Wednesday 29 July 2009

Door mat 2 (Wheat Fields)




Some pictures of the three finished wheat fields, the two smaller ones 3x3 inches in size and the larger one 3x6 inches. The bristles of the mat were dry brushed to give more contrast to the colour of the wheat and lighten it. The areas around the wheat sheaves were covered with off cuts of the bristles supper glued to the ground, to try and replicate the stubble which would have be left on the fields after harvesting. Click on the bottom 2 pictures for bigger versions.



Monday 27 July 2009

Soft Hills



Some pictures showing the skeleton of one of my soft hills, this one with a three CD sized base, the small cliff section using bits of toilet roll centres. The top two pictures show the soft hills with PVA and sand with some small rocks added. Just need painting and adding some flock and twigs. Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Paddy Fields



A selection of WIP picture of my paddy fields, the top picture shows the start of the process after the field depressions have been cut out. The white materiel is a polystyrene base from a pizza, nice and uniform 3-4 mm in depth, some areas are built up with multiple layers to create slightly raised areas of ground. The base is my usual black art board. The pizza base is glued onto the art board using PVA as a solid sheet. Then the fields are drawn on in black felt pen and cut out with a new scalpel blade. The use of the pizza base helps to prevent most of the warping of the art board which would happen with a more water based technique, such as the use of wall filler. Next I use filler to skim over the polystyrene to take of any hard edges and soften the contours to look  more naturalistic, then cover with PVA and sand to texture the ground. More pictures to follow as I progress with these. Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Monday 20 July 2009

Scale picture

A picture showing some 28mm scale Black Tree Design Nubian archers among my clumps of long grass. Like most of my terrain items I try to make them usable across scales. Click on the picture for a bigger version

Friday 17 July 2009

Door mat




I found a coconut door mat for about £5 in wilkinsons (uk cheap hardwear store) recently, very plain, no patterns or colour on it. With a black flexible rubber backing in which the coconut fibbers are inserted in clumps. I had been looking for a mat like this for some time. Having seen some great pictures of wheat fields in Wargames Illustrated.

The top picture shows the backing of the mat, after some experimentation I found that you could pull clumps of fibber out of the backing material. The second picture shows some wheat fields on 3x3 and 3x6 inch art board bases with some metal wheat sheaves bought in the mid 1980's.

I am also producing some small terrain elements on 1p and 2p coins using the fibbers left in the backing with the ground level built up with filler then PVA and sand. I've also used granite chippings, picked up from the road. Click on the pictures for bigger versions.

Palm Grove




Three pictures showing the final palm groves with the undergrowth completed and the leves added to the trees. The top picture shows the two fox holes with the plugs removed, 2p coin in size. Thought it might be an idea to look at creating some sand bag surounds for the fox holes, with camo netting over them. click on the pics for bigger versions

Monday 6 July 2009

Coast watch station





15mm scale coast watch station/Radio shack to be used with my flying boat station. Sketch at the bottom showing rough layout of the building, based on a 1930's railway signal box. Next picture up show the basic building before the construction of the steps and viewing platform. Built from scrap card, the rock outcrop built up from foam core board. Double click on the pictures for bigger versions