Finished: 20mm Containers and Skips

 

At last, they're done. I did take things slow and steady on these as I'm not in any rush to get things done at the moment.

The Skips

The Containers

These are 20mm from "The Scene" and will be used for Gaslands, Car Wars, etc.

I did finally make it into central London yesterday to do a bit of shopping. 

As well as the mountboard, I also picked up some grey XPS to try out, some rock moulds and  some "Keramistone" (air-drying clay with a grit texture).

Now that I have the A3 mountboard I will be able to base the foam hills I cut out last week. I decided against doing that today in favour of a thorough cleaning my brushes and airbrushes.

Sunday Workbench 02 June

Having drybrushed the scrapheap base on Friday, yesterday I made up a dirty brown wash and applied it all over everything. This morning I realised that I made the wash a bit too dark (and maybe too densely pigmented) and I had to redo all the drybrushing. I also added tufts:

Once they were done, I spent a while cutting up nylon scourers for my hedge-making project. This is what I got from a 10-pack of large (15 x 23 cm) ones:

The strips on the left are shorter, the ones on the right are taller. I have enough here to do just over 10m of low hedges and 12m of tall ones. I actually have another two packs of scourers should I wish to make more.

Later this afternoon I will be gluing them onto tongue depressors. The next few days will see me shaping them a bit so that they don't look quite so neat and regular - I won't go too mad with them as they are just for the club, so will get abused a bit.


UPDATE:

All the strips have now been glued onto tongue depressors. For the shorter (in height) ones, I had some short (length) strips left over, so I used those to make up some gapped hedges.

And in case anyone thinks that the lower boards aren't full:

Overall I have 79 of the short hedge strips and 83 of the taller ones.

Friday Workbench 31 May

I was intending my post today to be AARs of the ADLG games I played yesterday. But I forgot my camera, so there were no pics. I was giving my opponents some practice ahead of the club's one-day competition later this month - the theme is late medieval, so I took a Burgundian Wars Swiss army.

My first game was against Mike R's Order of St John; followed by Dave S's Medieval Spanish (Castille) list. I lost both games, but could have won both if my dice rolls for some crucial combats hadn't been so awful.

However, it was a useful learning experience for me as I now know how to adjust my list for future games - less pikes, more halberdiers (and upgrade some to Elite) and more light troops to make the army a bit larger and more resilient.

With that wittering out of the way, on with today's workbench post.

Today I have mostly been drybrushing the Gaslands scrapyard terrain pieces. I've also glued the spare cars onto some of the bases to add some height.

Tomorrow will see me giving them all a dirty brown wash and when that is dry I will be adding some static grass tufts.

OMG! She's Alive!

aka the hitmen you hired all failed!

It has been rather a long time since I posted last, mostly because I haven't been doing anything hobby-wise since Salute. Until today, that is.

The other day, someone on the club's email group was proposing a multi-player Gaslands game. Just over a year ago, I had painted up a bunch of cheap cars with the intention of making some junkyard terrain pieces. But, inevitably, never got around to doing so. Today I finally made a start on doing so.

As well as the cars, I had cut a bunch of EPVC bases. I glued most of the cars onto these (leaving a few loose, to be added on top of piles later). I then left them for a couple of hours for the glue to cure. It was at this stage that I realised a big mistake I'd made - on the multi-car bases, I should have pre-textured or at least painted the central areas so that white didn't show in the gaps between cars. Oh, well.

I made up some basing gunk - a mix of brown acrylic frame sealant (from Poundland); some bird sand and a little bird grit (both from Wilko) and a splash of water to help make it a little more fluid for spreading. And then I got on with the job of adding gunk to the bases, including in the narrow gaps.

And here's the workbench after all that was done:

I also decided to test glue a strip of scouring pad onto an old painting stick (aka tongue depressor) to see how well the glue would hold it:

The plan is to make up a bunch of hedges for the club's terrain box. If this glue holds the strip firmly, I'll cut a load more and get them glued to sticks, trim them unevenly, add basing gunk, hit them with brown spray paint  and then flock them.

Tomorrow is a bank holiday in the UK, so my plan is to join in a big game of King of the Battlefield at the club - my Russians deserve an outing, having missed the games earlier this year. Of course, that means there won't be any progress on the terrain until Tuesday.

Finished: Gaslands Scatter Terrain

I finished painting these yesterday, gave them a Klear coat and then added some brown acrylic frame sealant to smooth out the bases. This morning I added a bit of Vallejo dark earth texture on top of the acrylic, then when it was dry painted the base with earth colours (I went with a slightly red palette). That was followed by a wash of diluted Strong Tone, followed by an overall drybrush of Tan Yellow to give a dusty finish and a coat of matte varnish.

