Finished: Jungle Buildings

 

Well, finished for now. At some point I will probably add some tufts to the bases and I also need to glue the buildings onto their bases (the roofs will be kept as removable for access to the interiors). I was tempted to leave the more elevated buildings unglued to allow figures to be placed underneath the decking, but I did a couple of tests and there isn't quite enough headroom for kneeling figures.

Also, like you if you had read my post yesterday, I am pleasantly surprised to have these finished today.

Plantation Buildings

For my plantation complex, I wanted a slightly more "modern" feel to the buildings so I opted for corrugated iron cladding for the roofs and the walls of the barn. That didn't make sense for the tool shed though as the roof is flat, so I used fine grit sandpaper to simulate tar strips.

This "complex" could also work for a miner's/prospector's base.

Planter's Lodge

Tool Shed

"Outpost"

I believe this shelter was inspired by the Airfix kit. I'm not sure what purpose it serves on the plantation - perhaps a shelter away from the complex?

Water Tank

Barn

At some point I need to make up some bamboo tables and sculpt some coconuts and banana bunches to go in here.

All of these are from Sarissa Precision apart from the barn which is from Charlie Foxtrot Models.

The Village

I decided to thatch all of the village buildings. If you look back to earlier posts, you will see that I used towel strips for this. I should, perhaps, have tried it out first on one building but in my own inimitable style opted just to go for it and do them all at once. Had I been more sensible I might have achieved a better result, but they do still look good. I have learned a few lessons for if I do any thatched buildings in future:

1. Soak the strips in diluted PVA before adding them to the roofs (you still need to coat the roofs with undiluted PVA).
2. Make sure all the strips have the loops going the same way - down for a neat look, up for a rough look.
3. For the ridge strips, cut the towel at 90 degrees to the main strips
4. Cut the strips at least an inch longer than they need to be.

Village Huts

The first hut is from Warbases, the rest are from Sarissa Precision.

Big Hut

This one was from Warbases. The laser etched "woven palm" detail was not very deep, which meant that it doesn't really show through as well as it should, and it got filled too much for washes to help re-define it.

Village Community House

I only too a photo from one long side as the other is identical (apart from static grass pattern).

this was another Sarissa Precision kit.

Colonial Residence

I imagine this as the domicile of a team of missionaries or maybe a wealthy planter or miner.

This was also a Sarissa Precision kit.

I think that's enough buildings for me to be going on with. I might get some more of the village huts at some point and I have made a note of how I painted these for future additions.

Now I need to work out what I want to do next. I think I might have a go at making some log bridges for my jungle collection.

Wednesday Workbench 07 July

 Progress on the kunai grass and bamboo thicket bases has been much better than anticipated. The filler had dried quicker than expected so I was able to paint the bases last night. Today I worked on the kunai bases, adding texture paste for the paths which was then painted and dry-brushed. I then added static grass:

I've also dry-brushed the "kunai grass" plastic plants on their mats:

Before dry-brushing

Dry-brushed vs no dry-brushed

All dry-brushed

The dry-brushing was done using a rather old and scrappy 38mm (1.5") decorating brush; the paint was "English Sage" from Wilko. It's had a nice effect of toning down and matting the plants. I'll be gluing them onto the pegs this evening once the static grass glue has had a chance to fully cure. I'll only need about half of the plants on these mats, so will have plenty left to do more bases later on.

The bamboo bases have only been base-coated:

This evening I'll add texture paste for the paths, then paint and dry-brush them in the morning and adding static grass and some herbs in the afternoon. I'll also be dry-brushing the bamboo stems, but they'll have to be done individually so it could take a while to do all 250 of them.

Along with some more tree bases I ordered from Charlie Foxtrot Models, I had also ordered a Workshop/Garage kit. When I went to dry-fit it for assembly I discovered that I'd been sent a kit with two identical roof panels (they should be different as one is meant to overlap the other at the ridge). Colin sent out a replacement roof panel which arrived today. However, it was from a different kit so the some of the tab holes were in the wrong places. Rather than asking him to send another out, I just removed the tabs on the trusses where they didn't match up with the holes:

I'm going to be cladding the roof and walls to make this a storage/working shed for the plantations. The roof will be corrugated iron, but I haven't decided on the wall cladding yet. I might go corrugated iron or maybe bamboo and planks.