Painting - Completed! (for now)

   Ok, I'm not the fastest painter - so I'm just going to pretend that I am posting these pics a reasonable time after I started painting them...

A tank

And just one more??? - this is a Panzer IV F2 I painted a while ago, accidentally finding a really good way to paint desert tanks. (I'll show it later - with the next batch of Panzer IIIs)

The Bio/Chem suit troopers unbased because I haven't decided where they will end up fighting.
I almost went mad with the gazillion shades of off-white I needed to paint them ( I built up the colour from black)

and the Byzantines - nothing much to say here other than the rather broad colour scheme has been inherited from my less imaginative self painting the rest of my Byzantines a while ago

   What next? Probably converting my old Amon Sul (Weathertop) terrain piece to fit into a ruined city, or the rather nice 15mm SdKfz 250s from PSC for my Normandy grenadiers...

Random Stuff

   Recieved a whole bunch of models yesterday and they presented the perfect oppertunity not to talk about terrain. So I bought some Byzantine Kavilleroi (to complete my 6pt saga warband) some Bio-Chem troops (on impulse) and traded for a Plastic Soldier company 15mm Marder.

The Byzantines

The Bio-Chem soldiers - produced by Copplestone Castings. I really liked how they looked and the cast was fantastic, I only needed to trim a small mold mark on the base.

PSC - as good as ever. I have only half constructed the marder so it is easier to paint later.

   An odd mix, but I expect they will be a blast to paint - if not to game with.

Board Making (Roads Part 2 + everything else)

   So, not really tomorrow a trip to Singapore and then to South S'traya got in the way.
Anyway - the roads were pretty much finished when I left off just some highlights with a beige paint and then white:

   Turned out that the roads were still to dark when I compared them to the others, so I ended up savaging them with the beige paint.

   As you can see in the top of the picture I also tried to cut a few holes in the surface to take advantage of the foam, they didn't show up well in the end, but they add depth to the board subconsciously, ending the impression of the flat grassy plain.

  Next were the towels. I first saw this idea in the back of Battlegroup: Kursk, and when we tried it at my old club it turned out horribly for a few reasons. Firstly we used white towel and painted it later with so much paint we used it by the can (like wall paint), not only did this leave us with a whole load of mess it was also wasteful and meant the towel went hard as the paint dried and was forever scratchy and horrible. Then we used loads of different towels with different stringy-thing styles, very square, long and plushy, old and rageddy - this left us with a horrible mish-mash of textures. Finally we had to cover some areas in more than one towel and the boundaries between them looked absolutely awful.

  So, I have tried to use the same towel (that is, from the same shelf in the shop) for every area on the board, covering each area in one piece. I have also used a green towel which means I don't have to paint it and so it stays nice and soft. Of course it didn't go exactly to plan as the shop ran out of the towel I was using and so I had to start using a similar one, but you will see the results.

   Firstly I cut out the rough shapes from the towel as above, being very liberal so that I don't end up with not enough towel to cover the boards in the end.

A quick tip, I used some old nails to hold the towel in place as I was cutting it - stopping me from sliding it around and slicing off bits I really needed

   Then I neatened it up so that the edge of the towel piece followed the roads - then on to gluing. Using the glue very liberally I concentrated on the edge of the board and area to be towelled, as well as the bottoms and tops of wills and ditches.

This just ensures that the towel does not come away from the board in the places it is most likely to.

   Then: Finished! (for now - I might add some hedges later)

The finished tile - notice the hills and ditches become a lot less prominent when the towel is over them.

With the other tiles for comparison - the two followed this time are the two on the left.

A German heavy mortar, ready to fire

A Panzer IV peers around a corner in the sunken lane way

A sniper watches over his comrades advance

The difference in colour between the older tiles and the newer ones (the older one is the brighter one) - the closest I could get when they discontinued the old colour of green towel.

   So - all done (but I may add hedges later). The question arises ... what next?

Board Project 2 - Painting roads (part 1)

   Onwards with the terrain board making!
Today it was painting roads, three coats today and I think they will be finished tommorow (possible everything else as well.

   In terms of painting, I basically drybrush a series of coats onto a black base - finishing with a series of very pale highlights.

  To begin with I sprayed the filler on the roads black, with paint from a spray can. It is a really good base for the rest of the paint (I really like black base coats they fill in the crevices and create shadow effects where you can't get your brush).

   Next I added a coat of burnt umber pretty much everywhere, when it dries it looks very black anyway.

   The last coat for today was some raw sienna - the first one that really brings out the texture of the filler. I applied it as a moderately wet dry brush layer. It dries to a very dark shade as well, and further coats are applied over it so I was pretty careless with applying this coat, caution comes later.

  And that was it for today. I hope to add another update tomorrow.

Some Terrain philosophy (sorry no pics)

 In my previous experience of making terrain a plan means everything.
To be instantly hypocritical, I did not do much planning for the current two tiles. I have however made them to match the measurements of my other boards, which were meticulously thought over and designed.
 
