Ruined Columns

Here are the last terrain pieces I picked up at Salute back in April. Some ruined columns by The Square. They're maybe a bit more on the fantasy side, rather than the historical, but perhaps they could be used for an abandoned Roman villa in Dark Age Britain?

After drybrushing them with some sandy colours, I went to town with weathering, using a couple of watered down washes of greens and dirt browns. They were then finished off with various tufts, vines and turf/flocking materials.

Nice and easy, and scatter terrain will always come in handy for skirmish gaming.

As always, thanks for looking!

Bogged Down 2

I've finished another set of marshland terrain pieces. Just like the earlier ones, these are from Magnetic Displays.

As I wanted the new pieces to look different to the first batch, and glued on some sand to change the layout a bit. They were then finished in the same way as before.

I gave the Vallejo Still Water another chance and it worked better this time. I didn't use any tufts in the water areas, which maybe helped?

Thanks for looking!

Mini Gaming Boards

After the success of the Goblin Quest game, I've been looking at making a small gaming board to use when playing with my oldest son. The two 2'x4' gaming boards I have at home are a bit unwieldy and to be honest, after eight years, I'm not too keen on their look anymore.

Instead, I nicked an idea from the excellent Realm of Chaos 80s blog and used two cork pin boards as a base. These were bought at IKEA and cost 40 SEK (roughly £3.50) each. They measure some 40 cm by 60 cm, giving a total playing area of about 80x60 cm – perfect for some quick games on the kitchen table.

VÄGGIS pin board from IKEA.
Not very exciting, but cheap and sturdy.

I filled the interior of the pin boards by gluing down sheets of foam board. The sheets were 5 mm thick, but since the depression was a bit smaller than this (approx. 4 mm) I chamfered the edges. Filler was then used to smooth out the transition and the small lip on the frame. (In hindsight it probably would have been easier to just slap on the filler around the frame without cutting the foam board first.)

The edges of the foam board
were chamfered to fit the frames.

Once the filler was dry, I glued on the sand using a mix of different types to get some interesting variety. Watered down PVA glue was then used to fix the sand more firmly in place and stop it from rubbing off later. 

The sand glued in place.

The sand had a mid-brown tone, so to get a nice natural effect I applied an undercoat in the form of a dark brown wash. This was just some artist's acrylic paint heavily diluted with water. I went back and added more wash to certain parts, to get a more varied look.

When the undercoat/wash was dry I did some drybrushing, mixing in some light tan into the original brown. I kept the drybrushing very light, as I wanted a dark, earthy look, like a forest floor. However, after the drybrushing it still looked a bit too bright, so I did a new wash to tone it down.

Happy with this look it was now on to the flocking.

The painted boards.

Once again, I wanted a varied, natural look so I mixed three types of ground cover: Woodland Scenics green blend fine turf, Woodland Scenics earth fine turf and a dark green flock from Javis. I applied this in patches, leaving a path in the middle of the boards, as I thought it looked good.

First coat of flock added.

When the first coat was done, I sprayed the boards with watered-down glue and added some lighter flock (Javis mid green flock) in various spots, to get some colour variations. This got another overspray of watered down glue to fix it all in place.

I had originally planned to stop here, as I wanted the boards to be able to handle some rough going – kids you know! However, looking over the boards I couldn't help thinking they looked a bit flat and uninteresting. So after rummaging through my stash of basing materials, I found some coarse turf that also went on the boards. Satisfied with this new look, all that was left was another coat of water-glue mix to fix it all down, and to paint the edges black to tidy it all up.

The finished boards with some lighter flock
and coarse turf added.

Close-up of the surface.

Some models to show the scale. 

I couldn't resist setting up some terrain. 

That's more like it – a proper mystical forest to explore!

We haven't had a chance to try out the boards yet, but hopefully it won't be too long!

Bogged Down

I've had a bit of a hobby slump after Salute, in parts due to painting fatigue but mostly because of Real Life intervening in its usual way. However, over the last weeks I've started to get back into things. To get me going, I painted up a couple of terrain pieces I picked up at the show.

These marshlands are by Trevor Holland Design, sold by Magnetic Displays. Nice and cheap resin pieces, really versatile stuff, that can be used in virtually any time and setting – from ancients to moderns; from fantasy to historical and even sci-fi.

