Wednesday Workbench 30 June

 

The workbench photo above was taken about two hours ago when I was half-way through painting the bananas on the banana plants. I've since (after a break to watch Tour de France highlights) done the other half. Once I've published this post, I will be drybrushing them and then adding texture gunk to the bases. I should be able to get the rest of the basing done and drybrush the foliage tomorrow and then I can declare the banana plantation completed.

When I left you on Saturday, I had just started work on the terrain tiles for the banana plantation. I got them finished today. I had hoped that they'd be finished much sooner, but I hadn't allowed for drying times - the temperature has dropped and the humidity has gone up a bit since the short heatwave we had with the result of everything taking longer to dry. Using fairly dilute glue and paint mixes didn't help with that. The longer drying times and amount of water also combined to cause the tiles to warp, which I haven't completely corrected yet. 

Turf mix, herbs and scrub mix added

Close up

Herbs "fixed" with paint/PVA mix

Once the "fix" had dried, I then airbrushed the tiles with scenic cement (10% matte medium), followed by some extra cement added to the scrub by pipette. When that had dried, I sprayed the tiles with matte varnish to help seal everything in place.

This morning I prepared some "jungle grass" mixes:

The "short" stuff is a mix of 2mm, 4mm and a little 6mm static grass; the "long" stuff is a mix of 6mm, 10mm and 4mm static grass. This afternoon I added it to the tiles, working on 30cm x 30cm at a time:

And here they all are:

"Errmm, I see something vaguely interesting in the background of that photo."

Vaguely interesting? Pfft! Well, if you must know...

With all the down-time waiting for things to dry, I decided to start priming and assembling the MDF buildings for this project. If you're wondering why some appear to be primed inside and out whilst others aren't, that is because I primed on the sprues and sprayed the faces which would be on the inside or on the underside of the building - some sprues had parts which would be both, so both faces had to be primed.

Despite buying another two cans (Halfords Camouflage Brown) yesterday, I ran out with one building part-primed and another that hadn't been primed at all:

I'll be buying some more cans tomorrow and hopefully will have these primed and assembled by the time I go to bed (seven of the nine buildings I've done were primed and assembled yesterday, including the two large ones).

The buildings will sit and wait a while before I do any more to them. Well, I might do the roofing and add some texture gunk to the bases, but finishing the painting will be delayed until there is better weather and I can take them outside to spray.

What's next? Once I've finished the bananas, I'll start work on the terrain tiles for the tree plantation. I think I know what to do now to avoid the warping issue I had, and I know that I can skip the turf mix (or add it more sparingly) - it was barely visible on the finished banana plantation tiles!

Paint Table Saturday 26 June

 

I've got quite a bit done since Wednesday's post. For a start, all of the coconut palms and the sago palms have had their basing done:

This box has all of those coconut palms:

I actually have more individually based coconut palms than I need for the plantations. 

Speaking of plantations, the extra eighty banana plants arrived on Thursday, along with some more trees:

9cm pines, some deciduous trees and the bananas

I've removed the leaves (sorted into bags by type) ready for prepping the trunks:

Yesterday I decided it was time to get the yoga pad foam blended down. It went to a nice "crumb" very easily, much easier than the car washing sponge foam did. There was also hardly any loss of volume:

It may be a while before I get a chance to test it out for making clump foliage, mainly because for the next few days at least my workbench will be very full.

Back to the plantations. Today I have been adding texture gunk to the first set of terrain tiles, the ones for the banana plantation:

Tomorrow I will be painting and drybrushing these tiles. I should also be able to add the herbs and "fix" them. Monday should see me finishing the tiles with patches of scrub mix and static grass. And then I can start on the next set of tiles, for the palm and rubber plantations. Hopefully I'll have them all done by next weekend.

If you scroll back to the photo at the top...oh, what the heck, here it is again:

...you will see that I also have a number of scatter bases in various states of progress. For the coconut/rubber plantations I decided to add some MDF washers for 40mm bases so that I can add in removable bits of foliage. I then decided to do some 50mm bases of secondary jungle foliage to go onto tree bases. I've also herbed up some larger scatter bases that have been sitting around for a couple of weeks.

