Warhammer 40,000 - Swamp terrain
Terrain is always a good way to break up the monotony of painting hordes of infantry. The techniques might be fairly similar but as terrain tends to be physically bigger than infantry you can be pretty slapdash in your approach. Which, as mentioned, makes for a nice change of pace from layering and highlighting small areas of endless infantry.
I had bought some resin ponds from Tiny Worlds a while back, looking to expand my terrain collection with some water features. I had originally intended to use them as intended, no doubt to play with some epoxy resin water. But at some point I decided to use them to make some swamps instead. Something any scion of Nurgle would feel at home wading through.
The first thing I did was to gather a bunch of basing materials from the likes of Epic Basing and Kromlech. In particular I got some mushrooms, tree stumps, and cattails and reeds. And as it’s a Warhammer project I got a big ol’ box of skulls. I rounded out the bits with a few rocks in the form of slate and bark chips. And once I had all the bits gathered, I went to town sticking them down to the swamp bases. For the largest swamp I also cut up some lollypop sticks and stuck them down as a walkway to the small island in the middle.
Once I was happy with the amount of detritus and everything was dry I cracked out my tub of Vallejo Thick Brown Mud. With a fairly large flat brush I applied the texture paste to the base of the swamps, in a fairly thick layer as well. I made sure to blend it with the banks of the swamp and any of the bits that I had stuck down. I then gave it a full day to properly dry all the way through. Finally, I primed the swamps with a spray can of Army Painter Angel Green. I chose green rather than a neutral colour like grey as it would mean less I would need to paint with a brush later.
Once the primer was completely dry I could make a start on the basecoats. I started by painting the raised banks with Dryad Bark and the rocks with Two Thin Coats Dungeon Stone. Any wood details I painted with a few thin coats of Army Painter Oak Brown and the reeds I painted with Death Guard Green, the flowers on the cattails I painted with Rhinox Brown. The chanterelle mushrooms I painted with Heavy Goldbrown, the other mushrooms I painted their stems with Dawnstone and their caps with Evil Sunz Scarlet. Lastly I painted all the bone details with Army Painter Skeleton Bone which once dry I gave a quick wash with Army Painter Strong Tone.
For the rest of the swamps, I decided to mix my own wash rather than use a whole pot of Athonian Camoshade. With that in mind I mixed some Daler-Rowney FW Sap Green acrylic ink with Burnt Umber acrylic ink until it resembles Athonian Camoshade. As I recall, it was about a fifty-fifty mix. Once I had the colour right, I added some matt medium to give it some body and some flow improver to help break the surface tension, then diluted it with water until it was the consistency of a wash. This was then liberally applied to the entirety of the swamps. While it dried I kept an eye on it in case the wash pooled too heavily anywhere. It did turn out a bit more yellow than I had wanted but that wasn’t the end of the world. Once the wash was dry it was time for the drybrushing. Most everything was drybrushed with Tyrant Skull, the pale colour was neutral enough to work as a highlight for both the rocks and tree stumps. For the toxic sludge/mud that forms the base of the swamps I drybrush that was Niblet Green to make it look like some glowing green ooze.
The next step was to then stick down a number of grass and flower tufts. And then it was onto the fun part. And that fun part was the liberal application of AK Interactive Swamp Green Water Gel. As it’s water based I used a large flat brush to glop it into the swamp and poke it into the nooks and crannies. I then left it a few days to fully dry. It wasn’t quite as transparent as I was imagining and I might have put a bit too thick of a layer on the first two swamps. For the largest swamp I used a thinner layer and I think it turned out much nicer.
Really pleased with how these turned out, although next time I do it I’ll probably make some improvements. Such as trimming the skulls down, at the moment they look like they’re sitting on the mud rather than being immersed in it. I’d also probably put some static grass on the rims, I didn’t do it in this case as I was a little worried that it would simply rub off. Fortunately, Tiny Worlds now do actual swamps so if that isn’t an excuse to make some more I don’t know what is. Plus, I have other swampy plans as it is…