It’s been a quiet week at the society but we have a couple of things being worked on.
Above we have some more Chaos Marauders from Eric and below an interesting start to what is apparently a Games Workshop Culexis Assassin.
Next up I’ve finally made some more progress on my Napoleonic balloon project. Managed to get the netting onto four more balloons. Only five more to go!
And finally for this week, Marcus has added some foliage for his underwater games with some aquarium plants.
Welcome to another Wednesday and a selection of what the society members have been working on.
First up above Tony has some interesting looking miniatures. They are actually Chaos Screamers from Games Workshop, but we agree with Tony that they make good alien space monsters.
Next up Mark has made a bit more progress on his cold war brits.
While Felix has been busy painting up the figure given out at the last Salute wargames show.
And he’s also been painting up some 6mm dark age picts. Nice use of colour on these.
And lastly this week, Marcus has finished some of his WWII planes. Here we have a selection of Spitfires and ME109’s.
Last year, as a bit of a lock-down#2 project, I decided to make a small desert village for 6mm sci-fi games. All of the components come from Brigade Models (quick disclaimer here – I’m one of the owners of said company) but the techniques would work with any other manufacturer’s buildings. The wall pieces were taken from the Town Walls range, while the buildings are mostly from the Desert Outlands set. The photos in this post are all thumbnails – click on them for larger versions.
The first decision to make was how large it was going to be; I decided that it would have to fit in a 4l Really Useful Box, which gave me a maximum of a 348x220mm footprint and a height limit of 68mm. I based it on a sheet of Foamex, which is great for terrain projects as it doesn’t warp like MDF or hardboard when you apply paint. This came in 300x200mm sheets, so one of those did the job nicely.
I spent a while laying out wall pieces until I had a configuration that I liked – I wanted to avoid a simple rectangular wall. I positioned a gateway and sanded down the base at that point so it sloped away, and added a pair of watchtower pieces to the walls. Once I was happy with this I glued them down with a clear glue (Uhu). I smeared some wall filler around the joins to fill in the odd gap, this has a similar texture to the wall pieces so blends in better. I then laid out the buildings – I wanted enough space around them to be able to position figures and vehicles, so didn’t cram them in too tightly. In the end there were nine altogether. Again I fixed them in place with clear glue.
Now that the main components were in place, I was able to texture the ground. Inside the walls I simply glued a layer of sand using PVA, with the odd small stone around the edges. Outside the walls I mixed up a batch of emulsion paint, sand and PVA and applied this with an old paintbrush. I mixed in some larger grades of sand and small stones (sold in homeware shops for basing candles) so that I achieved a much rougher texture than the inner area.
The next stage was to add lots of small details to the buildings. I used a few parts from the Brigade 2mm scenery range, there are bits of girder bridges, barns, support frames from an airship hangar, a Roman lighthouse (makes a good chimney) and an obelisk in the main square. There’s the odd roof-mounted water tank and aerial from the 15mm range. There’s also a radio antenna which is the broken off top of a much larger 3D (mis)printed mast. This part proved to be a nightmare as I kept knocking it off – in hindsight it would have been better to paint it separately and attached when everything else was finished, but I kept supergluing it back on.
I also fitted some supports for fabric canopies made from paperclips and wire staples – I drilled into the buildings, walls and base with a 1mm bit and superglued them in. I didn’t add the canopies themselves yet to make it easier to paint around them.
Everything was then sprayed in Halfords white primer, followed by a coat of Army Painter Skeleton Bone. The walls and buildings were them washed with GW Agrax Earthshade, while the ground was washed with Seraphim Sepia. This gave the buildings a distinctly different shade from the ground, even though they were painted with the same base colour. Walls, buildings are ground were all heavily drybrushed with bone or stone paints from the Citadel Dry range.
Other details were painted in – doors and windows, various roof accessories and so on, mostly using Citadel contrast paints which worked well over the pale bone base colour. With this done I was now able to make the canopies from small pieces of paper towel – the type of nasty, non-absorbent cheap towels that we used to get in school toilets! I soaked the pieces in dilute PVA and draped them across the supports, making sure that they drooped as naturally as possible in between. Once the glue dried they were pretty solid. I painted them in either dark red or dark brown using GW contrast paints.
