I contemplated not posting some of my recent work because the end results are a bit disappointing. Maybe I attempted something outside my skillset, but probably it was just more outside my patience. Let’s take a look at what happened…maybe it’ll help someone else with what _not_ to do if they want to try something similar.

First, we have a container that looks ok at first. In a tribute to Return of the Living Dead, I wanted to have the container be a shipment of bodies for Uneeda (the medical supply shop where the zombie outbreak first occurs…”Watch your tongue, boy, if you like this job!”). In the above pic, we have the sign sort of hanging off by one nail or something. Perhaps the sign jiggled lose when the container fell off the train?

I found the Uneeda sign on the website of the conceptual artist of RotLD and the colors matched what I wanted. Using a piece of plasticard for the sign, I printed out the Uneeda log to fit. My printer seems to be dying so some faint lines appeared, but it didn’t look bad enough to warrant concern. In the past, when I’ve included hung posters on terrain, I’ve added a layer of Citadel ‘ardcoat on top to help protect. Usually it’s on small papers or wanted posters, so seem fine. this was the largest I had applied ‘ardcoat on and it looks… ok. My other idea was to have someone spray paint a zombie warning sign of sorts over Uneeda.

We see the result there on the right. It clearly didn’t turn out so well. I ordered a set of graffiti transfers from Green Stuff World. I had never applied a wet transfer over paper before and hoped that the ‘ardcoat layer would protect the underlying paper image from blurring. That didn’t work. Maybe I didn’t completely cover the Uneeda sign with ‘ardcoat and water got through? Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered? Either way the Uneeda sign blurred. I guess I’ll just have the container turned so that this side is on the “back”.

The other shack has a simple transfer over the 3d printed wall. This was easy and safe. Maybe I was too ambitious to do a wet transfer over paper to begin with and I should have left the Uneeda sign alone as it was.

Here’s where maybe my impatience got me in trouble. I proceeded forward with a larger sign. In the billboard above, my printer’s dying gasps are clearly visible. Though, to be honest, at arm’s length on the gaming table it’s not visible very much. Still having decent success with ‘ardcoat on the Uneeda sign, I applied it to the billboard as well. Likely because this is a much larger surface area, the paper gives a wavy and stretched look in place like wet paper would. Still, I tried again with a graffiti transfers over it and the bottom right looks ok, but the “Straight outta Here” on the left must of found a way to get under the ‘ardcoat again or something because we see some ink running again. Perhaps I’m lucky these are post apocalyptic pieces so crisp, perfect signs aren’t expected. Still, in my mind this looked better. Maybe I’ll scratch off some of the sign and rough it up a little more?

I hit a different problem with this next piece. I didn’t want to try to free-hand any text, so I printed out a sign for this ruined food shack and was hoping that painting the paper the same red color as the sign would help the print out blend in. It doesn’t. It looks like trash and I can’t unsee the difference. I foresee myself scrapping this off at some point and just hand scrawling the name back… it couldn’t look any worse. However, this is done and will work for now. I’ve got other things to work on and terrain does sort of fade into the background during play, so I’ll just roll with this for the time being. The inside looks ok. ha!

So, here we have a few pieces that didn’t really come together as I’d had hoped and to be honest are a little embarrassing to post. I’m already not a great painter/hobbyist, and photos always reveal mistakes and failings, but these are beyond the usual mid paint jobs and just look… bad.