Terrain Progress

Hi folks,

I can honestly say that in all my time of collecting my 15mm armies, I had never completed a singe bit of terrain. In fact, I'm struggling to remember ever making any terrain for anything (unless is was easy assemble stuff like Necromunda bulkheads or Epic plastic ruins.

So, one week in to my terrain focus, and I'm feeling pretty good. I think, surprisingly for myself, that I have come to view the buildings as models in their own right. Where I was concerned previously about feeling like I wasn't actively contributing to my collecting while working on 'other' stuff, I'm actually feeling like this work is really adding to what I have done with my models.

'Finished' as of Friday night

'Finished' as of Thursday night

I've been focusing on getting the main kits built for now, with a view of going back to do some detailing once all the main assembly work is done. I'm keen to make the buildings fit in together. There are some small scale issues, but mainly I want to have the colours match where possible. Roofs are the main element of this currently. On the second picture, the three buildings on the left are the non-4Ground buildings I mentioned in my last post. These do have some slight variety in shade of paint which doesn't perhaps show up well here. But the brown 'stone colour' and the roof colour should be what I aim for with other buildings.

Where there are damaged buildings, i want to try and have piles of rubble and debris. Any tips for this would be gratefully received!

I also plan to add shutters to most of the windows. These seem to be very common in the Normandy area.

Aside from the buildings, I have also started working on my minefields. I'm trying to do some that are uncleared and some that have been 'breached' by my flails. Initially the resin I have used has had some small craters put in, which I will make a little more pronounced later.

Following my prototypes earlier in the week, I've pushed on with making my destroyed tank markers. Apologies for the very poor picture of these!

I've used a small washer and some pipe cleaners. The pipe cleaners were cut in half and then each half was folded and twisted. I then make a small loop in one end to allow a small steel washer to be attached.

I then dipped in a watered down PVA solution and then in a green flock substance. Once the PVA is dry I'll tidy them up and spray them black, then add other details as required. I also used the same technique to add more flock to some of the older trees I had been given by Paul a while back. I'll end up spraying and painting these as well, I think!

As I hadn't started enough... I planned to make some bases for smoke markers, but didn't have suitable bases (I was sure I did...). I picked up some pillow stuffing last weekend, so I'm planning on using that.

I also came across some laser cut MDF 15mm fortifications I picked up in York last year. I dug out my Milliput (which I've not used for anything as I prefer green stuff) and used that to make some entrenchments. I'm not sure these will see much use in FoW, but I thought they would be useful at some point! I ran out of Milliput so will have to order some more - I've another pack of this stuff and each pack makes 1 meter of entrenchments. I cut up some of the boarding sections to make 'ends'. This left me some odds which I used to make the A/T position in the centre. I'll spray these and paint them up as well.

Also on the cards to do, I have a 'straw' doormat to cut up into corn fields, and a load of 4Ground walls and fences to build.

Hopefully, I'll have more to show off next week!

April looms!

Hi folks,

Apologies for the lack of regular updates over the last few weeks. As I've progressed with the final stages of the 10mm ACW batch, I've not felt I've much to show. It's pretty hard to take decent pictures of these figures in the painting process, and without them being based yet I've nothing much to show for my efforts.

As of Friday, I managed to finish (bar the 15 cavalry models) the whole of the Pendraken army pack for my Confederated. These now just need basing. Basing has been delayed due to some uncertainty about the inclusion of casualty figures in the bases, the need to do dismounted cavalry (which I think I have too many of, so may include some figures in the line units) and a few other minor concerns.

April was also when I planned to move onto painting buildings, minefields, destroyed vehicle markers, etc.

For starters, I'll show off one of my recent acquisitions:

I actually had no concrete plans to do a Mid War Desert force for FoW. However, having commented on a video for the v4 launch weekend, I was lucky enough to win these as a prize!

I'm having a think about what I want to do with them, but they are on the back burner a little. If I do dive in, I would be tempted to do 4RTR with their Matilda II's or Valentines - neither of which there are options for yet.

Just to show I've been busy ACW wise, here are the last batch - all painted, varnished and ready for basing:

And some of the work I did on Friday. Prototype destroyed tank markers:

And the first of my 15mm buildings:

These kits are unpainted multi level kits I picked up last year from 'Dave's Wargames'. This is a 'local' company to me, with great prices and some really good looking kits. I've delved into my own level of madness with these, painting them up based on pictures of a specific village in Normandy (taken from Google street view), Cramesnil. I'm not actually mad enough to try and model specific buildings, but I am keen to get the look and colours correct. Dave's buildings come unbuilt and were put together with just PVA. I did notice that the buildings all have shutters, which are not present on most of the kits I have, so will be added. I'll also try to match the mix of roof colours as both red and grey being present in the modern village - with older buildings having either.

