Work in Progress Wednesday

Welcome to another Work in Progress Wednesday, I’m going to be cheeky and start with something I’ve been working on. I’ve scratchbuilt some sci-fi industrial buildings, these will work for 3mm and 6mm games.

Moving on and more WW2 stuff from Mark J, we start with some gun crews for the guns we previously mentioned.

And some defending volkssturm for very late war scenarios.

Jumping back to the medieval and Stephen has painted up some men at arms for his Barons war armies.

After various other animals Tony F has also completed more livestock. little did we know they would be appearing in a Stargrave game, and not in a friendly way!

Tony also manged to finish his scratchbuilt telegraph poles.

And with that we will see you next Wednesday.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Welcome to another work in progress Wednesday, we start this week with Tony F, he has continued to painting up some British Bobbies, not sure what those are going to be used for?
And he has also painted up some wild dogs, no doubt for some unwelcome random encounters.

We move onto Marcus who has some more miniatures for Barsoom.

I’ve even managed something for this week. I’ve painted up an old Star Wars toy that I thought would make a good sci-fi building at multiple scales.

And last but not least for this week Tony P one of our newest members is diving head first into a bit of Field of Glory action with some 6mm greek forces.

With some skirmishers and hoplites.

And with that we will see you next Wednesday.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s October already! This week we start with Mark and some WW2 German guns. I’m reliably informed there is a Pak-43, IeIG-18-and a 6-pounder.

Next up and Andy continues to work through his Einherjar space dwarves.

We move onto Tony F who has been working through a mix of what ever takes his fancy. He starts with some scratchbuilt telegraph poles.

Some wire fences, useful for many different games.

And some wildlife to decorate the tabletop, in the form of some foxes and rabbits.

Meanwhile following a gift from another member Stephen has decided that he does need more Huey helicopters. Three more have been constructed and primed.

And lastly this week Tony P has been painting up some 6mm greeks, this time some impressive looking hoplites.

With that we will see you next week.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It feels like Autmn is arriving and the days are getting shorter where we are, but the members are still making progress on various hobby projects.

We start with Mark J who has some WW2 82nd airborne medics and some more miniatures for the last defence of Germany, last time we saw Submariners turned into infantry and this time some young enlisted tank hunters.

Moving on to Andy who has been trying something new. He has been painting more of his Sneakfeet (space Hobbits) with a camo pattern.

For the camo pattern he has used some paint pens that have been in the paint box for a while.

Here is a close up of the pattern Andy is creating with the pens.

Going down a scale or two Dave P has been painting 6mm Romans. A change from his usual Napoleonic era miniatures, I’m assuming there’s a lot more of these to come.

And last for this week Marcus has painted up a couple more Pulp adventurers.

And with that we will see you next week.

Pond Life

Tony F goes dumpster diving and makes some water features from scrap materials.

I spotted a couple of commercially made ponds on a table at a recent club meeting, and was struck by the sudden desire (one of Terry Pratchett’s raw inspiration particles maybe ?) to make something similar of my own.

A while ago I came across some scrap pieces of clear acrylic in the skip near my workshop. They were reasonably large bits with the protective film still in place – I assume they were just leftovers from someone else’s job. They’ve been languishing in my shed for the best part of ten years waiting for the right project, and this was finally the right time.

I started by drawing out a couple of random curved shapes on one piece of the acrylic with a Sharpie, and cut them out with a coping saw (which was harder than it should have been – I probably needed a finer-toothed blade). I tidied up the edges and removed any burrs with some sandpaper, taking care not to touch the main surface.

The next stage was to spray the side without the film on. The plan was to use a two-tone effect to give the water depth. Wanting a stagnant, algae-choked look to the water, I started with a very light coat of Citadel Death Guard Green – this was deliberately patchy and light enough to see through when I held it up to the light. In the photo below you can still see the pattern on the protective film through the paint. I then followed it with a much more solid coat of Army Painter Angel Green which would hopefully represent the murkier depths of the ponds. Once this was dry I covered the painted side in clear sticky-back plastic – this would be the side that touched the table and I wanted to protect it from scratches which would be almost impossible to repair.

Turning them over and removing the protective film, I was pleasantly surprised to see the effect – certainly as good as I’d hoped for. I then coated the edges of the ponds with a mixture of brown emulsion paint, sand and PVA glue. When dry this was dry brushed with a couple of lighter shades. The final stage was to decorate the ground texture with lots of different grass tufts, bushes and flock, representing some heavily overgrown banks.

