How to make: Saxon Huts

Hi Chaps,

Hope you are all well.

These past few days, I've been working on some new projects, for a new game, that I think you already know, it is called Dux Britanniarum, which is a is a set of rules for wargaming and campaigning in the Age of Arthur.

Apart from painting figures, as you may have seen in my previous post, I have also taken the initiative to prepare some terrain pieces, such as the ones you'll see below.

Basically, I wanted to make some Saxon Huts. Generic huts. I took some balsa wood, pieces of vinyl tiles, an old towel (yes, towel - if you don't believe me, see this excellent article by Matakishi's site) and paints. 

The building procedure is shown in the photo sequence below. Simple really, not many fiddly parts to make your life difficult.

Hope you like them.

Ramble on!

Thanos

Copy & Paste Vol. 1 (City Corner)

Greetings everyone!

Hope you are all well.

Today I'm introducing a new section in my blog, which will be called: Copy & Paste.

The title will seem to you a bit ambiguous, but if you keep reading, you will understand that the title, serves its purpose.

As you all know (well, the ones following my blog for quite some while), terrain making is one of my favourite parts of our hobby. Its purpose, besides of providing a nice aesthetical feeling whilst playing, is to give the impression of realism and authenticity that will boost the essence of pleasure (to the eye, at least).

Many ideas come and go, but, one that has been haunting me for quite some while now, was the possibility of integrating natural and 1:1 scale terrain pieces (through the city or outside in the nature), into my wargaming tables.

Some weeks ago, I have found this small corner and I took some photos with my phone.

After that, I went home and began creating a similar terrain piece, scaled down (for 20mm figures), as best as I could, with what material pieces I had available.

The result was this:

If you liked the model above and you have any ideas for terrain pieces, that you'd like to see them on your tables, I would be more than happy to provide some modelling work for you, in making these ideas tangible and playable. A feast for your eyes, and for your little men!

You would only need to send me some photos ( email ) , I would assess the feasibility of its creation and then let me come back to you with further details regarding its cost and timeframe for its completion.

I hope you all have a wonderful St. Valentines day!

Remember, if we keep them happy today, we will then assert the right to dedicate more time for our hobby. :-)

How to make a: pond

Greetings everyone,

Hope you are all well.

It's (once more) a tutorial post, this one, of how to make a pond for your wargaming tables, easily and most importantly, cheaply.

The Chinese used to say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and for this reason below you will see a photo of the draft sketch,

the materials used for the pond,

and the final result:

You can see the whole 'how-to' video below:

I hope you like it.

Have good Tuesday night everyone! :-)

T.

How to make: Stone Walls

Greetings everyone,

Today I'm going to show you my latest addition to my ever growing collection of terrain pieces (mostly handmade, as most of you that follow this blog already know).

Since I'm a cheap git (my fellow English friends may raise their fingers for my misbehaviour - I heard it in a movie and I liked it), I was trying to come up with a way of making some cheap, durable and respectful (in terms of wargaming feasibility) stone walls for my little men.

I browsed the internet for some ideas, but the answer came through one of my wargaming buddies, Vaggelis, who's trying to entice me into the world of Chain Of Command rules - he didn't try much tbh, since I didn't need much of an effort to indulge myself into something new hobby related thing.

He told me to use PVA, and plastic decorative gravel. Yes, you got that right, some PVA and plastic gravel. Below, you will see how easy it is to make some - good, for the eye at least - stone walls by combining these two, and easy to find materials.

I started from this:

And got into this:

Watch the video and spread the word, spread the word guys, so we can all play!

Have a great Monday evening everyone. :-)

T.

P.S: If you care to see how I made the small barn next to the stone walls, see this post. 

How to make a: Barn

Greetings everyone,

Hope you are all well.

Today I prepared a new video (perhaps it will be my new trend) for a model Barn I made.

It took me a piece of paper to get this:

And prepare this:

As you will see in the video it is somehow versatile, and can be used in various eras, from Middle Ages to WW2.

I hope you like it.

If you have any questions on the method I used for making the model, please do not hesitate to ask.

T.

How to make bases with bombed trees‏

Hi everyone.

If you have read my previous post, you would have noticed the three terrain boards I made for a WW1 project we are preparing on our gaming club.

Today, I'm going to show you, some complementary terrain pieces, made from old cd's, some off-pieces of foam and some twigs.

1st step:

Take some old cd's, glue some scraps of foam on them and then with a hot glue gun, place the twigs on the foam pieces (or the cd's surface if you want to).

2nd step:

Cover the cd's surface with kitchen paper, by using PVA glue, wall filler, and water - the consistency is up to you to decide (not too ''runny'' not too ''bulky''). After the materials application, you let the pieces dry for at least 24 hours, otherwise you risk of ruining your brushes whilst painting afterwards.

3rd step:

After drying, I used the same technique for painting them (Dark Brown, Brick Red drybrush, Brown drybrush and Medium Grey drybrush).

Below, you see how well they blend with the rest of the pieces. I am sure that the attacking forces, will think of them as a light cover, from the menace of the machine guns.

The cost for making these five bases, was about 2 euro - a fair deal wouldn't you say?

Have a nice Monday evening everyone. :-)

T.

How to make: WW1 Trenches

Greetings everyone!

Hope you are all well.
In my previous post, I mentioned that I was preparing some terrain for our wargames club, based on some WW1 Scenarios we are interested to play.

I have managed to prepare some trenches, based on some photos I've collected through the web and my books and also for Sidney's blog that is full of wonderful, wonderful, wonderful models.

Below you will see (through a very basic video I had just prepared) how I begun with this:

And ended up to this:

And this is Youtube's link (It cannot be uploaded through blogger, don't ask me why...) 

I hope you like it!

Have a good Sunday night everyone!
T.

American Civil War - Union Infantry

Hi everyone.

If you have visited my blog, you must have seen that my last post, was about some Confederate soldiers, fighting their way to victory through a ploughed field.

To make things even, I've painted some of their opponents, meaning the Blues, and placed them in the same terrain piece.  

The figures are from Imex - (Union Infantry), and some from Italeri (Union Infantry) 

If you care to read about the quality of them, please go to the PSR site, where their details and aspects are being thoroughly explained. They do look the part, if I may say. :-)

Their colours, in addition to their opponents' were, pretty much the same on most of the cases, as relevant photos and bibliography suggest.

I hope you like them.

Have a good Friday night everyone.

T.