Competition Winner’s scenery; Skaven & High Elves Stage-by-Stage Painting

You'll have to forgive me - I got a bit over excited about the new High Elves yesterday and forgot to mention that there'd been a new article. The Island of Blood: High Elves Stage-by-Stage Painting is a comprehensive guide to painting the High Elves you'll find in The Island of Blood set and focuses on getting crisp, bright colours. Even if you aren't currently painting High Elves, it has some great pointers you'll find useful on any army that incorporates bright colours. Today's article, The Island of Blood: Skaven Stage-by-Stage Painting, does the same thing but for the Skaven. Again, it's worth a read even if you don't collect Skaven, as the techniques demonstrated can be applied to most models and will help you paint any horde army in double quick time.

On Monday I announced that Jeremy Dale won 'The Great Gameboard Giveaway'. Here's a look at his winning piece.

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  Jeremy used multiple Bastions, a Skyshield Landing Pad, a Sanctum Imperialis, a Manufactorum and an Aegis Defence Line set to make his stronghold, which measures roughly 2' x 2'.

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  One of the coolest things about Jeremy's terrain piece is that it's entirely modular. 'Modularity was key; it allows me to easily transport the Stronghold and even use its component sections as separate scenery pieces' said Jeremy.

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  All of the rocks are made from insulation foam. The sweeping cuts in their surface were made using a rotary tool with a router attachment. Jeremy then tied it up and added detailing with a Hobby Knife.

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  I really like the tree that Jeremy has added to his piece. It's a nice little touch that helps create the impression that the stronghold has been built into a naturally occurring landscape, rather than the whole area seeming artificial.

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  Jeremy added the Inquisitorial logo to the landing pad by photocopying the Ravenor book cover. He then enlarged the copy until he was happy with the size, cut the Inquisitorial symbol out and used it as a stencil.

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  Really the only things missing from this great piece of terrain are some miniatures - I don't know about you but I'd love to see a Valkyrie on the landing pad and squads of Storm Troopers manning the walls. In fact, Jeremy, if you could send me a picture of such a thing that'd be awesome.

Thanks again to everyone who took part in the competition - we got hundreds of entries and thoroughly enjoyed looking at them. They're so good that I'm going to try and feature as many of them as I can over the coming months.

And finally, to continue our look at last weekend's The Island of Blood celebrations, I thought I'd show you some pictures taken at the Bluewater Hobby Centre, just outside London.

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  Almost 400 (!) people rampaged their way into the Bluewater Hobby Centre for The Island of Blood launch day. Over the course of the day they made a lot of noise and took part in (among other activities) a gameboard raffle and a painting competition.

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  A real-life horde: it took four security guards to manage the queue (if you can call this rabble such a thing) as the shops on either side of the Hobby Centre experienced a 'Hobby Waaagh!' first hand.