The finished conurbation was christened Mos Arun; ‘Mos’ from the Star Wars Tatooine naming convention, and ‘Arun’ taken from the road name where I live. I’m planning a series of other small building bases to accompany it in the near future, which will also appear on this blog in due course. All being well, they should appear at the club’s Open Day later in the year.
Wellcome to another work in progress Wednesday. Above we start with a close up of Tony’s 1980’s Canadians, Tony said these were “in their 3-colour camo’ scheme (plain olive green for the tanks). The infantry have had a base coat of Army Green – the Canucks had plain green uniforms with US Vietnam-era helmet covers, so relatively easy to paint.”
This is swiftly followed by Mark’s progress on the opposing forces of some Cold War British forming the 7th Armoured brigade. Mark says the paint scheme is “abandoned Berlin camo scheme and have done black disruptive”.
Next up Stephen has added to his sci-fi collection with an interesting miniature he’s named “Captain Selwyn Froggit of the good ship Magic R Morris”
And last but not least this week, Marcus gives us a window into his current work desk and resident projects of planes and various vehicles and terrain for more scuba action.
Stephen ponders on hills and describes his latest terrain piece…
Hills. They just never look right on the wargames table.
Look at a games table and you may see two or three little dumplings, big enough for a few elements.
Those are hills, apparently.
In reality, whole armies and battles are fought on hills (e.g. Hastings). But not on a wargames table where Mother Nature has to conform to a terrain feature that is no bigger than L on any one side and where diagonally it can be no more than L+S. Or some such tortured formula.
So what is a ‘hill’ on the wargames table?
Not really a hill, that’s for sure. I should say that I don’t play too many mass battle games, so the focus of this project is what a hill could be on the skirmish table.
I suspect most of us use modular, scatter, terrain rather than game boards with fixed terrain features. So we are looking at terrain features that can be plonked down anywhere on the table. Which, like it or not, gives rise to that dumpling hill effect.
I had a thought about what those lumps and bumps could be. Yes, it could represent undulating terrain, the majority of which is gently rising. The odd ‘steep hill’ could be a rocky scarp or rise that is covered in broken ground and brambles.
Yeah, that works.
But I thought of what else it could represent, and something that would add character and theme.
The answer seemed obvious – burial mounds and chambers! Yup, that would explain why they are dumpling shaped. It’s not a ‘hill’ so much as a burial mound – game effects are exactly the same.
So that’s what this project is – making a burial mound/hill.
I based this model on chambers such as Wayland’s Smithy – a stone-faced entrance into an earth mound. That would give it a bit more character and presence than just a plain green mound.
The entrance way was made using embossed styrene from Wills Scenics. Rather than just cut the sides diagonally I then went and trimmed the styrene so it conformed to the shape of the stones to make it looked like the stones had been laid. This was then stuck to two layers of 5mm foamboard. The main mound was going to be made from a piece of EPS foam.
The base was cut from modellers light ply and the foam mound was glued to that and the entrance way was glued to the front. To give the entrance a bit of depth I tore away some of the foam (this would later be lined in air dry clay to smooth it out and make it easier to paint).
The entrance, showing the foam board and trimmed edges.
When that had all dried it was out with the Miliput. This was used to make the trilithon doorway and also to cover the top of the foamboard to look like stonework.
Trilithon doorway and top of the foamboard covered to look like stonework
On to painting. I used my standard way of painting stone – start with a khaki undercoat. I couldn’t use spray on this because it would melt the EPS foam, so I slapped on some Revell acrylic khaki with a brush. And, as ever, this was washed in GW Agrax Earthshade.
Undercoated and washed.
I’m not going to go in-depth on the painting – I’ve covered my stonework process before. But, in brief, the whole is then given successive dry-brushings with a mix of khaki and grey and a bit of white. Then a bit of weather – Agrax Earthshade to re-establish edges, and dark green for damp.
