David Lawson

Terrain Awards Finalist Interview

Huge thanks to Peter, the 2nd place winner at the 3d Terrain Awards, for taking some time to chat with us about his entry into the terrain awards competition.

Check out his answers below.

Q: Which models did you pick to showcase / work on and why?


Models used: 

  • Vando MK 2 (available as digital or printed)
  • Cargo Platform Basic Set
  • Shipyard Crane
  • Modular Commo Building
  • Crates from the Desert Bundle

I always really enjoyed space ships! When I saw the first concepts of the Vando MK2 ship in the kickstarter I was instantly intrigued with the idea of having a ship with a playable interior. However, to properly set the ship in scene, I also had to pick some “garnish” around the ship.

 

Q: What was your planning process?


After a bit of thinking, I’ve decided to re-use the Cargo-Platform V1 that I’ve printed a while back. As the platform had roughly the same dimensions as the ship, I’ve built the board around it and used dummies (basically paper squares) on the 3x3 board to see what would make a nice Skirmish table.


Q: What gameplay aspects were part of your planning process?


My main force is a rebel army, so I always care about cover- haha. The pictures that I’ve handed in have a lot  less terrain than I had initially planned. It would have been too distracting if I had jammed more on that picture.



Q: Can you share a short list (top 3) lessons you learned while hobbying your entry models?

  1. Learn your printer / Filament.
    Some of my prints were pretty bad as I picked the wrong temperature/speed for my prints. It’s really worth doing a couple of test prints with different settings (speed / hotend temp / build plate temp) to see how the material behaves.

  2. Pigments add realism! Well placed pigments really help to make the model come across more natural. This was the first time working with pigments for me.

  3. I started priming with different colours, As this model is big, and I don’t own an airbrush, I tried to prime as close to the final color scheme as I could. I ended up doing this for all of my models going forward from there. 

Q: What was your total time on the build and what took the longest?


I have worked roughly 4 weeks (on and off - as I have a day job and young kids) on the Crane, the Commo Building and the Ship. 


The ship most certainly took the longest, as I was printing this in a higher detail and I have tried to be extra neat on the paint job. After everything was  printed I started with the clean up of the remaining print lines and checked that everything actually fit together as it should. The preparation before the actual paint job took by far the most time. I remember sanding this cockpit window for a fair amount of time


Q: Now that it is all complete, what part(s) are you most proud of?


This is hard. I am proud of the ship as a whole, but I am really happy that those sanding hours and the clean up of the print lines paid off. I was asked several times if those pictures were rendered, which kind of made the extra effort worthwhile.


 

Q: What are some of your required hobbying materials?


  • Enamel washes
  • Pigments, different ones- and lots of them! 
  • cheap hobby paint 
  • Mod Podge
  • PVA Glue
  • Vallejo Diorama Paint 
  • Green Stuff

Q: What are some of your required hobbying tools?

  • Blowtorch
  • Modeling File / Sandpaper
  • Really cheap brushes