A trip to the Walls of Moria, followed by some 'friggin in the riggin', and finished off with a pint down the pub...

Over the weekend I managed to get more hobby stuff done. Since fathers trip to visit with us, has come to and end, normal service has been resumed on the home front...

Its great to see folks again, and after a month long visit, it nice to get back to 'normal' too..., though with fond memories still to last until his next time with us...

So, since garden chores were all done last weekend, it meant I could spend some hobby time this weekend...

As you may have seen in my prior post, I made a start with the Walls of Moria, here.

Once the poly and MDF was all glued up and set, it was then first skim coated with Polyfila

Once that was dry, it was all painted with dark grey sand textured paint - roughly equal parts of black paint / white paint / PVA glue / Sand....

When dry, dry brushed with mid grey...

I thought about doing another final top light grey drybrush, but felt this was enough, I wanted it 'dark and brooding'...

So there we have it,... a couple of potential staged in use pics...

The Fellowship at the Gates of Moria...

"Speak Friend, and Enter"

Its a fairly simplistic terrain piece in its current state. Very usable, but could be improved upon. I think I'll try and make an insert that will fit the open doorway , that I can paint the Ithildin doorway on to, in both a closed, and then open format. I'll also model some wasted trees to go either side as per the movie image at top of this blog post.

However, as it is, its also doing double duty as rocky walls within the abandoned dwarven realm, where goblins have now made their home...

The Dwarrowdelf... while fleeing the wrath of the Balrog, the Fellowship are beset by goblin arrows from up on high...

Plenty of places to perch goblins!

Not bad for a couple of days work.

Whilst various parts of the above were drying, I pressed on with a couple of other things...

Having got my Brig out and dusted off recently (Old terrain projects never die - they just gather dust!), I decided, having just finished the crows nests, it was high time to add some rigging rope ladders to reach them.

So, I used some simple dress makers pins, chopped down to size, and glued these into place, to act as anchor points for the string to be tied round for the main vertical lengths, superglued into place. Once that was all done, then the laborious part was  supergluing into place all the horizontal lengths - that took quite some time, I can tell you, but I think the effect is worthwhile...

It really begins to to look more properly ship-like now, I think, though its certainly no scale model. It still is a wargaming model first and foremost.

I do have some tiny Dead-eyes, that I may mess about with seeing if I can get them to look right at the bottom end of the rigging on sides of ship hull.

Next thing I need to do is rig up the Anchors and CatHead supports. I've also got some swivel guns to add to the hull sides.

I think, I've also got some small racks with, wooden 'pins' in them which go on the insides of the hull sides.

After all that hard work in the rigging, it was time for a pint down the pub, so I broke out the DAS clay, and started cladding the Victorian Tavern. I got the front sides done...

To wrap up the weekend, I had a brief time for a game of LOTR with Chris... he'd had a mate over for a sleepover playdate for the weekend, and they played LOTR all weekend it seemed. Once his friend had left, it was my turn... no rest for the wicked! ;-)

That's all for now folks, as always thanks for viewing.

Panels and putty... the Tavern continues to take shape...

A little more work managed over the weekend... Having added the wooden trim to frame out the ground floor, I pressed on and added a simple paneling effect by cutting out rectangles from thin card (cereal box type stuff), and rounding-in the corners with a hole punch.

These were simply glued into place with PVA. I also started tidying up some of the joins in the framing with a liquid Greenstuff and DAS clay. The Greenstuff is OK to use but annoyingly shrinks on drying, invariably revealing the gap you have just filled... hence I went back to using the DAS...

Click Picture for a closer look

Just have to add the card stock doorways, and I can press on with clay cladding the top two stories, then brick etching to follow... At the rear I have added the lean-to... though I have not glued this into place, as it will make the brick etching around it a pain, so I'll do it separately then glue it into place.

It's all slow but steady work... as usual I have several things on the go at once and kids off school wanting to play and do stuff with me when I get in from work... plus my Dad arrives for his visit from UK on Friday, so there has been a noticeable amount of spring cleaning and gardening going on, for 'His Lordships' arrival ;-) .

