Monday Workbench

Yes, yes, yes, I know - I haven't posted for over a week now. It's not because I've been completely idle though. I have been doing something in the background as well as ploughing my way through a couple of books.

A few weeks ago I ordered a pair of texture rollers from Green Stuff World:

Last Monday, I decided to try them out on some terracotta Das clay. It was while doing this that I came to the conclusion that I should also have bought the plain roller so that I could roll the clay to the correct thickness before going over with the texture. I tried them over a variety of thicknesses (I bought the pack of  silicone rings - 2mm, 4mm, 5mm - to assist with this).

For some reason the Das clay took nearly 2 days to fully dry, by which time I was engrossed in my books so I didn't try doing anything with them until this weekend.

Yesterday I broke off a few chips from the brick pattern pieces. The 2mm thickness is about right for a single thickness of bricks in 28mm; 5mm would be best for double thickness (allowing for the mortar between).

I also shaved a suitable colour pastel to try to add into the recesses as "mortar". Unfortunately this had the effect of fading the terracotta colour. I think the best way to do this in future would be to paint the dried Das in a suitable mortar colour, then dry-brush the brick colour over the raised surfaces. Oh, well, live and learn.

I have managed to collect these fragments though:

In case you are wondering, these will be for adding to figure (and terrain) bases.


Tomorrow my plan is to start work on these figures:

Yes indeed - the jeep crew figures from Artizan and 1st Corps. They'll give me the opportunity to test a couple of new paints I've acquired for the green webbing and the maroon berets.