That's it for today folks!

Podcast #82 - Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb...

 Get out the crash mats! Stand by with the smelling salts!

Yes, it's true. I am actually posting the latest episode of the Madaxeman podcast on the very day it has been released into the wild.

In this episode:

I go off my coconut and totally bananas

A discussion about basing medieval heraldry on modern-day football strips

Andy's Quiz

The usual witterings about what we've painted and games we've played

There is also a special one-off segment "World of War-war-war Sports" in which the crew (sadly just the six of us this week) engage in a spot of humorous (allegedly, Ed.) ADLG punditry, discussing the entrants to this weekend's tournament in York (the UK's first since Covid lockdowns began) and using a sports tournament format, predict who will progress from the groups and through the quarter- and semi-finals to the grand final.

Enough of that blather, here's the link:

 

Finished: Scatter Pieces and Test Tree Pieces

 

As you can see, I've finished a few more pieces of jungle terrain. There are frour scatter pieces for clearings:

The rocks on these are some of the blue foam ones that I carved from scraps a few weeks ago. Before painting they got a coat of slightly thinned wall filler.

I also completed the three test pieces for secondary jungle with removable trees:

These were made by adding a "single base movement tray" (or MDF washer, if you prefer) to the base into which the trees on appropriately sized bases can be inserted. The reason for doing this is to make storage and transport easier. I will eventually be doing a load of secondary jungle bases with fixed trees for my "home" set; I'm just waiting for a load of larger terrain bases I've ordered to arrive (and to buy some big Really Useful Boxes to store them in).

I've also sort-of-finished the banana plants. I've added dried herbs to the bases and fixed them with my paint & PVA mix:

They are currently in storage trays until I have done the terrain tiles they will be used with. I still haven't decided how they will be finished, but the plant bases and terrain tiles will be done so that they blend nicely together - I need to look at some photo references before deciding how to do that.

I've also started work on basing the coconut palm trees. Having tried one just gluing the peg through the hole I'd drilled in a MDF base, I realised that they might need a little extra to securely hold them. As I have run out of 15mm round MDF bases (all used for the banana plant bases) I cut some circles from a sheet of 2mm blue foam and glued those on top of the MDF bases, then poked holes through. The trees were then glued in and the bit of peg protruding through the base snipped off:

I can't get the same density of these on the trays as I did with the banana plants, so they will have to be done in two batches. I hope to get the bases of the first batch gunked tonight, then painted, drybrushed and herbed tomorrow. I should get them sort-of-finished on Friday, allowing me to start on the second batch.

Some more goodies arrived this afternoon:

Some deciduous trees for primary and secondary jungle (70 of the blighters!) and twenty 9cm pine trees.

And another two mats of dwarf hairgrass - now that I have three of these, I should have enough to cover all my kunai grass needs.

Finished: "Open" Secondary Jungle Test Pieces

 

These pieces got sprayed with matte varnish this morning. The idea with them is to have some secondary jungle bases that figures can be placed in and move through. I deliberately made sure that the paths between clusters of foliage were wide enough to accommodate 25mm bases. As you can see, I did go back and add herbs over the paths - it definitely looks better like that.

I'll definitely do a few more of these, including some larger bases with enough clear space inside for a full section.

I've also been making good progress on some other bits.

The banana plants have been painted (drybrushing the leaves without spraying first worked) and this afternoon I added texture gunk to the bases:

Tomorrow I'll be painting and drybrushing the gunk and then adding herbs. On Wednesday I will add some scrub-mix and some static grass.

The foliage for the coconut and sago palms has been sprayed, drybrushed and added to the trunks:

I'll have to leave them there until the banana plants are finished, at which point I can do their basing. The coconut palms will be individually based on 25mm rounds so that they can be removed from the plantation terrain tiles for easier (ie smaller) storage.

