Category: Modelling and Painting Articles

Work in Progress Wednesday

During this holiday period we still have a bit of progress being made by club members.

John continues building up his Zona Alpha city with some more progress on the warehouse.

A roof and windows next for the warehouse

But John has also teased us with the beginning of construction on a mill/ironworks.

The beginning of the iron works

Feeling like I should also be making stuff, I’ve turned to that icon of art and crafts, the egg box.

Finally doing something with an egg box

Despite looking like some sort of sci-fi power station I’ve never bothered to use egg boxes for fear that on the tabletop they still look like egg boxes. But having used this one over the holiday period I felt I should see what I can do. It was a box of 15 eggs so avoids the dozen/half dozen look. But lets see what I can do with it.

And finally Steve has almost finished his new Dwarven army most likely to be used with the Dragon Rampant rules.

Just a couple of units to go

That’s it for 2020’s WIP Wednesdays. Let’s see what 2021 projects the club members can come up with.

Work in Progress Wednesday

This week Steve puts us all to shame with his continued hobby output.

First up he has already finished painting up his dwarves and heavy support in the form of a giant bear.

He’s behind you!

And out of the blue he has also found time to make himself a neat dice box. Bought for just £2 from the shop ‘The Works’, Steve created some compartments and a tray insert.

You can never have enough dice.

Next up John’s Zona Alfa city continues to expand with the start of a new warehouse. I’m sure this will look as good as the previous office block.

A warehouse for the Zona Alfa city

And finally I’ve started the plastering stage for my 15mm Tudor style buildings for Wars of the Roses games. As per my normal method they are made from EVA foam with the wood beams cut from coffee stirrers.

Tudor buildings soon to echo with the clash of swords and arrows

I thought I’d go for bathroom sealant to plaster in between the beams but it’s a nightmare so will need a rethink as I have seven buildings to do.

Given the current lockdown status we may well have another WIP post next week.

 

Work in Progress Wednesday

The club is definitely slowing down production as we approach the Christmas Holidays. And quite right given this year, although I suspect a few hobby related presents might see a resurgence in the new year.

First up Mark has made more progress with his Panzers.

More panzers get the camouflage treatment

And out of the blue mark also mentioned starting to slap some paint on a hundred years war project.

The English start to assemble

Steve shared this picture of a dwarven force on the painting table, but there was no mention of last weeks 6mm sci-fi force. After saying he had nothing to paint it seems Steve is queuing the projects up.

New Dwarvern Force on the Way

Steve got these Dwarves from Conqueror Models.

Meanwhile I’ve been busy using some old rock style clay I had for rubble piles. After using the hot glue gun to stick them together I coated the whole thing with PVA glue.

Air Drying Clay, left to dry and broken up for industrial style rubble

I’ve also resurrected my old 10mm dungeon to finally finish the project.

One half of the 10mm Dungeon

Slightly embarrassing that this project was started 17 years ago! Still made some progress at last.

Petrified Forest

Jeremey adds more ‘real’ trees to make a Petrified Forest.

After building my large spooky dead tree , well I say building but it was more like nature built it and I just based it. I also took a dozen or so other cuttings from the dead bush to use as trees in a Dead or Petrified Forest.

Additional dead branches to act as trees

I started by basing these in exactly the same way as the large tree I did. A round wooden base appropriate to the size of the stick with a metal washer stuck on top to provide some weight. I’ve started to add weight to a lot of my terrain projects. It helps to stop taller pieces from being constantly knocked over during games.

Using the hot glue gun I then stuck a piece of the dead bush to each base and covered the whole base with the coloured bathroom sealant mix. If you saw my other post about the large tree you will remember I mixed far too much of the sealant, so it was useful to have these additional trees to base.