    The thing I have found making these 2ft tiles is that you are constantly trying to fight the square. No I am not talking about Napoleonic warfare, what I mean is that you are constantly trying to hide the fact that your basic design elements are squares (which are not often found in nature). It is too easy to end up with a bunch of terrain features which are also squares, sharp road corners in the centre of the tile or hills that do the same. Even worse you overemphasise the wrong things: mountain hills or ditches that look as if they could be WW1 trenches (which may be the thing you are aiming for after all).
    To counter act this I have tried to follow three simple rules in drafting and building these boards.

1. Never have any terrain feature or boundary (like the edge of a hill) on the centre point of the board 
2. Try to move away from the entry point of a feature as soon as possible - just because a road enters and leaves a tile in the middle of and perpendicular to the edge, doesn't mean it has to continue that way, try to curve it as quickly as possible.
3. If you think a hill is small enough and it's slopes are shallow enough, make it smaller and shallower. Repeat for hills that do not continue off of the board

   I also try to think, what would happen in the real world - why is my road suddenly swerving to the left?, would this spur really be dead straight for 200m?

   In cases where I decide I want my terrain to do something opposite to common sense, I try to find a reason for it, putting a hill in the way of my road or carve a cliff to meld the hill with the dead flat plain beside it. 

  I have also tried to model my terrain on real places, which is probably to make your terrain feasible.

  Anyway, enough random stuff, I'm sure I'll come round to talking about something more interesting than even more terrain next time. 

A new board project ... to make up for the other one ending

       Well I got carried away with the other boards despite my best intentions, and they were finished before I had a chance to properly photograph each stage (Boo - no photos) (Yay, a quick and easy way to make terrain boards). Then Christmas came around and I completely forgot about this blog.
       They looked fantastic, but were limited by the fact that they are only a 4ft by 4ft piece. So to solve two problems at once I decided to make another two.
       I couldn't summon the willpower to make a pair of river boards (an eventual goal) so I decided on a couple of road corners instead, in terms of layout they will give me a good ratio of road/empty edges, meaning I don't have to continue making roads in the future (frees up space for other interesting things).

      I managed to get 3 cm thick foam this time, meaning no more tedious sawing. Instead I was able to draw my plans straight onto the foam and get started.

A trusty felt tip pen, safe from the perils of cutting into the foam

The road being marked out, I drew a centre line where I wanted the road to go (and leave the terrain tile) then marked out the width of the road either side of the centre line.

   On one of the new tiles I wanted to sink the road into the foam, I worked really well on my last ones. To do this I gouged a hole with my knife, a tricky task, but it pays off. I cut the hole in two overlapping sections with two main cuts, a vertical one along the edge of the hole and then a slanted one from just further than the middle. What you end up with is a very deep looking set of ruts, you can solve this by hacking at the middle part and covering your mess with filler (later).

The first section's two cuts completed

Sorry for how weird this one looks, I think I had some dodgy lighting.

    Next I wanted some mounds on the boards to add some height and interest to them. Like an idiot I chucked out all my cutting from the other boards and so I had to use ... white polystyrene ... (anything but this, please nooooo) which I had lying around from another project.

Just close your eyes and this horrible dream will end.

   Not that there is anything wrong with it, I just vastly prefer the yellow stuff now I can get it.
   Anyway, I hacked out some hill shaped polystyrene ( an example above) and put them on the boards in various ways until I found one I liked.

   In the picture above I finally settled on the shown layout as it will increase the perceived depth of the cutting, while not being too geographically insane.

    Next I fillered up the roads (covered them with all purpose filler).

Disregard the PVA glue bottle, that has nothing to do with the road filler

   This does many things, firstly it provides an obvious reminder that they are there so I don't end up towelling them over (you will see this later). Secondly It means that I am able to add some texture to the roads ( adding wheel ruts - the filler also looks very 'roady' when dry). Thirdly it means I am able to put a spray paint a base coat on the roads before I paint them (polystyrene and foam do not like spray paints at all, which I am sure you know). Finally it allows me to smooth out the road cuttings I made earlier.

   Now one thing I have forgotten to mention is the MDF base I am adding to all of the tiles. This does many things such as helping to prevent warping (especially important if you are cutting down into the tile), and helps to protect the tile. However it does make the tiles rather heavy so they are optional I suppose.
   All I do for the MDF is saw it into shape, and then whack it onto the foam, using PVA glue to make sure it stays there.

Sawing

PVA for stickyness (I smear it around before I stick the foam to the MDF to make sure I have a good bond)

   And that is it, all done for a day, waiting for various things to dry. I'll post more progress later (honestly).

   Starting a set of tiles anew, I was again amazed at how low cost this project can be (provided I don't want any rivers - resin is very pricey) - $14 for the foam (only 3 cm thick this time) and $5 for the MDF. I think the PVA cost my another 5 a wile ago, and is only just starting to run out. Filler is a bit expensive, but I have used very little to make all six boards, about 1/4 of a pot.