Two new Backdrop Books for your Trench Crusade miniatures photography
Latest Updates from Our Project:
December Update - new photos, progress is good!
4 months ago
– Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 05:54:37 AM
Seasons greetings!
Our December update will be short and sweet - we're on festive break right now after a year of hard work.
We've made lots of progress on backdrops - a bunch are in approval right now (and quite understandably we'll allow our Trench masters in pictorial approval their well deserved rest too), and a bunch more are about to go into approval. So we're looking good for finishing up art and starting printing in the new year.
I've got hold of a set of Prussian plastics, and have been having great fun with those. I haven't managed to get many painted as yet (the end of the year has been wildly hectic!) but here's a selection of shots I took with the Hauptmann figure. as you can see you on't have to move much to get wildly different vibes:
The terrain is mostly scratch built (and indeed you can find the walkthroughs of how to build it in earlier updates, and in the dedicated book that collects those!) but we also have some DiceVerse shrines in there, and some Fenris Games rubble.
I hope you've had a good meta-christmas if you celebrate (I'm imagining you all pausing battle on Christmas day to play football in no mans land with some infernal hellbeasts...maybe scrambling back to your trench with the photo of a demon's sweetheart as enmity resumes?)
Wish you and yours a happy and peaceful Hogmanay from here in Scotland.
Jon
November Trench Crusade Backdrop Books Update
5 months ago
– Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 09:08:47 AM
Hello!
It's November update time - you can expect at least one update per month as we finish up the books and send them off to print!
Here's a look at some stuff from The Golden Seal book, which I think works remarkably well, once you understand what it's all about.
So here's one of the pages in the book:
Which ok, it is what it is. But when you combine it with a mini?
Makes a bit more sense! And there are zero glow effects added in post here - that's all in camera - I've put a light across the backdrop to make sure it's well lit, and makes that symbol really pop. But there's nothing going on in photoshop!
Here's some more Golden Seal images:
And here's some in action:
You can see these make for more graphic, or poster like images, which I think offers something really new from Backdrop Books. We have lots more in the can and in progress to share before we hit print.
Back on the first book of scenes, Visions of War, here's a small selection of new images:
I'll get some test shots done this coming week - we have test prints of the backdrops we've made so far on order from the printers to check how everything looks in print, and that will let us make some really nice test images. I'll be sure to share those with you, and online as soon as we have them.
I dont know about you, but I'm super excited for the new plastics. Those come out this month, and so we'll be shouting from the rooftops about Backdrop books as a great companion for your new models. I hope you'll feel motivated to help us out with that - we share the most stuff on Bluesky, so if you feel so inclined, give us a follow.
We're just keeping on keeping on, and everything is coming along nicely and on track. I'll be back next month with some more images.
That's it for now! Thanks again for your support, and we'll be back with more news and progress next month! Jon
Trench Crusade Backdrops October Update
6 months ago
– Fri, Oct 31, 2025 at 10:30:31 AM
Hello! Welcome to our first monthly update. This one will be very quick - the funds have arrived with us, which is always helpful!
I'm working away on painting backdrops. As soon as they ready to share, I'll be sharing them with you so you can see the books building.
Its all go, but for now, there's not much to share!
I'll aim for our November update to be mid month, and we should have lots of new backdrops to show you then.
Short and sweet this time around! Thanks for all your support, Jon
Thank you!
7 months ago
– Tue, Oct 07, 2025 at 09:05:08 AM
That's it! Thanks everyone!
For reasons that remain not entirely clear we had to work especially hard on this one, and I'm extremely grateful to the perseverance and good humour of Annie Norman in helping spread the word far beyond where I can take it!
Thanks to Jamie and Gina at Trench HQ for all their help and support!
But thanks most of all to you - our backers! Can't wait to see what you make with these backdrops.
Right, I better go lie facedown for a bit, and then get painting the remaining backdrops, eh?
From here on out we will be making monthly updates as everything comes together. Speak to you as soon as there's more to show you.
Thanks for being here! It is appreciated!
Jon
Final 24!
7 months ago
– Mon, Oct 06, 2025 at 07:15:31 AM
Hey we're almost at the end - time flies!
We've now added the Tricks and Tips book as an add on, and to selected new pledge tiers.
This 32 page book gathers together all the tutorials I've shared over the last two weeks, which we'll give a thorough edit, and enhance it with further tips and additional inspirational imagery.
It comes in the same format as the A4 books - spiral bound so that it will stay open on your workbench if you want to follow along through the steps presented.
You can add it to your pledge by hitting the "manage my pledge" button and adding it on as an Add On, or by selecting one of the new tiers which includes it.
As we head into the final 24 hours be sure to check you've got all everything you want added on. Some items will change price outside of the funding period, since they were special Kickstarter prices, especially the bundle deals. We're not aiming to gouge anyone who can't commit right now, but we also want to reward the faithful! So double check your pledge has everything you'd like!
PDF version of Tricks and Tips
Everyone who pledges at a reward level will get the PDF version of this book absolutely free as a thank you. We didn't do stretch goals this time around (I think we're all a bit stretch-goal skeptical these days? It's a funny game to play...) but the PDF of the Tricks and Tips book has certainly been created and unlocked as a free extra as a direct result of your support. Thank you!
Scatter Terrain!
