Today’s post features some more boardgame scenic items. We have the six smaller doors from Mantic’s Star Saga game, along with six rather generic looking crates. The crates are pretty simple. A couple of tones of grey and a bit of metallic on the corners for wear and tear. Lootable crates are very much a thing in Imperial Assault, so these got found in the Star Saga accessories and got bumped to the head of the queue.
Once again, the impetus for painting these was Star Wars: Imperial Assault. I don’t expect that the smaller doors will play a part, but I did start them at the same time as the larger doors, and so I managed to make myself finish them off. Four of them are pretty generic, but the final pair feature a window, so I tried something a bit different to the typical “black” effect. I painted the windows with Vallejo Model Air Steel, and then painted them in with slightly diluted Warcolours Turquoise Gemstone, finally giving that a gloss varnish to complete it – hoping to get a kind of variation in the tone of light coming through the “blue” of the turquoise. I’m counting them as a submission for Technical August. I think they worked out okay – certainly fit for the simple purpose, but they’re not all the way there yet!
Ghaarkhan protects temp-Jyn and temp-Fenn from a Probe Droid while they furiously open their Star Wars Battlefront II Loot Crates trying for a rare Star Card. Yong Out!
This stuff isn’t really exciting, but as I’m documenting everything that I complete at the moment – here they are. And more importantly, they (well, the crates) will be straight into active gaming use. So there’s always that!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
The variation seems a bit off for the usual indoor tinted window. I think I might have gone for the brighter part more in the center (or maybe top center?). As is, it kind of looks like the light in the other room is mostly coming from the left, which is sort of odd in most rooms.
It does look really cool, tho.
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That’s entirely deliberate. It’s not overwhelmingly often in real life for the light source of a room to be directly opposite to a door. All of the doors in my house and most of the ones in my workplace are off-centre – which is why I had the light source on one side.
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In my apartment, yeah, the lights are offset like that. In most of the places I’ve been that seem like they’d have doors like this (warehouses and such, largely, but also some institutional buildings like cafeteria kitchens), the lighting has been, maybe not centered, but more or less evenly distributed. Unless the door is way over at one side of the room through it, the light would then spread more evenly.
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if you’re talking about the photo of them put together in the hallway, that was literally just a spur of the moment thing to use them in a photo (as they’re individual doors, not a set of double-doors) but I wanted to fit some doors into the “action” photo – and the ones with the spot of extra colour are more visually attractive.
The actual paint on them however was – as with almost everything I do, paint-wise – considered, rather than random.
While I do see what you mean in terms of even light, three things that I thought of when thinking about “door with window” were directional sunlight, perhaps through trees or between other external buildings, which I see IRL, as well as the more common “single light source from outside”. The other main thing came from the idea of the “deserted” lab with the facehuggers in it from the film Aliens, where the room is pretty much dark, except for a few machines in various spaces giving off light from their own spots/angles within the room.
So I did one with light generally from above (because flat turquoise and even centred turquoise looked boring as fuck), and one from above and to one side.
Looks good. Aesthetically pleasing. Some basis in reality. Win-Win-Win!
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I wasn’t really thinking about that photo, just that they looked like interior doors from some sort of industrial or institutional facility. And they do look good for light coming in from the side, it’s just, like I said, the sorts of places that I’d imagine having doors like that, the examples I’ve seen myself would have had less directional lighting.
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That’s fine. I thought of lab doors first, due to the little vent-fan and the window, which made me in turn think of Aliens, and then that specific scene where they discover the medlab/face-hugger room and the lights are all gone except for the still-glowing containers and such.
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Tidy work sir
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Thanks mate!
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Nice job dude! Can’t have enough crates, and doors are pretty useful too 🙂
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Thanks Alex!
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Yea, I really like the lighting on the windows. Not sure about direction, I’m sure there are hundreds of arguments either way. They look like corridor doors to me, so the main light source would probably be centered on the ceiling. But outside doors would likely be different, and you captured a cool effect regardless. So a “Beholder Eye of Staring” award to you mate.
The crates look good, but for some reason I picture them having a bit more color. Though in Star Wars, they would probably be a dull grey or black. I am curious though, do you happen to have loot crates for other games like WH40k?
All in all, great stuff. If I see a cheap copy of Star Saga on EBay, I might just have to nab it too. And I should try out Imperial Assault someday….but my wallet is very scared!
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I’ve certainly got plenty of other types of crates that can work in various settings.
https://azazelx.com/2017/02/26/sedition-wars-terrain-set-crates/
https://azazelx.com/2016/10/03/dust-tactics-supply-drop-boxes/
https://azazelx.com/2016/09/25/little-boxes-from-mantics-mars-attacks/
Not to mention lots of wooden crates from various manufacturers. These ones are grey because Star Wars.
Imperial Assault is a bit of a rabbit hole of spending due to FFG’s strategy of supplying the boxed sets with only Player Characters and Generic Mooks and then selling you the bosses seperately (they give you tokens that you can use for the scenarios). Kind of the opposite way that the D&D boardgames (and most others) do things.
$ power of the Star Wars licence, I guess.
Star Saga is *supposed* to be pretty good. I can say that much at least!
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Yea, when you linked an $11 IG-88 mini plus some token, card stuff…my wallet cringed. I’m the one to buy everything for everyone else to play with, so I have to be careful. There are people in my game group who sometimes play Imperial Assault though, so I could start there.
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I’m also that person (if you hadn’t guessed). If you have some friends with IA already, that’d be a place to start!
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Yep, think we’ve both mentioned that in the past. It’s the one nice thing about joining the gaming group awhile back (though I’ve barely made it in the last year), is that their ringleader buys almost everything. I’ll still buy a lot, but a few of us will share the burden, which is really nice.
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Just getting back to blog reviews post surgery!
Nice set, and given that you will be more focused on the game, the light will always be just right! I actually thought the tones on the crates was instructive, and will keep in mind myself. Thanks Azazel!
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Ouch! Hope it’s all gone well, Mark. Luckily those crates were quick and easy to do. Pretty much the same method we’d use for most things like that, only with light greys and a thinned black wash.
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Yeah, I’m encouraged. Actually 7th surgery since 8/16! Hopefully this was the last.
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Ouch!
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