Most of the buildings are also made with a pale brown shaded sandstone, so I've done the same with the bare stone patches. The shutters I've added are just cut from thin plasticard - I'm planning on trying to paint some wood effect on them later.

I've also been reading up on Lee's method of putting ivy and the likes on buildings, and will be trying that. You can find his method detailed here. I've already got some leaf flock, for my vehicle camo branches, so will be using that. Other issues I'm trying to address currently is how to replicate rubble, and how to incorporate the cratered roads I have into a town setting (the craters make the roads wider, meaning I'll have to have some sort of pavement I think.

Minefield prototypes are also on the horizon - hopefully without the bases warping terribly!

Edit: I had meant to include in this a big THANK YOU to Lee, who sent me some spare FoW mini's he had. Some Panthers/Jagdpathers, STuGs and Fireflies will all be added to various forces at some point! Thanks Lee!

AHPC + Gunuary Roundup!

Hi Folks,

Apologies for the lack of blog post in the last week or so, with the challenge coming to an end I threw myself into painting as much as I could before time ran out!

I've really enjoyed my first bash at this competition, and I think I've set a decent bar to try and beat should I enter next time (I'm currently planning on it, but it's 9 months away!). I aimed for a challenging 500 points, achieved 682. As mentioned elsewhere the scoring is done on the size of the model, with 15mm infantry counting as 2 points, guns/crew served weapons as 4 points and vehicles as 6 points. The bigger the model, the more the points!

Out of 100 entrants (94 of which made it to the end), I placed 45th - with the aim to finish in the top 50! So yeah, I'm really pleased. But to put it into perspective, the people at the top of the table painted 4,125 and 4,051 points worth of stuff - total machines!

I'm also happy that I aimed to maintain my normal levels of quality and I feel I achieved that. In fact, in a couple of areas I think I improved. Having to paint a 28mm Lion was a new experience for me and I learnt quite a bit - oddly, it was probably the thing that most challenged me but that I learnt the most from. I also like the look of my 10mm ACW - again, something new for me!

Anyway, starting with the stuff that's not been posted here. First up is Cecil the Lion, painted as my contribution towards a group entry fee. Basing is not done as he will be shipped off to another zoo down south for this to be applied.

Without waxing too lyrical about this model, it was really interesting to paint from reference pictures of animals, and to challenge my concept of 'what does a Lion look like?'. I found that my first thought was something from the Lion King, and that I had to make a decision early on whether to go for something 'realistic' or something people would more easily recognise! New techniques for me included actually picking the colours myself rather than using a guide, blending the mane and painting facial details.

Of course, half way through I started seeing him as a big dopey Lionador rather than a fierce Lion, but I think he still came out OK. All he wants is to lick your face. With his teeth!

Next up is a unit of 10mm Pendraken ACW. I tried to go more rag tag with these guys, but came back in the end to something a little more uniform. I've still got a few more of these guys to do, as this was all I could base up in time for the challenge ending. I learnt a lesson there about batch painting by pose, and how it's not a great idea to tight time scales. If I hadn't had a sudden bout of common sense, I would have based all the painted stuff I had and been left with the rest of the units made up of only 2 or 3 poses. Thankfully I realised in time!

Most recently, at the very end of the Challenge, I rattled out the remainder of my current US Team Yankee 3mm models. Some batteries of M109 SP Arty, some M106 SP Mortars and some M113 Vulcan Air Defence tracks. Along side there were 3 'rifle platoon' bases and 3 'Dragon Team' section bases - to make up 3 platoons of US Mech Infantry. These were added to the helicopters I had painted earlier in the challenge. The Heli's were 3mm Tumbling Dice models, while the vehicles and infantry are Oddzial Osmy models.

Everything else I think you'll have seen!

Not bad for 3 months work! I wish I could say that the lead mountain has been significantly altered - but currently I'm like a man with trowel standing at the foot of the Alps! Still, one trowel full at a time... At least the amount of outstanding artillery has been reduced, thanks to the Gunuary focus!

For the next little while I am planning on finishing off the ACW figures and working on some other projects. In the planning stage are smoke and destroyed vehicle markers, minefields, some 4Ground buildings and Decals. All of which I have put off doing for various reasons. As ever, all input in appreciated!

Oh, and I also won an army deal from Battlefront! So some Grants and Crusaders will be joining the lead mountain at some point soon (hopefully!).