One good thing about having folks in UK - it gets round some of the dumb restrictions on the GW website... Some stuff is listed as mail order only, and when you twiddle around with the country portals, different stuff shows up, and if its not in your country's slot you can't order it. Ridiculous! So Dad is bringing with him the Hobbit/LOTR set featuring Lobelia, Paladin Took, Fatty Bolger and a Hobbit Horn blower, and for good measure Gandalfs Cart too. The cart I could have ordered from the NZ site, but its way cheaper from the UK... On the flip side I managed to order Bandobras (Bullroarer) Took from NZ site which wasn't on the UK site, so in that case availability was on my side, but sadly at NZ prices, oh well, sometimes you have to bite the bullet... All these are going to go together for my Hobbiton build...

So I have two weeks annual leave from the 20th to enjoy... I hope to still try and fit in some hobby work... there's only so much sitting in the sun together (if summer actually arrives this year!?) and chatting, quaffing foaming ale together you can do in one day! ;-)

Plus as part of my holiday we are all going to head north and visit Hobbiton (Matamata) again - I am looking forward to a pint of ale in the Green Dragon ( It comes in pints!? I'm having one...) - more photos will be taken, for inspiration for the Hobbiton build...

And finally, I caught the first episode of Ripper Street last night on SKY - great stuff, really enjoyed it... I don't watch much TV and rarely tune in to 'shows', as most are garbage and I always feel I could be doing something more constructive. I am more a documentary or DVD/movie watcher, but this show has my attention... I am sure I can spare an hour a week to enjoy it :-)

If nothing else, it will provide some inspiration for more buildings to make - I was having a close look at the police station building for one of my next builds. I was wondering if I can add some kind of transparent blue film over one of the model street gas-lamps I have to effect the police blue lamp...

Adding a little decorative trim...

Well I have been steadily plodding away with mostly terrain tasks recently... a mix of gluing MDF and bbq skewers to my corner tavern, and continued etching work on the base board...

Couple of pics for you...

I am not sure what you call this kind of external detail work on the tavern but I am sure you can see what I am talking about... a 3mm thick piece of mdf trim was added first right under the first story windows. Under this was glued an pattern of round trims made from simple round wooden (bamboo?) bbq skewers approx 3mm dia.

Oh and you can probably the lower half window net curtains in place...

So the ground floor will be a painted surface, whilst the top two floors will be brick etched as the terraced buildings.

I am now going to start added some embossed panels out of thin card... I have found a supply of rub on decals from local hobby store I am going to check out tomorrow, so I can add pub name etc....

Whilst this was gluing, bit by bit... I have been etching in more cobblestones on the base board with my new Dremel bit ... I am managing about 48sq.inches per 90 minute session... and have worked out I am about 1/5th done so far, with about another 30-35hrs work to go... I told you it would be a long job!

The greatest gift at Christmas is...

...Time!

At least that's how I view it. Time away from work to do the things you want to...

Christmas of course, is time with family at home, sharing some quality time, enjoying the kids tear through their prezzies like a hot knife through butter... and of course the Christmas lunch which for most of us Antipodeans means a BBQ in the sun... which I have to say this year was a bit touch and go weather wise, but we struck lucky with the sun breaking through right on cue and lasting long enough, for full tummies to roll inside before the rain started... feet up, DVD on (The Hobbit), and snore the afternoon away... lets face it, up till 12.30am the night before, wrapping and arranging prezzies, then up at the crack of dawn to excited children who can't wait any longer... full tummy, and several glasses of wine later... is it any wonder the adults crash out Christmas arvo? ;-)

As for the Christmas prezzy haul... actually we don't bother for adults... for us its about the kids... but I did lash out in a moments silliness, buying myself a $4 bag of glue sticks and a $4 egg slice for the missus ;-)

Actually, with thoughts leaning towards LOTR / Hobbit I ordered up on a couple of gaps in my collection - I ordered a hobbit set; Paladin Took, Lobellia, Fatty Bolger and Horn blower via folks in UK, and Bullroarer Took from GW NZ online as it wasn't listed on the UK site... sometimes you just have to bite the bullet on price... so they were my Christmas gifts to myself....