Just a bit of dry brushing and some flock

Once the base material had dried I dry brushed it with two other lighter brown colours to give some contrast. While I had the paint brushes out I also used a watered down solution of brown ink wash to go over all the freshly snapped of parts to make the wood look like it had been broken for a long while. The appearance of fresh sap wood is a dead give away, just ask any experienced tracker … ahem I then added a bit of flock and a few grass tuffs for good measure.

The cheapest dead forest you will see this year

Here is a wider shot of the whole forest complete with a unit on patrol. I’ve put them on my lighter desert mat but they go just as well on the grass one and I have some darker brown mat pieces to put the trees on to define an area of forest in games. Although I will also put these on my swamp mat as they look just the part for those areas you see in fantasy films were rising water as killed the trees, sort of the forest of doom or swamp of despair.

Work in Progress Wednesday

It was troopers and gaming aids for this Wednesday.

Steve finally managed to get around to rebasing some troopers, as Steve himself says “A while ago I decided to strip and re-paint some EM4 plastic colonial marines. I also cut away the old guns and bought some replacements.

EM4 Plastic Troopers with Weapon Swaps

John L has also been painting troopers in the form of a group of Spetsnaz he actually won in a Zona Alfa competition.

Footsore America Spetsnaz

And finally this week Tony F has created for himself some stat trackers for Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings Stat Trackers

Tony explains these far better than I could: “I’ve made some gaming aids for Lord of the Rings games; these are stats trackers to record the special abilities of heroes and commanders using small D6. The original was 3D printed and then I’ve made moulds and cast them up in resin. The lettering and army badges are raised to make them easy to paint. I’ve painted some in appropriate colours for each army, and I’ve painted the ‘W’ for Wounds in red to differentiate it from the ‘W’ for Will (the other stats are Might and Fate).”

It will be interesting to see how these work. Tony is still looking at how to add the heroes name to the tracker.

Paintbrush Maintenance

I’ll be the first to admit, I treat my paintbrushes very badly. I buy cheap and hammer them until they are no longer usable. It’s a bad habit that I really need to change.

Then while glancing through YouTube I came across a video on repairing brushes on a a Channel called Midwinter Minis and thought I should really give that a go. Fellow club members had mentioned ways to clean brushes before but I needed something for poorly treated ones.

The first surprise was in digging out all my paint brushes I discovered no less than 57! This is what they looked like.

The Used and Abused of the Paintbrush World

The method for cleaning was very simple, first was to apply some washing up liquid. While doing this stage I started off just swishing the paintbrush in the liquid but then found myself massaging the liquid into the brush more which seemed to work better.

Washing Up Liquid then Hot Water and Vinegar, Finally Drying on a Cloth

Then the brushes are put into boiling water that contains vinegar to wash off the soap. Finally to then dry the brush by drawing it across a cloth. While doing this I rotated the brush to help a new point form.

Before and After Using this Technique

I took a before and after photo of a selection of my brushes to see if this cleaning method made any difference. As you can see I had a degree of success with this. I managed to get a good point on quite a few of the brushes while for others it made absolutely no difference.

I’m being somewhat unfair with the flat brush in the middle as it did clean up nicely, but there were still lots of bristles that didn’t straighten.

Rescued at least Half of my Brushes

The end result was at least half of my brushes improving back to a point or close to. The technique did also suggest using a hair wax to get a point but I didn’t have any of that (or hair!), but I might revisit that idea at some point.

Here’s hoping cleaning my brushes will restore my lost painting mojo at the moment.

 

Work in Progress Wednesday

Another Wednesday and the club has picked up the pace again.

First up Steve has a real mixed bag, starting off with some dinosaurs originally intended for a Valley of Gwanji type game. Then we have some Templars.

Templars for Outremer

and finally after bemoaning a lack of miniatures to paint Steve presented the start of a new 6mm sci-fi force from Brigade Models.

New 6mm army on the way

Next we have Marcus making some progress on some more Dreadball miniatures.

Nemion Spheres team

In a rare display of what’s on his workbench Phil shows us the start of a rather substantial burial mound in the works.