After priming the pieces black, the earth parts were dry brushed with some dark to mid browns, with some olive green in-between, to get a muddy look. Then the water parts were washed with a mix of dark green and dirty brown. Finally I glued on various scatter/flock and tufts, washed parts of these with brown to tone them down a bit, before spraying the whole thing with cheap hairspray and Army Painter Anti-Shine spray to seal the flock.

The water was done with Vallejo Still Water. I mixed in the same dark green and dirty brown washes I had used before, and poured a small amount in each depression.

This was my first time using a water effect product, and it was an ... "interesting" learning experience. I had read some reviews and tutorials on using the Still Water, so I knew what to expect and was careful not to do too thick layers. However, despite being very careful I still found the this a very tricky product to use and, as you can see from the images, the results are far from perfect. After doing three pourings, and growing increasingly frustrated with each of them, I pretty much gave up – they will have to do as they are!

I have another set of three pieces in the works, which should be more than enough for my current needs. These pieces will be slightly modified to make them look less like the first ones. And the Still Water will get another chance before I give up on it all together.

A Forest

Or the start of one at least!

For years I have looked in envy at the wonderful trees adorning many a British wargaming table. I was quite taken by the look of them – they looked so much better than the usual bottle-cleaner trees or the boring samey ones from Woodland Scenics.

After some research, I found out these trees seemed to be made by the same manufacturer, Last Valley Terrain. At Salute last year, I had the chance to see and admire the products up close, but due to the limited space in my suitcase, a purchase was not possible.

Rubberised horsehair – the magic stuff!

Instead I perused the Net for suitable tutorials and then promptly ordered some rubberised horsehair (it's not really horsehair these days though, more like organic fibres from coconuts or something), grabbed some of my Woodland Scenics tree armatures, a bottle of cheap hairspray and got to work.

This was my method:

1. Remove any mould lines from the WS tree armatures and then twist them into the desired shapes.
2. Glue to bases.
3. Wetbrush mid/dark grey on the stems. Don't be too neat as a sloppy job just makes them look more natural.
4. Wash with a dark brown wash, eg AP Strong Tone.
5. Drybrush original mid/dark grey.
6. Light drybrush with lighter grey.
7. Tear off chunks in various sizes from the rubberised horsehair and tease these apart. 
8. Paint some wood/PVA glue on the branches and then wind/stretch the rubberised horsehair over them. Leave to dry.
9. If the rubberised horsehair still looks flat in some places, tease it apart as best as you can.
10. Spray the rubberised horsehair with a generous amount of cheap (and sticky!) hairspray and pour your preferred flock over the tree. For my trial I used WS fine turf green blend. Wait for a while then shake of excess flock. 
11. Spray heavily with more hair spray over the newly attached flock. Then spray some more.
12. Wait an hour or more then do another heavy spray.
13. Snip off any straggly bits of the rubberised horsehair with some scissors.
14. Finish off the base in your preferred manner.
15. Optional: The hairspray I used dried with a satin sheen. While this was not apparent on the turf, it did show on the stems. A couple of quick sprays with AP Anti-shine took care of this.

And there you have it!

These were all made very quickly as a test and I think they came out rather nice for a first try but of course there's always room for improvements. I learned a couple of important lessons from this trial, eg to try and tease the rubberised horsehair apart, to make it less flat. You can see some parts were I didn't do this enough and it makes the tree look a bit unnatural.

However, the major misstake was the bases. I mounted the trees on 5 mm foamcore but made the bases much too small and this made the trees very wobbly. When I realised this, I glued washers under the bases for some extra weight and this helped to some extent though they're still a bit unstable. I'm planning to do another batch and for these I'm looking at using 1 or 2 mm plastic card for the bases, and making sure to do them a bit larger than these first ones.

In the next batch, I will also experiment with adding some roots made from putty and vary the colours on both the stems and the foliage for a more natural look. I have an idea to make some birch trees as I think a grove of these would look really nice on the gaming table!

Have a great weekend everyone and thank you very much for reading!

Loot Markers

A slight change of plans this week as I've had some trouble transfering my pictures from Salute from my mobile phone to my computer. This means the planned report from the show will have to wait a couple of more days.