Ah, a wonderful time, but what I really enjoy at Christmas is the statutory holidays off, for us poor retail schleps; means Christmas and Boxing day ( if you're lucky - my wife had to work Boxing day arvo), Friday for me was back to work, then luckily enough the weekend free, and rinse and repeat for this week with New Year nearly upon us...

So with this extra time off, whilst kids are busy playing with their new toys together, Dad can potter on ...

I managed two more 2kg bags of Polyfilla (making 3 in total) to add more layers to the Victorian base board to even it up, and allowed it to dry...

I based the Victorian corner tavern to help square it up, and chopped and glued matchsticks to frame out all the windows....

An undercoated 'Baskerville' from EotD Requiem for scale...

Also with the Hobbit/LOTR juices flowing once more I decided to make some repairs / improvements to my Helms Deep board, repairing chipped surface and after a visit to my local hobby store for supplies, poured in more Realistic Water to build up the stream layer. This is to stop models falling over if standing in the stream area... one of my bugbears with skirmish gaming and single based figures... you can make excellent looking terrain, but if its not a flat surface they'll fall over... annoying! Especially banner bearers who you need right up with the action, and if they fall over everyone else gets knocked over too!

'Realistic water' poured... awaiting drying (approx 24hrs)

Great stuff, but not cheap!

Whilst getting my hobby supplies, I included some lemon trees and tomato plants I happened across... perfect to add some life to my proposed Hobbiton build...

 ... and big bag of lichen to make woods look like woods. Had some time with eldest to start the LOTR/ Hobbit, Fall of the Necromancer campaign... the starting scenario pits 4 giant spiders and 2 giant bat swarms against Thranduil and a bunch of wood-elves, on a wooded 24" x 24" board... simple fun...

Mirkwood - Fall of the Necromancer campaign

The odd thing with the SBG LOTR rules are that they define difficult terrain areas, eg. woods, by for example, an area of felt, which affects move rate (if you're not a wood elf, spider or bat swarm) but this wooded area does not impede LOS nor provide cover unless there is an actual tree or bush modeled on it... So a big bag of lichen clumps made for some instant bushes and cover saves (3+ in the way), compared to the trees (4+ in the way)... worked rather well... I did also re-base the trees on 60mm round MDF discs (I bought a new bigger hole cutter) as the smaller bases used previously were not enough to stop them toppling over when knocked...

After gaming was satisfied, and plaster skim coats had dried on board it was time to equip up, and break out the Dremel... its noisy, dusty work, so safety gear is a must... and Ipod music inside ear defenders helps the time pass pleasantly...

 Bzzzzzzzzz, Whirrrrrrr  ...

After about 45 mins I have done a roughly 6" x 6" area... yep this is going to take a while, but I think the end result will be worth it...

I'll keep plodding on with this bit by bit, with breaks... don't want to get 'white finger'...

I am still plodding on with more figure painting too for Curts Challenge, and am focusing the time on the fortnightly themes so I get to score some points!

Just a quick thought on your local hobby store... I must admit I am the first to try and source stuff cheap online where possible... especially model figures, but I do find the local hobby stores great for terrain and craft supplies, and try and support these guys where possible. They are not always the cheapest but you sometimes want something now to crack on with that terrain project, so anywhere selling hobby railway supplies etc., locally can be a goldmine for a wargamer. And compared to GW prices you are bound to save $$$'s...

Hope you are all enjoying your festive time, with family and hobbies...

Regards to all
Scott

Victorian Base board continued...

Well the Challenge is well and truly on, but there's still other work to do too!

Over the weekend, in the lead up to Challenge kick off, I kept busy with terrain matters and got the drain covers sorted for Victorian base board.

The protruding pipe uprights were trimmed flush to board with the dremel, and interior of pipe painted black. Plastic mesh was also cut to size, sprayed black and glued into place. Finally a length of square section thick plastic rod was cut to two small lengths and these glued over the top of the mesh to effect the drain.

