Showing posts with label Terrain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terrain. Show all posts

Thursday, 22 August 2013

Over-exuberant reeds

I've completed the first of the four reed banks, here with a figure, for scale.  The figure is standing where the water will be. The image is clickable.


I'm very pleased with the effect, but they are quite a bit taller than I'd anticipated! I could have cut the feathers smaller, but then I'd have had to waste a lot of material. So these reeds will remain huge: think Nile, or somewhere deep in Darkest Africa...

Wednesday, 21 August 2013

Reed Banks III

Back from my summer hols, rushing to get my act together for Partizan. Here is a reed bank with bull-rushes and some plastic plants in place:-


...and below I've started to add the "reeds", which are a mix of dyed feathers and bits of a cut-up feather boa. Verdant, neh?


Each feather needs to be cut, trimmed and stuck into place. This is a messy and tricky job, which would have been easier with smaller feathers... but I reckon the end result will make it worthwhile.


Wednesday, 7 August 2013

Reed banks II


I've primed the 4 mud-bank bases brown, and prepared a lot of "bullrushes"- these latter are green plastic bristles from an old broom, cut to length and with a double thickness of PVA over the top 5mm.  Later I'll paint these tips a reddish brown.   I'm going to raid the loft for aquarium plants.

Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Reed banks I


The above (and 3 others, not shown) are going to be reed-banks for the salt lake* flank at Thapsus. Each is 30cm long, 10mm thick and built of 2 layers of foam core on a card base with a pine "rib" running along the back for strength.

The Impetus units are finished, but I won't post until after the article has been published.  This is a wee bit frustrating, as they are a couple of the nicest units I've ever turned out...

*Strictly speaking, they are more Nile river bank than salt-lake bank, but I won't tell if you won't!

Friday, 26 October 2012

Bucolic Interlude


... slaves bring in the grape harvest, during a lull in Civil War campaigning.



('ave a click; Foundry slaves, scratch-built vine stakes.  Now, where can I find Cincinnatus and his plough?)

Thursday, 23 August 2012

Cypresses and poplars


For a couple of years I've coveted a grove of pencil-thin cypress trees, and have finally gotten around to getting one!

I want to give the Partizan "Ad Castores" game an Italian feel, and so needed some Mediterranean trees to line Roman roads and bulk out forests.  Consequently I've bought 25 cypresses (front) and 25 poplars (rear).  The cypresses and rear right poplars are from The Model Tree Shop, who gave an extremely prompt service; the rear left poplars from eBay.  I've based them all on mdf disks, which took a couple of evenings work.  When time permits I'll add some scatter and flock to the bases.  Figures are to give an idea of scale.

The terrain on Sunday will include olive groves, cypresses, poplars and my new vineyards, and so I trust it will look suitably rural!

Sunday, 29 July 2012

Templum

Yesterday I started work on this piece from Monolith Designs, which is destined to be the temple of the twins at the eponymous battle of Ad Castores.  I fancied a smaller temple, without pillars, as the battle was fought in the countryside.


I really like the design of this piece, although there are a lot of tiny air bubbles on the tiled roof (you can see them if you click).  I've filled the worst of them, and am hoping that the remainder won't be particularly noticeable, once painted.

Saturday, 28 July 2012

Vine Stakes


I’ve finished 2 of the four vine-stake terrain pieces- it took a surprisingly long time to carefully flock them, do please click for a closeup.  I’m very pleased with how they came out.  I’ll have all 4 ready for the game at Partizan on 2/9/12.

Sunday, 22 July 2012

A brief diversion into terrain, part III

2 cans of spray paint and 4 coats of drybrushing later (do click for a better view)...


The jute string works very well for the woodier vine stems.  Now I need to await an order of clump foliage!  In the meanwhile, I had better get back to painting some Romans...

Friday, 20 July 2012

A brief diversion into terrain, part II


This is the second installment of my vineyard project, with some figures added to give an idea of scale.  There are now 4 blocks of vine props, and I've added "vines" made from unravelled jute twine, soaked in white glue (have a click, for a closeup).  I just need to add a few more vines to the block in the foreground, and then I'll get on with painting.  Ultimately I'll add clump foliage which will make them less stark.

Wednesday, 18 July 2012

A brief diversion into terrain, part I

For the game at Partizan (of which more, anon), I'm going to need to make up some vineyards, of a type used by the Romans- tall poles, on which the grapes would grow, overhead. A Syrian neighbour built something very similar in his garden, one year.  These need to be able to accomodate troops but also to store away neatly, hopefully 4 to a 7L Really Useful box.


I pushed bamboo skewers through a 5mm sheet of foamcore, on a 70mm grid, to make a template.  I then cut 45mm lengths of skewer as the uprights, and cut beams of spruce and bamboo to go across them.  I stuck everything together with wood glue, it is reasonably rigid, and will become more so, as I plan to reinforce it.


Above are the first 2 frames, of 4 planned.  They are going to be freestanding, so troops can easily be placed under the vines.  A promising start!  Also a nice change from painting and basing.

Monday, 9 April 2012

Barracks

I've recently picked up some excellent buildings from Touching History's Paul Darnell, which will sit in a Roman camp I intend to build a little later on (perhaps in the summer).  


The buildings are simple but very effectively made from foam-board and Will's tiling (and some plastic doors); nice and light, and well detailed.  I may need some more at some stage... I gather Paul is making an entire fortress for Dug, which I very much look forward to seeing!

Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Hanging Gardens

A wonderful present arrived from my mate John Smillie yesterday; well, two presents.


The small complex of Eastern buildings is sturdily made from plywood, with removable interior floors.  He also gave me 8 or 9 small but very pretty fruit trees, some of which have multiple trunks.  I've just put these on the roofs, for the purposes of the photo.