So for our final tutorial I wanted to take a closer look at something which I think really adds a lot to my own photos and that's scatter terrain. This is again entirely optional. You can just put your miniature in front of a Backdrop Book and start snapping. The backdrops are made with that kind of usage in mind.
If you're like me however, you'll soon start to wonder what else you can do. And adding detail and depth with some scatter terrain is a really good way to build the world your miniature inhabits.
A key point here is to remember that you're not photographing these scatter elements. They will be out of focus, partly obscured, overlapping, silhouetted, and generally not the main part of the image. You might find you add a lot more in than you actually get in shot, and that's fine!
Let's take a run through some of the stuff I add in, starting with the basics, and getting more complicated.
Wire!
Scale-appropriate barbed wire is cheap and ludicrously effective. There are loads of tutorials on how to make this yourself from two gauges of wire and an electric drill, but I tend to wuss out and just buy pre-made. You can coil it around a pen, or any cylindrical object to get nice coils. By making larger ones you can add some forced perspective. Put larger ones closer to the camera and little ones further away!
I jazz up my barbed wire with some rust paint to make it a bit less uniform.
Catherine Wheels
I made these long before the Trench Crusade project was a thing for some generalised grim dark model shoots. These are made from MDF model kit wheels attached to some poles I whittled from spare plastic sprues. Some little details like some diorama mud scraped on them places them more thoroughly on the battlefield.
I used MDF 25mm bases for these, to give them a nice grounding into the scene, and hot glued some coins to the bottom to give them some weight. If you don't do this you might find your taller scatter terrain is constantly falling over, and knocking other scenery elements out of place.
I paid close attention to the Bruegel paintings where we find these wheels - they often appear with a little brace at the bottom. While this won't necessarily show up in our photos, it all adds "stuff" to the general scene. I think it's worth it, and it's satisfying to make things "properly".
In this image I hung some black-painted copper wire from the Catherine wheels and other bits of scenery to create extra atmospheric elements. The gaps in the wheels make this especially easy.
Rubble
I exclusively use Fenris Games rubble because it's awesome. These little chunks of resin bricks and stones can fill gaps in scenery, frame a shot when used close to the camera, and perform really well to add detail to a scene. It's always a challenge to break up a flat floor to make a convincing world your characters are inhabiting. Rubble is really helpful. I also keep a bag of cork bits to scatter around if I'm really going for it with a shot. It all helps avoid flat edges and visible joins to your other scenery.
Sticks
In this category I have square section balsa posts and natural sticks or twigs. Both of which, appropriately based, make really useful scatter items, and framing pieces. The posts in particular are great for bringing very close to the camera to frame things further away. This kind of detail, along with a nice low camera angle, really places the viewer in the scene. Maybe sure they're leaning at a good angle to show wear and tear, and adding some mud adds that verisimilitude. (can you believe I spelled that word right first time? I can't. What a fluke!)
Some classic "foreground post" action:
Crosses
A definite must for Trench Crusade - a scattering of battlefield crucifixes is a great addition. The nice thing here is you can make them out of all kinds of things, at all kinds of scales, and a good selection really adds depth and interest.
These two are made from sticks with some jute string and hotglue holding the cross bar in place. The addition of blood effect paint and barbed wire adds that bit "more". It can all seem a bit like overkill, but when it all comes together in one scene that level of detail really brings the grimdark.
You'll notice the coins on the bases again for weighting. When we put them in place we want them to stay there!
Shrines
These are a halfway house for me - they started out as 3d printed models from the mighty DiceVerse, but I customised them fairly heavily. I added the poles, which are just sticks, and clipped out some of the artillery shells and replaced them with bits and bobs - bones from basing scatter by Krautcover, and spare heads from my Trench Crusade models. I knew that I wanted a lot of variation in heights to make blocking elements. More on that below.
Bringing all of this stuff together helps us compose our shots. Here's a set up:
I tend to clump things together to form blocks. I want a variety of height and depth in my scenes, and scatter terrain is a great way to achieve that. Keeping things clumped together, especially in odd numbers is a good rule of thumb when composing a block of scenery items. Not sure why odd numbers works, but it's a long-known painters' compositional device, and if it ain't broke...
Seen through the camera, all of this terrain is arranged to frame the model. I haven't put one in, but you can immediately see where it would go, right? All of the scatter elements are forming blocking elements which guide the eye to the focus of the image. Handily they also all super grimdark Trench-appropriate too, so the illusion of a world is strong.
You can see how those posts work in the foreground. They're completely out of focus, but we know subconsciously what they are. I also make use of their base to bring up a foreground... ground to add layers of depth.
it is worth restating that we don't need to worry about any of those elements being in focus. We've detailed them so that they're convincing, and we should embrace them giving just little extra glimpses of the world - see how those bones work in that one shrine on the centre left there? They're underplayed, and it works well.
You can of course tweak your set up endlessly, shooting and reshooting until it's just how you like it. You can also use other figures as blocking devices. Try it out!
Everything that I've covered in these tutorials came together in the making of the video for this campaign:
While that's a big set up, it makes use of the various very straightforward things I've shared. It's unlikely that you need to shoot something like this, but you could!
Right! That's it for now. Thanks once again for your amazing response to this campaign. It is truly appreciated. If we give it all a final share we might get even more recruits joining us in the hellish mud and blood and bits of demon wait what