The start of a huge burial mound

Any finally a bit more paint daubing from Andy on his assortment of Dark Ages miniatures.

Bit of colour for the Dark Ages

Good to see progress continuing and new projects starting. Which reminds me I need to get back to that dungeon I’ve been putting off for 17 years!

Zona Alfa Office

Club member John L takes us through the complete build of his recent office block.

This post is in response from a fellow club member regarding the buildings I’ve made for Zona Alfa, a sort of ‘How to’ guide. I wouldn’t profess to be a good terrain builder, but this method worked for me.

Planning
First check out photos on the internet for the type of building you want to use then draw the plan on A4. If you are going to use a storage box, check the plan against this allowing sufficient spacing around the building to get it out of the box. Simple enough but if you add on a detail later, it can prove frustrating! Plan how many floors you are going to have and if you want to be able to take it apart later (I did as I wanted the space inside the building shell to add another building).
In 28mm I work on 5mm to a foot scale and allow 35 – 40mm for door heights, depending on type of building. Door widths 15 – 20mm. Windows are 15 – 20mm from ground level, adjust until it looks right.

Materials
5mm Foam board – Hobbycraft
Mounting Board – Hobbycraft
Lolly sticks – Hobbycraft
Clear plastic (optional for windows, I used food packaging material)
Cereal box cardboard
White card A4 pack from ASDA
Fine sand
Builders sand
Tools
Snap off large and small knives – B&Q
Resin W PVA glue
Bulk PVA Glue – B&Q
Set square
Steel ruler
Pin

Step 1
Cut out the base from mounting board. This needs to fit on the box if using and should include a 5mm border around the building. It’s probably better to radius the corners of the base to prevent a ‘dog eared’ look.

Step 2
Draw out the walls onto foamboard, taking into account the joins at the corners. I used simple lap joints so the long walls were 10mm shorter than the plan, use a set square to make sure all is square. Mark the sections you want to cut out so that you don’t remove the wrong bit!. I then take a pin and push through to the reverse side of the foam board.

Step 3
When cutting foam board I use the large snap off knife and steel rule, making a shallow cut. If you try a deep cut, the foam will tear. It’s a material that will blunt your knife blade quickly so snap off blades are ideal. I use the smaller knife to cut out the window openings. To get a clean finish, flip over the foam board and check the backing of the foam board is cut through, you can use the pin holes as a guide. By keeping the blade vertical against the rule, you should get a clean finish.

Step 4
Once the wall panels are cut out, I added detailing from strips of mounting board to the front faces. On the interior faces, I added strips of foam board which would be supports for the roof and first floors. I then created slots for the cross walls.

Step 5
To assemble the building, I used Resin W PVA. This is quick drying which helps prevent the whole building collapsing as it’s drying. Use the set square to check all is square.

Step 6
At this point, I decided to add a staircase (should have been in the original plan!). I used 1cm x 2cm pieces of foam board to build the spine and then 1 cm strips to build the supports. Then used lolly sticks to add the treads.

Step 7
I decided to add broken windows to the building. To do this I added 3mm strips of cereal pack card as the outside frame for each window. This was the most time consuming bit but now the basic building was done.

Step 8
To achieve the concrete look, I painted the exterior with a thin layer of PVA and then sprinkled fine sand over this. If a bit is missed, it’s better to let the whole thing dry before touching up. It’s important to have the cross walls in place for this stage as the PVA will cause the foam board to bow in at the centre. For the base, I used Builders sand which is courser. When the whole thing is dry, I painted the base using acrylics – dark brown/black followed by a light dry brush. For the walls I started with a base coat of Wilko Mineral Stone, then mixed this with Wilko Biscuit Crunch to paint over everything except the recesses. I’d picked this up from Terrain Tutor. From the same channel, I’d seen tips on applying washes to buildings, by prewetting the surface first so I added a dark wash to the recesses and a Sage Green wash to the lower panels to the ground for Algae. I then added brown stain on some sections and I think this worked well. I then painted the interior using acrylics.

