Paint Table Saturday 31 July

 

As you can see from the photo above, I haven't done very much over the past week. As a matter of fact, most of this was done today.

I've spent this past week mostly catching up on reading, but now that I have that under control I should be able to make rapid progress on these and the remaining jungle terrain.

These bits are some alternative 50mm bases for the swamp terrain bases and some on 25mm bases as well. Later tonight I will add some scrub mix around the bottoms of the plastic plants. Tomorrow I will "fix" them and tone down the green plastic with brown ink glazes. I might also add some more swamp gunk around the bases of the palm trees to bed them in.

Lockdown Podcast #lost count

 The most recent episode of the Lockdown Podcast was released into the wilds a few days ago, but as I was away I haven't had a chance until now to post it.

You will be sad/glad/relieved/disappointed to hear that this will be the last one for a while as we take advantage of "Freedom" for a few weeks until England has to go back into lockdown of some description.

In this edition:

• I go nuts and bananas with jungle terrain
• Tim inserts bird sound to stop potential opponents discovering his army composition for an upcoming tournament
• Adam has a rant about English longbows/longbowmen not being the super-weapon/super-troopers that most rules make them
• Peter's facial foliage is compared to my jungle terrain
• It is revealed that the road from London to York is a hotbed of sex shops and crap "American Diners"
• plus all the usual witterings

As I mentioned, this is the last episode for a while, so don't listen to it all at once!

Paint Table Saturday 24 July

 

It might not look like much, but those bases are what is on my workbench right now. There is a good reason for that - I've been away on Dartmoor for the past few days getting sunburn and bitten by horseflies on the sunburn.

Tomorrow, once I've caught up on various things from last week, I will start adding plastic plant bits to them. Mostly large ferns as these will be inserts for the swamp terrain bases.

An hour or so after doing last Saturday's post I took a look at the water effects on the swamp bases and started to get a bit worried:

It looked as though the water effects had reacted with something in the swamp gunk around the edges. The next morning it looked a little better, but as I was heading off for a few days, there wasn't anything I could do except to hope for the best. Luckily when I checked them on returnign home today it had all cleared:

While I was away, the extra 500 bamboo stems I'd ordered had arrived:

Once I've finished work on the swamp terrain, I will be finishing off the bamboo thickets. I'll start with the two bases that I ran out of stems for, and then do the extra bases that won't have paths.

That should keep me fairly busy for the next week or so.

Paint Table Saturday 17 July

 

The swamp terrain bases are close to being finished. The tree bases for them are also almost finished - I just need to add some large ferns:

The terrain bases had swamp gunk added yesterday morning. It had dried by late evening, so I painted in the water areas. This afternoon I airbrushed a couple of coats of gloss varnish on the water areas and allowed that to dry for a couple of hours. I then mixed up some water effects:

I had to make a second batch to do all of the water areas. Luckily I had remembered how many drops of the green and umber washes I'd added:

I also added in some palm leaves and bits of twigs.

The water effects should be fully cured by the time I return from a few days on Dartmoor.

Wednesday Workbench 14 July

 As you can see, I've been working on the "chunky trunk" palms. The trunks have all had a coat of thinned frame sealant, been basecoated and dry-brushed. I've also sprayed all of the foliage bits today:

This evening, while we were recording the last podcast until September, I stuck the sprayed foliage onto the trunks. I'll be dry-brushing them tomorrow, then I can start work on basing them.

I've also prepared some "swamp" bases:

For these I used the large bases of Charlie Foxtrot's terrain sets 1 and 2, and one of the "oasis" bases, with the toppers from oasis, pond and small trees bases added. The bottoms and uppers have been painted brown. Looking at them this evening I decided to add some MDF washers for 25mm round bases to them, so that I can add some smaller scatter pieces if I so wish. I'll have to paint those tomorrow.

I've also made up some texture gunk for the swamp bases:

The gunk dried much more matte than this

It's a mix of frame sealant, brown paint, PVA, sand and herbs.

Paint Table Saturday 10 July

 

Today I have mostly been painting the bottoms of terrain bases. As you can see from the photo above, quite a few of them. They are now ready to go when I need them. Last night I got the trees bases painted, top and bottom:

These trees bases are from Charlie Foxtrot Models. The larger ones are for 70mm bases, the smaller ones for 50mm bases. 

