a close I decided to paint up some swamp terrain pieces for my ogres to live in. I started with a couple of 5 x 7 wooden plaques from Michaels as a base, and also picked up a few 4 inch wooden coasters that I thought would make for a convincing dock.

When I covered the baseplate with glue and sprinkled on little rocks and sand, I left lots of blank space for where I wanted to add swamp water later on. I also painted a happy little face on one of the swamps because I thought it was appropriately Nurgly. Water alone does not make a swamp, however, and to make some trees KinpatsuSamurai gave me some old broken supports from his PLA printer, and I added some of my own old sprues cut at random angles to make some rough fencing. After that I started to paint up the terrain once it was one solid piece, and when the ground and the trees were painted with drybrushing and sponging I took a little more time painting the swamp water to make it look nice and gross. The 3 inch coasters fit over the swamp water nicely as little dock pieces. Last, I got some florals on clearance at Michaels and applied them generously to the trees, and as a finishing touch I added a couple of the spare Nurglings from when I recently painted a Great Unclean One proxy.

When I finally got to work on them these moved along really quickly and really smoothly, and this project was great for using up materials that I already had in excess, or drawing on things that were easily located at art and hobby shops on clearance sales – as always, the 30% to 40% discounts on Michaels came in clutch, but further Michaels acquisitions might be tabled for a while until our country’s trade war with the U.S. (which U.S. trade war are we on again this week? I’ve lost count!) is sorted out. I’m glad I picked up the baseplates and sand when I did because those, along with a little PVA glue, seem to be magical in terms of setting up semi-modular and really effective-looking terrain pieces with defined footprints that are useful for casual 11th edition or just for casual games broadly. I’ll be applying these to a particularly big build I’m excited to share, but that’s for later. Next up, we delve back into painting Eldar. (Is anyone surprised?)

As one last note, very happy with how these turned out. These, along with my Blood Raven terrain and another few projects I have in mind are going to be a really useful way to get some quick terrain on the table, and I think this brings our side quest in the swamp to a close. The last quarter of the year is going to be a gauntlet between IRL commitments and some gift pieces that I’m painting, but I didn’t get this far by being a quitter and I’m kind of looking forward to the ride!