Step 9
I cut the windows from plastic by cellotaping the plastic to my cutting board, then cutting out strips which I gave a jagged edge. These were secured by 2mm strips of cereal card on the inside of the windows. Another long job, when finished. I used a dab of superglue in the corners to secure the panes in place.

Step 10
To finish, I made the door adding part of a cable tie for the lock. I added graffiti and then made up some signs to hang over the doorway. These can be changed as required.

Work in Progress Wednesday

This week has seen a marked slow down in progress reported from the club, typical given this week I’ve actually done something.

Therefore first up I’ve been using some old branches from the garden to make a petrified forest. I’m going for a selection of tree stumps to represent either the remnants of a dead forest or one after shelling or some form of barrage. I’ve got 19 trees and a few fallen logs.

The start of the petrified forest
Next up we have an impressive construction from John L as he continues to build up his battlefield for Zona Alpha. He’ll have a whole city by the time lockdown ends!
Office block in progress

And finally Andy continues to make further progress on his dark ages figures. Once he’s done I might well show each of these stages together from start to finish.

More progress on the Dark Ages

Let’s see if next week shows an increase in productivity, if nothing else I should have finished my forest.

Miniature Gardening

Gardening and Miniature Wargaming are not normally two hobbies that have a clear connection, but on a recent autumnal day club member Jeremey managed to turn green fingers into um… terrain building fingers.

It was time to tidy up the garden and get it ready for the coming winter months. I had recently cut down a shrub that had seen it’s last summer and needed to chop it up for the compost heap. Whilst doing so I got to the main trunk of the shrub and thought (as comes naturally) that maybe it would work as a piece of scenery.

The base of the shrub looking suspiciously like an ancient tree

I’d always wanted an old gnarly tree as a feature piece in a game, especially to act as some ancient druidic meeting place in fantasy games. The shrub had already dried out and so I snapped of some of the branches I didn’t want and then cleaned the stump in the sink with an old toothbrush to get the dirt off. I then put in on the radiator for a while so that the heat would dry it out completely.

Using a bit of foam for the base and some washers to add weight.

I turned to my old favourite EVA foam for the base. I didn’t have a large piece of MDF or something similar for the base. But then I also did not want this on a huge base, just one big enough to support the tree. By using foam I was also able to cut holes in it to sink the tree and branches into it. The tree was quite tall so so I added a bit of weight with some washers to stop it being easy to knock over. The trusty glue gun was used to stick all of this down.

Bathroom sealant and cheap paints.

For basing I went for a material that I have found to be a very cheap and effective way for covering large areas. Bathroom sealant, that is basically any sealant that is used for waterproofing round sinks, baths, showers. For use in terrain building I buy the cheapest version from somewhere like Poundland. I’d never use this cheap stuff for actually sealing anything, likewise I wouldn’t use the expensive stuff from the DIY store to make scenery with. I put an amount in a container and then add cheap acrylic paint depending on the colour required. In this case I added black and brown. Once mixed together I spread it into place with a small stick and then use an old paintbrush to move it around and provide texture. Adding paint can increase the drying time of the sealant but depending on the thickness it should dry in a couple of hours.

Adding a bit of colour and vegetation.

One the sealant was dry I did a bit of dry brushing of the dirt base to give a nice contrast. At this point I did also paint bits of the actual tree with watered down brown ink, this was mainly to ‘dirty’ up the recently snapped off bits so they didn’t look like new breaks and had weathered like the rest of the tree. Finally I added a bit of flock and some tufts. Not too many as I didn’t want the dead tree surrounded by lush vegetation.

The final tree being used as a rallying point for some Norsemen

And there we have it. I think the base of the old shrub works perfectly as an ancient old tree and you’d be hard pressed to find a commercial piece of terrain to match it. I also didn’t have to paint the tree making this one of those projects you can do in a day.