After dry-brushing and further washes
Then on to the flocking. It was given a base cover of a mix of railroad ballast and sand. After that it had static grass applied. I think it looks best to leave patches of the ballast or other basing materials on show – a blanket of velvet static grass just looks too much. To add to the texture of the model I then stuck down bits of clump foliage, to suggest brambles, nettles, and other weeds.
The finished article.
And that’s it! A really simple modelling project and now that little dumpling hill has a reason for looking the way it does.
We start this week with some great paint jobs from Eric. Above we have a Chaos Cultist and below a nice close up (sorry Eric, I thought it deserved it) of his finished Custodian Guard Shield Captain.
Next up Mark has made a bit more progress on his British 1970’s infantry, as well as quite a debate among members over the length of the recoilless rifle.
Mark’s son has also painted some impressive Polish from the Napoleonic era.
And speaking of Polish Andy has made some more progress on his 10mm versions.
And last but by no means least this week Stephen has painted up some mutants, he may have a plan for these but they will work nicely for Stargrave.
We will see you next week for yet more progress from club members.
We start this week with a great looking truck for Gaslands from Eric. Eric has also painted another Chaos Marauder.
Next up Marcus has somehow acquired yet more fighters, although he claims this selection of 1:200 Spitfires and Me109’s are for his son.
Now we have the start of 15mm British and Canadian forces from the 1980’s.
Mark is painting up the British and Tony the Canadian’s for a future game they are calling ‘Blue on Blue’.
Next up, I’ve been busy replacing the wound/hit dice that I integrated on the bases of my Wars of the Roses units. The tiny grey dice I originally went for has proven to small for the standard wargamer size fingers. Luckily I’ve been able to replace them with a slightly larger dice.
And last for this week, we leave you with an intriguing start from John for his new scratch built radio mast for a planned Zona Alfa building.
It’s Wednesday and another offering of what members are working on.
I’ll start with me for a change, above I’ve almost finished my Vikings. These are the quickest I’ve painted a group of miniatures for many a year. I need these for a game of Saga and so have put in the time to get them done.
Next up Mark has been painting an assortment of miniatures. The first being a bunch of mutants for judge Dredd.
Next we have an Elf Mage complete with fire spell effect. Apparently the spell effect comes as transparent plastic which Mark has painted with a suitable ink wash to look like fire.
Felix has also been doing a bit of painting with a Halfling Thief.
And lastly for this week Stephen has started a dungeon project. Stephen hasn’t decided what to do with the dungeon but promises there is more of this to come.
That’s it for this Wednesday, see you all next week.
It’s the first Work in Progress Wednesday of 2022 and we start the year with a bumper crop.
Eric has found his painting mojo again, above we have some Games Workshop Chaos Cultists.
Next up from Eric we have a rather snazzy looking dino warrior (apparently a Blacktooth Suppressor from Reaper Miniatures) and Theddra Skullscryer from Games Workshop.
Followed by some Games Workshop Chaos Marauders.
And lastly from Eric another Games Workshop miniature Custodian Guard Shield Captain. Never dared paint a miniature gold myself so kudos to Eric for this one.
Next up are a whole bunch of Vikings from me. These are 16 Viking archers and 16 Bondi warriors from Crusader Miniatures. I’m painting these up for SAGA.
Now we move on to Andy who has made progress on his Poles, in his own words “A little more work on the Poles, muskets, packs and greatcoats and fusilier company pom-poms done”.
Tony managed a last ditch effort to reach his target of 50 Lord of the Rings miniatures painted in a year. Here we have three more dwarves from The Hobbit (Dwalin, Dori and Gloin).
Then 3 orc berserkers, clearly in the middle of a workout down the gym.
And lastly from Tony a great looking Arathorn and a dwarf king.
Last but by no means least for this week, Stephen has added to his Sci-Fi collection with a couple of droids, another space dinosaur (must be all the rage) and a converted dog miniature as a sabre toothed pug.
Master builder Stephen takes us through the construction of his latest masterpiece.
I recently ordered a few bits from Scotia Grendel and one of the things I ordered was some standing stones.
It was a nice quick delivery.
I have a soft spot for these old resin scenics – reminds me of back in the early 90s when I started getting into gaming and our local shop stocked them.
