Planetary Empires: Spaceport Tile

The spaceport tile from Planetary Empires is a well sculpted piece with neat levels of depth. Surrounded by an otherwise normal looking tile scene, the spaceport appears to have been built from a levelled mountain range. Atop that levelled mountain sits a gloriously large structure with smooth surfaces and important looking buildings: the spaceport itself.

When I set about painting this tile, I wanted to attempt to communicate this feeling of depth. Hence after I'd basecoated the greenery in a blend of a number of greens and the spaceport building and runway with boltgun metal, I decided that use a light off-white colour to basecoat the surroundings of the spaceport. After letting the paint dry, I then applied two layers of mud wash to the mountain range before drybrushing it to a lighter colour using some dheneb stone foundation paint, slightly mixed in with a minute drop of more wash. The effect gives a strong suggestion of depth to the base of the spaceport: this building has taken some serious construction work for the engineers to accomplish.

For the spaceport itself, a black wash was applied across the surface which was then gone over again with boltgun metal along the runways. I painted one edge of a runway in skull white to suggest sunlight gleaming off a near-pristine surface and added some lighting detail with sunburst yellow. Then, the imperial crest was picked out in skull white.

In the surrounding fields, I applied some green and brown washes to give the foliage a bit of depth, before lightly drybrushing in a number of greens (goblin green, woodland green, etc.) to mix the flora together. Overall, I'm very pleased with the outcome here.