How to Paint the Blastscape

I will admit, when I opened the bag I was pretty disappointed with what I saw. I was impressed with the size of the pieces, but not the quality of the detail. However, unlike most of the ululating masses of internet complainers, I decided to paint mine and see what I could do with it, refraining from final judgment until I saw how it looked painted. I found it to be probably the most boring, easy thing I've ever painted (except the lava, that was a lot of fun). Once finished, I was rather pleased with the results.

I'll discuss specific pieces later, but here is the basic procedure for the rocks and earth. To begin, I trimmed off the surrounding flash and primed the pieces black. I then coated the earth parts with a dark brown (approximately a burnt umber), and the rocks with a dark gray. Next, I gave everything a nice thick wash of Badab Black. After that dried, I drybrushed a lighter brown and a lighter gray, finally drybrushing highlighted areas with an even lighter brown and a light gray.

My aim with this color scheme was to make something dark so it could go with any tabletop theme, without it being too dark. Thus, I began with the dark and built it up slowly.

For the crashed space ship parts, I painted all the metals Boltgun Metal, and did the Badab Black wash on them. I then picked out areas in Chainmail (for damage and highlights) and Dwarf Bronze (details). These were very easy to do.


For the meteors, the area is decreed dangerous terrain afterward, so I figured I'd give a reason for it. I made the meteors look glowing by painting them red, then highlighting with progressively darker colors, in a backwards approach. I then used slight glowing effects on the surrounding rocks to show their radiating heat.


Finally, the Laserburn. This was a lot of fun. I slowly built up to white on the lava, painting the cracks in the lava with a very light yellow. I may possibly put some 'ardcoat on the bubbles to further their shininess. Finally, I used a red to make the sides of the slope appear to be glowing.