Work has also continued on the scatter and tree bases:

I'm trying these with just lichen in the middle. I received a bag of brown lichen last week which I'm trying in place of the coir/horsehair bits for underbrush. I'm also using just lichen and no clump foliage for the outer brush foliage. Later this evening I will be adding scrub mix, then I should have them finished tomorrow.

Paint Table Saturday 19 June

 

I've continued to be busy since my post on Wednesday, as the workbench above testifies. After my post on Wednesday, I spent a while making these:

Lots of strips of (roughly 1:50 scale) 3' x 6' corrugated iron sheets for cladding building roofs. I've probably prepared more than I'll need, but if I haven't then it's easy enough to knock some more out.

Jungle Bases

I've almost finished the "open" secondary jungle test bases:

After taking the photo I decided to add herbs on the path areas. Tomorrow, my first job is to airbrush some scenic cement onto the scrub mix, then I will "fix" the herbs with my paint/PVA mix. When that has dried I can do the brown ink glaze over everything, then spray everything with matte varnish. I suspect that will have to wait until Monday now that the weather has cooled down again.

I've also made a start on some more scatter bases to go in clearings and some secondary jungle bases with removable trees:

To help plan things out, I also based up some trees:

I'll start adding foliage to them tomorrow.

I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts...

Well, very nearly.  I'd ordered another 60 coconut palm trees and they arrived on Thursday. I got them prepped straight away:

Yesterday I coated the trunks with thinned frame sealant and got them painted today:

I still need to spray and drybrush the fronds - another job for tomorrow, then I can stick them onto bases, ready for use with the plantation bases. I guess that means that when my current batch of test jungle bases are done and dusted I'll need to work on the plantation terrain tiles.

Going Bananas...

I decided, ahead of spraying them, to stick the banana plants onto their bases (a 25mm round base with a 15mm round base glued on top to add height and also depth for gluing the plastic peg into - after drilling holes):

That's another batch for tomorrow's spraying queue. There are another eighty on their way to me as we speak...

"You Say Stay, I Sago..."

In one of the deliveries of model trees I received on Thursday was a pack of Sago palms:

I've prepped the six larger ones today:

These will be for swamp bases. The smaller ones might get used for village gardens.

Lots Of Delivered Goodies

Trees, Please, Louise...

You've already seen the coconut palms, but in this lot there are also a bunch of pine, deciduous and fruit trees. The fruit trees are going to become rubber trees; the pine and deciduous trees will be for primary and secondary jungle. I've probably got about the same again wending their way from China.

MDF

I've had a few deliveries of MDF stuff since Wednesday.

Products For Wargamers:

Scatter terrain and hedge bases

Large, medium and small terrain bases

Charlie Foxtrot:

Oasis and small tree bases

I also received another pack of Terrain Sets 1 & 2 (not shown).

I'm thinking of using the oasis toppers (and the ones from the pond bases I'd bought previously) on large terrain bases for swamp areas:

Similarly with the tree bases, I'm thinking of putting the toppers on larger bases for primary jungle:

I should ask Colin if he'd sell the toppers separately.

Warbases:

15mm round bases, "washers" and buildings

 

Bahay Kubo and Payag huts

I think I probably have enough buildings in the "to make and paint" pile for now:

I've also ordered a bunch of terrain and tree bases from Wargames Tournaments, but they haven't arrived yet.

Foaming At The Mouth...

Reviewing various videos on making clump foliage, it seems that people get better results using denser upholstery foam, particularly the composite or chip foam. Looking around for some to try for myself, I found some yoga blocks (12" x 8" x 2") on Amazon which should do me for several large batches and for not very much money. I bought a two-pack:

I've cut and chunked a 2" wide strip from one of them ready for blending.

This Is The Dawning Of The Age of Aquariu(m Plant)s...

The "dwarf" version of the hairgrass mat arrived today, along with another mat of "dwarf" plants:

On opening the dwarf hairgrass mat, I realised that it would actually look much better than the kunai grass clumps I've been making, and also much easier and quicker to do the kunai grass with. As a result, I've ordered another two mats from that supplier. As I'll be spacing the plants out more than they are on the mat, three mats in total should be enough to cover the area I'll need.