I also glued 5mm blue foam squares to some 50mm and 70mm round bases, and some terrain bases onto sheets of 5mm blue foam:

This evening I have used my hotwire cutter to cut out the terrain bases and to bevel the edges of those and the round bases:

Since taking those photos I have sanded down the bevels. The round bases will have trees added at some point, the terrain bases will be for additional kunai grass and bamboo thickets.

Tomorrow I will probably be working on the "chunky trunk" palm trees, to get them done. After that I will be tarting up various pine and deciduous trees.

Finished: Some Bamboo Thickets

 

"Some bamboo thickets?"

Yes, just some. It transpires that 249 bamboo stems was only enough to do the largest base and two of the smaller bases. Actually, it was 244 stems that I used, having "sacrificed" five to be cut in half to see how shorter stems would look. It turns out that they looked "wrong" I've ordered another 500 stems this afternoon, so will have to wait until they arrive before I can do any more thicket bases.

As this base is too big to fit in a 9L RUB for transport, it will be a "home" piece. 

And a top-down view of all three bases:

While I wait for the extra bamboo to arrive, I will start work on trees for secondary and primary jungle bases. I have been prepping some of the "chunky trunk" palms - I should have those ready for painting by next week. Alongside that work, I will be painting the undersides of a bunch of terrain bases and working on the tree bases I got from Charlie Foxtrot Models.

Finished: Kunai Grass

 

I finished the kunai grass bases this afternoon. I've certainly learned a few lessons for when I do more of them (the main one being that I could have got away with using cocktail stick points as anchors, rather than the lengths of thin kebab skewers I used for these).

"Hey! Who's that hiding over there?"

"Just me, again, your favourite Bren gunner."

I decided to see how many figures I could fit into the trails of the larger pieces:

As you can see, all of them can easily accommodate a full section and the largest can fit two sections.

I've used just under half of the grass pieces, so have plenty spare to do more bases in the future. They may not be the most accurate in appearance, but these were a sight easier to produce than they would have been using my original plan.

I've also been working on the bamboo bases. I added herbs last night and this morning I added static grass:

I've begun dry-brushing the bamboo stems as well:

One hundred down, one hundred and fifty to go! I should get them done this evening, then tomorrow I can start adding them to the bases.

Update

And this is what 249 dry-brushed bamboo stems look like:

"249? I thought you'd said 250?"

Yes, well, one of the bundles of 100 was one stem short. C'est la vie!

Wednesday Workbench 07 July

 Progress on the kunai grass and bamboo thicket bases has been much better than anticipated. The filler had dried quicker than expected so I was able to paint the bases last night. Today I worked on the kunai bases, adding texture paste for the paths which was then painted and dry-brushed. I then added static grass:

I've also dry-brushed the "kunai grass" plastic plants on their mats:

Before dry-brushing

Dry-brushed vs no dry-brushed

All dry-brushed

The dry-brushing was done using a rather old and scrappy 38mm (1.5") decorating brush; the paint was "English Sage" from Wilko. It's had a nice effect of toning down and matting the plants. I'll be gluing them onto the pegs this evening once the static grass glue has had a chance to fully cure. I'll only need about half of the plants on these mats, so will have plenty left to do more bases later on.

The bamboo bases have only been base-coated:

This evening I'll add texture paste for the paths, then paint and dry-brush them in the morning and adding static grass and some herbs in the afternoon. I'll also be dry-brushing the bamboo stems, but they'll have to be done individually so it could take a while to do all 250 of them.

Along with some more tree bases I ordered from Charlie Foxtrot Models, I had also ordered a Workshop/Garage kit. When I went to dry-fit it for assembly I discovered that I'd been sent a kit with two identical roof panels (they should be different as one is meant to overlap the other at the ridge). Colin sent out a replacement roof panel which arrived today. However, it was from a different kit so the some of the tab holes were in the wrong places. Rather than asking him to send another out, I just removed the tabs on the trusses where they didn't match up with the holes:

I'm going to be cladding the roof and walls to make this a storage/working shed for the plantations. The roof will be corrugated iron, but I haven't decided on the wall cladding yet. I might go corrugated iron or maybe bamboo and planks.