This would also gave me an edge to plaster up to when I skim coat the table.

Here's the two drain covers

Whilst various bits of this process were drying, I also managed to make a couple more under table storage units for the games room after redo-ing the table arrangement.

under table storage

Made from 5mm MDF sheet and some timber posts... So plenty of space now to store all the planned EotD Victorian buildings :-)

OK, tonight, whilst some shade wash dries on my current Challenge models... I went back to the base board. I had bought a 2kg bag of polyfilla (not really knowing how much I would need), and a plasterers spreading tool, to try and get the surface as smooth as possible.

After about half an hour I had used the whole bag, making a batch at a time, spreading, and making some more, till I had it as well as I could manage.

So we ended up with this...

I think I am going to need to add another layer of filler to build up a little more as the drain covers are still protruding. I'll wait till it dries fully and get more filler at the weekend...

Corner Pub / Tavern - WIP - basic shape

Whilst working on the Empire of the Dead base board, and with the MDF side panels gluing into place one at a time, I made a start on the next building for my cityscape -  a corner site Public House or Tavern...

Again, 3mm MDF forms the basic structure. PVA glue is dry enough to hold it together after about an hour and should get to full strength over night...

Three level building again, measuring about 10" x 11", with an angled main entrance way, and rear yard area...

While this was one drying, I made a start drawing out the plan for the next building... this time a high street shop... I'll try and get it cut out and assembled over the weekend...

It Lives...!

It lives master, it lives... heck, that's what it feels like using this stuff...

With the poly sheet and piping glued down I decided to fill the void around the pipe with expanding foam filler... I'd used a can of this ages ago, thinking it might create some rather cool cliffs I could carve and sculpt, but I found it too uncontrollable, when used without a controlling frame of reference... and ended up with a huge uncontrolled and unusable 'blob' and just biffed it in the bin... that was quite sometime ago... I do recall it made a right mess and was a bugger to try and clean up, darn stuff seem to stick to everything...

So with that vague memory haunting me somewhat I set to again, read the directions... yeah I know, men don't read instructions ;-)... and even read the ones on the can of clean up spray I got too...

With latex gloves on, and hearty high ho silver, I let rip... is that it...? OK squirt a bit more... still seems a bit thin and hasn't reached the top of the poly sheet yet... hmm, squirt a bit more ... there that'll do... OK clean up time... wahay this stuff is pressurized spray acetone... wee ...nice smell,  splash it on all over, eh 'arry? 'arry? Wheres 'arry?

Thank the Gods I had opened the windows, or I'd be floating round the ceiling somewhere...

Anyhoo... I got cleaned up so I can use the rest of can for something else... gave it half an hour or so, (drying time on can) and came back, and its swelled like you can see below!

... by the end of the night, its just about doubled in size again... I foresee a hearty time with the bread knife and dremel tomorrow! Wish me luck!

If your gonna use the one on the left, make sure you get the one on the right as well! You have been warned!

Oh, and you can probably use about half the amount you think you're gonna need, coz yep, it expands, ...just not instantly...

A foggy day in old London Town! - WIP - Empire of the Dead base board

With Curts painting challenge approaching, over on Analogue Hobbies blog, I have been hard out all week prepping stuff to paint for the challenge... So far I have 5 15mm PSC Panzer IV F1's, a Battlefront 15cm sFH18 Howitzer battery of 4 guns, another pack of Battlefront Begleit Tank escorts, for my StuGs, my Hobbit set of 13 Dwarves and Radagast have been rescued from the back of the painting table, and I made a start on my Requiem EotD stuff, prepping the Gentlemen with Guns, Lycaons, and the character pack of Dracula, his brides and Renfield. I've also done the 4 40k terminators to go with the test Das Reich terminator I did sometime ago...

So if I get through that little lot over the next couple of months I will be thrilled. I am keeping an eye on the fortnight theme aspects of the challenge too, and have some ideas for civvies, casualties etc...

