Little terrain project
Now that I've got a functional Winter-Wilderness table, I've been pondering ways to extend the variety a bit. I did consider building an Arnorian settlement using foamcore, but was really looking for something more rural and rough. Part of the frustration was finding suitable cheap foam, which could be purchased in small enough quantities. Foamcore from Bunnings was pretty good, but I needed something more substantial to chop up. I eventually hit on using 'rubber' kneelers, sold for gardening. My daughter was most put out that she wasn't getting the cool smiling green frog thing I got from the Ware-Whare, but it actually made fro quite a tough and easy to work with material for brick-making. Proper insulation foam (from the likes of Formans) would be better, but there is no local place that I can find that will provide me with small quantities. The rubber from the cheap kneelers is great though.
Since Jason was crook and unable to make our WHFB fixture, I worked on some walls instead. Here is the outcome, shown here with the brave warriors of Carn Dum defending their farms vs mounted raiders from Rhovanion:
The process itself is suitably quick and easy for the 'rough' theme of this blog. All you need to do is chop the kneeler into strips. The thickness of the kneeler is the length of those bricks you see in the wall (the height of the brick is how thick you cut the strip), so you just then cut the strips to different brick widths to get a variety. Then all you have to do is put the walls together with White glue and wait for the glue to set overnight, the drying is the longest part of the process. Then first coat is of course black with sand, then drybrushed grey. All that halted me from making more is that I ran out of plastic basing strips to mount them on. I have mdf, but that will be too thick, so I am back on the hunt for materials.
I'll possibly pretty them up with lichen, snow, and grass, later but they are more than good enough for my purposes now and I have a farm to make next. Then I have a theory about a Barrow, complete with Wight, and the game rules that would be cool to go with it.
Since Jason was crook and unable to make our WHFB fixture, I worked on some walls instead. Here is the outcome, shown here with the brave warriors of Carn Dum defending their farms vs mounted raiders from Rhovanion:
The process itself is suitably quick and easy for the 'rough' theme of this blog. All you need to do is chop the kneeler into strips. The thickness of the kneeler is the length of those bricks you see in the wall (the height of the brick is how thick you cut the strip), so you just then cut the strips to different brick widths to get a variety. Then all you have to do is put the walls together with White glue and wait for the glue to set overnight, the drying is the longest part of the process. Then first coat is of course black with sand, then drybrushed grey. All that halted me from making more is that I ran out of plastic basing strips to mount them on. I have mdf, but that will be too thick, so I am back on the hunt for materials.I'll possibly pretty them up with lichen, snow, and grass, later but they are more than good enough for my purposes now and I have a farm to make next. Then I have a theory about a Barrow, complete with Wight, and the game rules that would be cool to go with it.
That looks pretty sweet.
ReplyDeleteProtecting your innocent farmers from marauding bandits is an important artistic application of your talents.
So you mixed black paint with some sand for the base coat? White glue? Acrylic extender?
Just bits of cut up foam, white/PVA glue, cheap and nasty Ware-whare black poster paint+sand, and then grey house-paint from a 'tester' pot, over the top.
ReplyDeleteSo the glue was just heavily applied to act as 'mortar' for the bricks. Then it was left to fully dry, the one time-consuming part of the otherwise properly 'quick and dirty' exercise.
They look really good Jamie, nice work.
ReplyDeleteGood score on the rubber mat things for making bricks. I will have to look into that for future terrain projects.
Love it. Your armies carry the spirit of the books much better as most of the new GW figures.
ReplyDeleteHave you already tried Impetus phantasticus as a rules system for your games? I guess your armies might be perfect for this system.
http://geektactica.blogspot.com/2010/08/impetus-battle-report-28mm-fantasy-test.html
Cheers Fin. I had a look at that report. However, I really do enjoy the WOTR rules and would recommend those to everyone. The GW designers did an excellent job. It is a simple intuitive system, which lets you move around lots of figures, while also providing for individual heroics.
ReplyDelete