In the meantime, here are some quick loot markers I made for use in primarily Dux Britanniarum, but they'll probably work in other games too. They're just a nice way of showing which groups are carrying the spoils of war.

The boxes, sacks, barrells etc are from a couple of different manufacturers – mainly Gripping Beast, Ainsty Castings and Antenociti's Workshop if I remember correctly.

Some picts surveying the goodies.

Thanks for looking, have a great week everyone!

Dark Age Church

And now for that little something extra I pomised last week: if you have a dark age village, you naturally need a big freaking church to raid or to defend (not to mention pray in). So here it is.

The design is more or less copied from the one seen on Lard Island News, but as I had to estimate the measurements from the pictures I think mine came out a little too big. The design posed a couple of interesting challenges – especially the apse with its semi-circle and semi-conical roof took some thinking before I came up with the solutions. Coming up with the solutions to problems like these is half the fun with these projects though!

I experimented a bit with some selected washing on the plaster to get a better "depth" on the model, and I really like the effect. I'm not sure how much it shows on the photos though. I think I will go back and do some washing on the other buildings as well.

The main roof lifts off, to get access to the inside of the building.

A simple dirt floor – this ain't no cathedral.

Unwelcome guests ...

The door is not scratch-built but a resin piece from Antenociti's Workshop. It may be a bit anachronistic, but there you go.

It's a fun coincidence that my good gaming buddy Dalauppror and I both started building our churches at roughly the same time, unaware of each other's projects. His is much more impressive though – go check it out if you haven't already!

Of course, when I'd just about finished this church I came upon another design which I think possibly may be a bit more historically correct – I don't know for sure. Maybe I need to build me another church some day just to be certain ...

Now, all that's left are some peasants to populate the village, and maybe a priest or some monks for the church.

Thanks for reading, have a great week everyone!

Dark Age Village

I have now finished the rest of the buildings for the dark age village. They are made in the same style as the barn I posted earlier. There are one large house and two smaller – although to be honest, the smallest one is really more of a shed than a house.

Some more pictures of the buildings below with some saxons for scale.

All the roofs are of course removable.

Where's the loot?!

Well, I said the village is finished but I think it needs a little something extra ...  Stay tuned for next week!

Dark Age Barn

It's been a bit quiet around here lately due to various boring personal stuff like being sick, parents visiting (no relation between the two though!) and whatnot. However, behind the scenes I've been working away at my current focus on painting and building terrain.

With two finished warbands, the Picts and the Saxons, eager to raid, I set to work on building something for them to plunder: a small Dark Age village. This barn or storage house is the first building to be finished. It's more or less an exact copy of the one described by Richard Clarke of Too Fat Lardies here, although I've not used the exact same materials.

The barn served as a sort of test piece, most notably for the painting, for the village. For this project I've used artists' colours from Liquitex and Daler-Rowney, which is a first for me. The paints are quite different than your usual miniature paints like Vallejo or Citadel, more like a not very opaque gel. It took a bit of experimenting before I got the hang of these colours, and found out which techniques to use. In the end, the result is quite nice I think.

Some more pictures below.

The roof is of course removable.

Not much to see indoors though ...

Some Saxon bad boys for scale.

"This barn is our barn."

In the scenarios for Dux Britanniarum that calls for buildings, the minimum amount needed is four, so that's what I'm aiming for. I have the other three buildings in various states of completeness, and might do an additional one or two.

Thanks for looking, have a great week everyone!

Wattle Fencing

Another not-very-exciting update this week as I continue my odyssey through the enclosures of history. This time: wattle fencing. This is the jolly nice plastic fencing made by Renedra. I've actually had them assembled (such as it was) and undercoated for a good while, but found them too wobbly. I planned on mounting them on bases to make them sturdier but never got round to it until now.

The whole lot. Nice, detailed kits, that didn't require too much cleaning up. These are the contents from two packs.

 
Some Saxons out and about.

A possible layout.

More Saxons on the loose.

So there it is – another versatile terrain kit added to the collection. Each section is approximately 125 mm long (approx 5 inches), which means the total length is around 1,5 meters. Should be enough!  I think these fences will see much use, especially in our Dark Ages gaming.

Thanks for looking – have a great week everybody!