The pieces are 20mm from Sergeant's Mess. They are intended for use as obstacles for Gaslands.

Monday Workbench 28 May

It's been a bank holiday weekend here in the UK and I have taken advantage of the extra day off to get a decent amount of hobby stuff done. You might think that with all those Australians to paint that I'd have finished the batch I had started on Monday and cranked out another batch.

Well, you'd be wrong. I got a bit distracted by thoughts of Gaslands and decided to prep some cars for teams to run some games at the club. This involved working out some small teams, selecting suitable vehicles for them, disassembling them, stripping the paint jobs, and then adding mesh in the windows and various weapons. And here they are:

That'll be five 40-can teams. I'll get them primed at some point this week and then I'll probably paint them next weekend.

I also finished off adding basing texture to the Sarissa huts:

Now I just need to do some additional washes to the woodwork.


However, today I managed to do all the highlighting, final washes/glazes and adding a Klear coat to the current batch of Aussies. I'll need to spray them with matt varnish at some point this week and then do the basing.

Later on tonight I'll make a start on the next batch. Hopefully I'll make quicker progress with this one and the remainder.

Saturday Workbench 19 May

What's this? Another workbench post?

Yep, well, I got a reasonable amount done today so I thought I'd show you where I've got to.


Gaslands Hazard Tokens:

I did the yellow airbrushing this morning, then used a black Sharpie to do the exclamation marks. I'll be giving them a coat of gloss varnish tomorrow.


Aussie Independent Company:

These chaps got a coat of matt varnish this morning. I'll be ddry-brushing the bases (along with the Papuans) tomorrow.


Gaslands Gates:

Original type

New type

I used the airbrush to lay down the metal base coats on these today. I'll do the weathering later this week or maybe next weekend.


Sarissa Far East Huts:

I cut some strips of white card to resemble roof shingles last night, then stuck them on today. I think they look much better. Here's a before and after comparison pic:

This evening I've added Vallejo dark earth to the bases:

Tomorrow the huts will get primed, although I will need to buy another can of white primer first.


The Battlebus:

I did some zenithal pre-shading on the bus this morning, then laid down the main base colours with the airbrush this afternoon. Looking at the photo I realise that I forgot to do the blue on the horizontal strips. I'll have to do that tomorrow. I might also go over the armour plates with a different colour, maybe a dark grey.

I'll carry on working on it during the week.

Friday Workbench 18 May

I've actually been at home sick for the last three days. I thought I was getting better yesterday, but got worse overnight and was grotty again today. That throws a bit of a spanner in the works for my plans to go to Partizan on Sunday as I know I'll need to rest up and getting up early to get the train to Newark isn't going to help with that.

Despite illness, I have managed to finish highlighting the Aussies and given them a wash to tone them down a little. For some reason I decided to use an equal mix of Strong tone and Vallejo green wash which I used on the green and khaki parts, then used straight Strong Tone on the rest of the figure (not the flesh). I think I prefer the straight strong tone as with the test figure. I've given them a Klear coat, added basing texture (Vallejo dark earth) and then painted that when it was dry.

Tomorrow I'll hit them with a spray of matt varnish before dry-brushing the base. I also repainted the bases of the Papuans and will dry-brush those tomorrow.

I think I'm going to add the basing texture to the rest of the figures before painting them. Once that's done, I'll go over them with primer as there were a few thin/missed patches last time.


As I wasn't up to doing much more on the painting front, and with time to fill, I decided yesterday to put together some of the MDF kits I bought at Campaign. I got them primed today:

The hazard tokens will get airbrushed yellow tomorrow. Then I can add the black markings and varnish them.

I also assembled the two Sarissa far East village huts:

I had an accident (well, two) with the lifted one:

but as you can see I have sorted out one of them and found a workaround for the other. I think I will reinforce the inside corners on the raised one to help protect it during transport.

I'm considering putting these huts on scenic bases to protect the steps. I'll cut a base tomorrow and see what I think. I'll also prime the various sections. For the roof, I think I need to do something - the flat shingles (and gap at apex) just look wrong. I'll probably cut some strips of card and glue those over the top. I might do that before priming the roofs.

I also got the battle-bus primed:

I might start work on painting that tomorrow while I have the airbrush station set up. Or at least get some black and white (and maybe dark grey) pre-shading done. If I have time, I might also get some base colours done. I can then work on the detailing in the evenings next week.