Below is a view from the rear, I just love the buttresses.  If I ever get an Eastern city built, this will take pride of place.  Thanks, John! 


John has recently set up a blog about 45 Commando in which he served, and in which his son currently serves.  He is going to build a model, using a range of 54mm Marine figures he designed and sculpted himself,  to be presented to the Commando.  Have a look here.

He's also in the early stages of making some cypress trees for me.  No one makes any cypresses, to my satisfaction, and they are a key element of many mediterranean battlefields, so I await these with considerable anticipation!  I hope they will look something like the pencil-thin ones, below, which I saw on holiday in Greece.


John takes commissions, so if there's a building you've always fancied, he might well be up for it.  Drop me an email and I'll forward.

Wednesday, 11 January 2012

A Shwubbery

A big box arrived from my Scottish mate John Smillie just before all my relatives descended upon me at Xmas, and I have finally, belatedly and guiltily, got around to opening it.


John packs his models extremely carefully, in polystyrene, and these trees arrived in tip-top shape.


There was a whole forest in the box.  The trees are on twisted wire trunks, and mounted on pennies.  I'll mostly use these as fruit trees, I think.


My favourite is this lovely stand of trees with multiple trunks.  Thanks John!  If anyone wants any reasonably-priced, top notch trees drop me a line and I'll forward it to John.  Now John, cypresses....

I've not been posting here because (since Xmas) I've recently been posting on my other blog.  Don't worry, I will be back to ancients, in due course, once I've finished basing some of the other Napoleonic stuff that is nearly finished.

Saturday, 22 October 2011

New Toys


Yesterday I took delivery of a lovely Roman fort from Paul Darnell; it is a beautiful piece of work!  I especially like the gate tower, and the blue-grey colour he has used for the wood, which I shall nick for future projects.


There are 2 barracks with it, very simple, very nice, mostly foam-card and Wills pantiles.  I might try to make some myself.

Paul is getting out of modelmaking, shortly, so this could be the time to commission that building you always wanted, from him!

Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Hills part deux

I've spray painted the six hills that I started yesterday, and some of them can be seen, below.  They still need tufts and other vegetation added, which I'll do later this week.  I'm really chuffed with them; a good result for a minimum of effort and no cost.  Not like me at all...


The game shown is described on My Very Own Spanish Ulcer blog.

Monday, 30 May 2011

Hills

I've decided to refurbish some old GW hills, to match my Zama Boards.  


My plan is to partially texture them as above, spray them to match the terrain boards, and then add tufts for a bit of variety.  The nice thing about these are that they are hollow, and so will sit nicely on top of my very textured Zama boards (which are currently doubling for Mexico, and which will very likely also stand in for Napoleonic Spain).   If anyone can suggest where I can get some more (perhaps larger) hollow hills, please do comment below.

Monday, 27 September 2010

A Little Roman Camp- Completed

This is the 15mm Roman camp from 3 posts back, painted, stained and varnished.  The palisade is my 49th Birthday present to my friend Ian, and the tents my 50th. 


By coincidence, today is my own 50th Birthday, so Happy Birthday to Me!  I shall celebrate by starting to base a couple more units.

Tuesday, 7 September 2010

Shots of Greek Countryside

Whilst on holiday I decided to take some pictures of the Greek countryside, which might be useful to people modelling terrain.  We were staying in Lefkas, which is an island on the west coast of Greece, near Corfu.  I was extremely surprised by the sheer number of trees; also by the presence of many coniferous trees, which I'd not expected to see this far south. 

Firstly a couple of shorts of olive trees; more than 50% of the trees I saw were olives.  They have a silvery hue to their leaves and were, in general, a paler green than other trees around them.


The above orchard included some low, spongy-looking bushes.  Note how many scrubby trees there are on the very steep slopes of the hill in the background!


This olive orchard was only 200 yards form the other, but had rather greener undergrowth.


This shot shows mixed woodland, with olives in the foreground.  The lovely pencil-thin trees are cypresses, and my first priority will be to source some, as they would be very useful in Italy, too.  They often appeared darker than the other trees.  I want at least 2 dozen.  I saw one solid forest of cypresses, which had no leaves at all on the lower half of their trunks due to lack of sunlight.


Some of the cypresses, above, had multiple trunks.  At least I think this is a cypress.


This shot shows more mixed vegetation; think and thicker cypresses, with a range of other, lower trees.  Note the variation in colours.  One could legitimately mix pine trees in with this, there were quite a few around the coast.


Here are shorter trees; one saw these on poor soil, slopes and high ground.  Maybe scrub oaks?


Lastly, this beautuful tree was very high up; no idea what it is but it goes to show that there was plenty of variety in the vegetation.  BTW Ground colours varied from dusty, to rich red-browns where soil had recently been dug.

I hope these are useful if anyone is thinking of modelling terrain around the coast of the Adriatic.

Saturday, 29 May 2010

A Little Roman Camp...

This is a 15mm marching camp I made for my mate Ian for his Birthday, last year.   Someone was asking on TMP about making ditched and banks.  There is on ditch, here, but there is certainly a bank!  It's not perfect; in particular the gate isn't correct,  but it'll look great on the table.


In the closeup, below, you can see the construction.  It is made of foamcore on a card base.  Each length is 8cm, by 4cm deep.  There is enough space on the walkway for 15mm DBx-based elements.  The sticks are broom bristle cut to irregular lengths, and glued into the gap between the pieces of foamcore.  It is primed a sand colour, and I need to paint it to match his battlecloth.


 This year for his Birthday, I'm going finish painting the terrain, and paint up some Baeuda tents to go with it.