So there we have it – for not much more than an hour’s work (excluding drying time) and a few pence worth of materials (probably the most expensive bits were the various grass tufts), all of which I already had, two small ponds which would work for anything from 15mm scale upwards – the figure in the final photo is a Diehard Miniatures 32mm elite bounty hunter.

I’m tempted to use the same technique to make some river sections, maybe with brown paints for the water instead of green. Ideally I’d paint the edges of the water in a paler colour then spray the centre of the water in the darker tone. This would need a bit more control than that offered by spray cans, so I’d have to break out the airbrush. Watch this space to see if I actually get round to this project…

Work in Progress Wednesday

Welcome to another work in progress Wednesday, we start this week with Mark J having painted up some German WW2 commanders discussing their plans.

We follow that with some seasonal vegetable patches from Tony F, apparently the pumpkins are from some halloween popurri, while the cabbages are tiny roses painted green.

Next up and Andy has been on a bit of a science fiction theme. The first is a repaint of a Starwars toy I believe is an AT-DP (expanded universe me thinks).

And some Grav Security Bots from Ground Zero Games.

Marcus has continued with more ships for his Guadalcanal campaign.

And finally for this week Stephen has painted up a warlord for his Saga Crusades games.

And a made some more progress on his small zombie horde.

And with that we will see you next week.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s Wednesday again, feels like they come around every week! This week we start with Felix who has been trying something different by converting some WW2 German miniatures into Uboat crews as part of the late war Marine Panzerjaged 1.

And some heavy weapon crews for a bit more support.

Next up and Marcus has made a start on some WW2 imperial Japanese navy ships for the Battle of Guadalcanal.

These ponds from Tony F are a little different, he’s gone for a painted board with translucent plastic sheets over the top to provide the reflective surface.

And last (well they are zombies, so a bit slow) we have Stephen making a start on a small zombie horde.

With that we will see you next Wednesday.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It’s Wednesday and this week we start with Mark J’s rather large terrain for his Nijmegen game. We previously showed part of the bridge. Now we can see the whole thing.

And he’s not stopping there, there is also this to represent one of the buildings overlooking the bridge at the time.

Al that makes my effort for this week a bit underwhelming. But I have managed to put a bit of paint on my new Stargrave crew. Still hoping to be a bit brighter with these figures.

And talking of a brightly coloured effort, Tony F has painted this miniature from Crooked Dice called the Governer. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this as a potential target in a future Stargrave game.

Staying with the sci-fi theme this week and Andy has been painting up some more drones from Brigade Models.

And made a start on his ever growing sci-fi dwarves and halflings known as Einherjar and Sneakfeet.

And that’s us for this week, we’ll see you next time.

Work in Progress Wednesday – Plants Special

We have a change from out normal Work in Progress post this week for Jeremey to take us through improving a popular cheap option for plants on the battlefield.

Like many wargamers I picked up a number of cheap plastic aquarium plants to use as plants in my games. To try and get some variety I bought a number of different sets and mixed them up a bit, but despite that they just looked so plastic.

At a recent game this is what the plants looked like on the battlefield. Admittedly they are designed to be bright for fish tanks of a tropical nature. You could also argue they work fine as bright plants for jungles or alien planets.

However I wanted something that would look more natural and if nothing else just look less plastic. Here is a selection of the plants I’d put together for my games, that I decided to see if just a light spray paint over the top would provide the results I wanted.

For these I used a camoflague style green paint from Halfords. I used a couple of short bursts mainly from the top down. The above picture shows a before an after. I was really pleased with these results the paint was a mat colour and so took that plastic shine off the plants.

I was about to spray all of the plants the same when I decided to take a chance on some other colours. In the example above I first tried using a can of army painter green skin. This kept the plant colour quite bright, great for jungles but it did take the plasic shine off. For the other example I used a can of red primer from Halfords. Again for both of these, just short bursts rather than colour the whole plant.

And this was the end result, It’s made such a difference to how the plants look and it took just moments to do. I’m not going to varnish these. If the paint wears off I can just apply a bit more paint. I might look at using some different colours, but for now I’m pleased with how this project went.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Welcome to another Wednesday and this week Andy starts us off with some more work on his Necron, swiftly followed by a pack of werewolves. All but the middle one are plastic models from Atlantic Wargames. The other is an metal miniature Andy has had for some time.

And to finished off (not literally) Andy has also completed a tomb.

We move on to an impressive bunch of vikings from Tony P who has started working on a ship for them.

Mark J has been busy building Nijmegen bridge for a big Chain of Command game coming up. This is only half of the bridge, the rest is on the way.

And finally for this week Tony F has been creative and added a number of scenic pieces to an old internet phone connector. I’m assuming once painted this will be making it’s way to a Stargrave game.

And with that we will see you next week.