After all that figure prepping, I thought the weekend, should give me a little time to work on terrain, and a wet and windy Saturday gave me a perfect chance to make a start on my Empire of the Dead London base board...

Now since some fine fellows suggested I should try and add some fog effects to my terrain board to go with the Building lights and Gaslamps I did, I thought I had better make a start...

I got a sheet of 5mm MDF and a 2" think sheet of polystyrene, cutting both to 48" x 48". I also got some 15mm dia plumbing pipe, with simple screw-fit connections, and made a start on a piped sewer system. I blanked off the ends of the pipe and added an upright to each that will just stick up proud of the poly sheet for now. This will be covered with a pastic mesh that will look like a drain cover...

The pipework will allow dry-ice to be pumped into the game, giving a foggy ground layer to the game.


Here's the pipework in place, on the MDF sheet.

I also used the pipework as a template to cut out the poly sheet...

Then the pipework was glued into place, and the poly sheet glued down around it. This will all dry overnight, giving the PVA glue a good chance to dry out. The books weigh it all down while it sets... I knew all those rule books, supplements, magazines and history books would be good for something! ;-)

While all that is drying... I finished off my 'smoke machine'... an empty 900g powdered food tin, a 2.5" 2nd hand computer case fan, a 9v battery cap connector was soldered to this, to power it up, glued to the plastic lid of the tin, that I had cut a fan sized hole in, so it blows down into the tin. An off cut of plastic pipe, and a bought piece of flexible pipe from the plumb shop, and we are ready to go... hot glue and insulating tape finishes it off...

...so this is all connected to the pipe 'sewer' system, via a screw fit straight connector... all I am waiting for is a test run...

...I need to get some dry-ice... the trick is, put some boiling water in the tin, drop in some dry-ice, put lid on and whack the fan on and, hopefully, hey presto - a smoke laden gaming board...

...for the chemically curious among you, the dry-ice, sublimes, i.e. goes from a solid, straight to a gas, missing out the liquid phase... to create a cold ground hugging fog effect... common to all those 70's pop group stage videos etc. and cheesy horror movies...

Warnings! - the dry-ice is seriously cold ( −78.5 °C), handle with thick gloves to avoid frost burns, oh and the gas is  CO₂, so open the windows too, to avoid hypercapnia!

If I get it all to work, I'll upload a video... fingers crossed!

Victorian Terrace #2 - Completed!

Finally finished Victorian Terrace #2 today, despite coming down with the lurgy earlier in the week and not really feeling like doing any hobby work. I visited the local apothecary, was prescribed a suitable potion, kept calm and carried on! ;-)

 So without further ado, here's the completed building, all painted and lights in working order...

Front view

I decided to go with a different brick colour, after reading an interesting blog post on East London buildings by the Legatus, here.

Side view

I also added some posters to the gable ends, some themed from EotD and other general Victoriana I found on the web.

Rear view

I also added some grassy weeds to the rear yard, just to give it a little life and contrast.

Another side view

Close up posters

Infernium, the fuel of the future, rumored to be the crystallized blood of fallen angels!

More posters

Some street scenes...

Having two buildings complete now means I can start to get some decent cameos, with one building providing the back drop to the other. As you can tell I also went back and added posters to the original red brick terrace building and again added weeds to its rear yard too.

Lights go on as twilight approaches (main room lights off, just display case halogens on)...sorry pics get a little blurry here, the camera struggles with the low light and shaky hand! Sorry.

Proper night time shots (room lights off completely)... very pleased with these, rather atmospheric I think!

And finally the two buildings together, on the 4' x 4' base board I made for goblin town. It will do till I sort out a board with a fully cobbled surface.

So final total build time on second house was 7.5 weeks. Much better than the 5 months the first one took me! But I did concentrate more purposefully upon it, once I knew Requiem was immanent and I had learnt a lot from building the first one...

What next then, I hear you cry? I need to clear the painting table, as its currently got some FOW begleit troops on it before I can make a start on the Requiem figures... And as for the next building... I am thinking about doing a corner public house...