Anyway.
What I liked about these pieces were the Saxon style carvings. You see, I like my fantasy couched a bit in history. Problem was that the Saxon carvings only appeared on one side of the top pieces. On the other side was a more literal, typical fantasy, depiction of a dragon.
The dragon designs
And on one side of each of the uprights was an equally typical fantasy style arrow thingy.
The uprights
I didn’t like that.
So what I decided to do was make a mould of the Saxon style dragon, cast it, and use it to replace the dragon I didn’t like.
I used some Oyumaru modelling compound (Ed: other suppliers are available) to make a mould of the Saxon dragon. I then used some of Wilko’s own-brand epoxy resin with a tiny blob of brown paint to cast it.
Casting the new panels
Once this had set I sanded the reverse side down and also sanded down the fantasy dragon on the actual resin piece. I then glued it in place and used some Miliput to blend it in.
With the arrows on the uprights I simply sanded them down and then skinned the surface with Miliput and stippled it to look like the stone effect.
The updated stones
I then turned my head to the base. I wanted it mounted on a rocky outcrop to make it look more dramatic. To keep it light I was going to use expanded polystyrene. However, that’s not the strongest material. So I made a sandwich of it, with a wooden base and a wooden top to which I could glue the resin so it would be more firmly attached to the wood rather than expanded polystyrene.
I used PVA glue to fix it all together and then put a couple of heavy books on it to keep it flat whilst the glue set. I left it a good 24 hours, because the glue takes longer to set on polystyrene.
The polystyrene sandwich
When that had set it was time to glue the standing stones to it. A good dollop of superglue and the basic model was done. I then broke away the surplus expanded polystyrene in the shape of how I wanted the outcrop.
All the bits glued into place
To make the model stronger and more resilient to knocks I decided I would skin the model in Miliput. I used the Standard grade, because that’s what I had to hand.
To create a stone-effect I used…a stone! Yup, went out into the garden, found a small stone with a suitable texture and after the Miliput had been smeared all over I pressed and smudged the stone into the putty.
Layer of Miliput added
The altar stone with sacrificial goat was a piece from…well, I honestly can’t remember. It’s been sitting in the bits bag for a long time waiting for a use. And now its time had come. I also thought about adding a couple of poles with skulls on them. Had a few ideas about that, but it wasn’t the time to add that just yet, so I could keep mulling on it.
Right then, the painting.
Look, stone is rarely grey. That’s not to say there’s no grey stones, but stones have a lot more to them than just grey. Stone painted grey with a black undercoat just looks too stark and is not what stone looks like. It’s as wrong as painting tree trunks brown – have a look at them, they are not the colour of chocolate!
My usual approach with painting stone is to start with a dark brown undercoat. This was no different. I used Humbrol Model Spray dark brown. There then followed a series of dry-brushings using browns and, yes, some grey as well!
Dark brown undercoat
Heavy drybrush with khakiLighter drybrush with khaki and grey mixLighter still with a bit of white added to the mixAnother light drybrush with even more white addedLast very light dry brush with an off-white
With the painting done all that was left were the final touches. I revisited my skull-on-stick idea, but I toned it down. Instead of several I decided to keep it simple with just the one – made from a cocktail stick and skull from GW’s Box Of Skulls.
Weathering and shading done, and skull added.
I used static grass in patches around the base. I kept it sparse on top of the rock because there wouldn’t be so much earth for the grass to grow in. I then added some clump foliage to represent weeds and things, paying attention to add it to nooks and crannies and also the area that may not be trodden on so much.
With that done, the Temple Of The Wilds is complete.
The final model with static grass and clump foliageThe finished article, without festive adornments.
Next we have an Elf Mage complete with fire spell effect. Apparently the spell effect comes as transparent plastic which Mark has painted with a suitable ink wash to look like fire.
Felix has also been doing a bit of painting with a Halfling Thief.
And lastly for this week Stephen has started a dungeon project. Stephen hasn’t decided what to do with the dungeon but promises there is more of this to come.
That’s it for this Wednesday, see you all next week.
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