Catching up on lightbox pics: 40k terrain and a mantis

I snapped these back in January, of stuff I finished in December of 2022, and then forgot about them until now.

Sector Mechanicus dome/stack

I had a lot of fun building this piece. All of these sets interconnect so well that it’s satisfying to play around and find ways to work in “off-book” connections.

Ferratonic Furnace

I have a couple of these, so I felt free to assemble this one as a single piece — no modular lid. The Wraithbone railings and pipe fittings tie it to my Sector Manufactorum terrain.

There’s something therapeutic about drilling little bullet holes in terrain.

To matched the blasted and ruined look of my Manufactorum pieces, I added battle damage to the railings.

I assembled the platform and railings such that it can play nice with almost any walkway piece. The corner with the hazard stripes has a bite taken out of it with my hobby nippers.

Sector Mechanicus walkway

I clustered the railings in the center, leaving both ends and the “sides” of the ends free to connect with other walkways.

All of my ladders are carefully placed to as to mostly play nice with other terrain pieces.

I wanted this to fit in with my blasted-up Manufactorum stuff, so I used clippers and my hobby knife to tear chunks out of the platform. I kept the holes small enough to avoid being hazards for the actual miniatures.

Thermo-Exchanger Shrine and miscellaneous tank

Shipping containers and misc. bits

The bottoms are fully painted too, but not interesting enough to photograph. I paint the bottoms because these are so modular that they look good at weird angles, on their sides, etc.

Giant dire mantis

My kiddo, Lark, loves preying mantises, so I painted this giant dire mantis (a 3-D print I bought on Etsy) as a Christmas present. I used some glazing and progressive drybrushing layers to try to make it look natural, and the overall model uses something like 19 colors. It was a ton of fun to paint.