Terraintober

 Terraintober was being talked about on Twitter so I joined in and tried to finish another building which had been done in a rush to use it in a Demo game but was never entirely finished.

This factory/station was constructed from cork tiles and has stood the test of time quite well, I decided an update was deserved. I have not finished it yet as my other half was concerned that so many models were now in the living areas of the house, but have planned to get back to it when the Dust buildings are done.

I first covered the sides in a textured wall paper and then covered that with brick paper. The texture is not as good looking as the ready made walls I've seen others use. I would get that if starting this from scratch again. I have painted some windows for the small upper windows but am still working out how to do the large windows.

Dust Tactics Buildings an update

 First off I was following a discussion on Twitter about the death of Blogs and more importantly Forums. Which reminded me that I need to update this Blog. There are some things I need to remember about painting some things which are difficult to find on Twitter. Most of these new posts I'm afraid will be mainly picture dumps as I wont remember everything.

These buildings have sat in my games room gathering dust so I moved them into my lounge and spend a half hour on them after I've finished my other painting.

I am currently painting the rear walls which were made out of plastic strips and card.

I am making the floors in a Monopoly style layout.

Wizards Tower II

I have finished my Wizards Tower. It needed a base so I dug out a cardboard Cake base which is sealed on one side and cut it to size. (this had been sitting in my Games room for years awaiting such an occasion). However it had a slight warp in it which only got worse and as the cut edges spread out I decided to use it as a template to cut out a 3mm MDF base. This I had bought in A3 size from the Art shop for a few dollars. When cutting it down I remembered someone on a Forum saying they make their terrain to fit into A4 Paper boxes for storage. I then made sure that this new base was smaller than A4 and grabbed a spare box from work. I also finished the Chimney and painted two Candles and a Torch. I really wanted to add more details inside which I have from Reaper but that would reduce the playing area too much.

Just smaller than a A4 sheet.

Still a few annoying white bits showing through.

Small space to fit a Statue on.

One of the things that had been holding me up on the Berlin board was making debris piles. I grabbed some cut off Foam-core and made a couple of piles which were then covered in filler and spare bits. These came up quite good but I think I will add some Sculptaclay recommended by Lukes APS. I will still use the Foam-core to save some weight though. I think I still need to work on my method of adding grass etc as it looks a bit neat like some gardener had laid it out.

I had some fun this afternoon seeing what other settings the building could be used for.

The terrain that I have for Mordheim at the moment. I have three more of the 4Ground buildings to make up and I need to remove or cover the snow from the GW ruins. I also have a bridge hidden away in a box somewhere for the river crossing.

Battle Kiwi 28mm Church

This has been a learning experience.

I bought this MDF kit at Call to Arms last month and have been working on it almost the whole time since. The kit comes as a pre-primed kit which has been laser cut after priming, so all the detail is burnt MDF colour. This is really useful for bringing out some details but I wanted to improve the look of the grouting/pointing. I first painted everything before assembly as I thought it would be easier to get to some places. (I usually fully assemble my cork tile houses first and the paint them which can be difficult). I also spray painted the interior with the same colour I used on my walls from the last post. I varnished the whole building with some house Varnish. The brush picked up burnt bits and spread these around just like I had planned to weather it. The pointing was done by shaving a pastel crayon which I had bought to try this on my Dads Army shops. (which I never got around to completing). The fine powder was mixed with some enamel thiner and then brushed on with a wide brush. When this was dry I wiped the excess off with a cloth and some White Spirits. It looks a bit patchy in places which is fine for weathering and realistic. However I felt the pastel is a little bit too bright. I mixed up some acrylic paint with some clean boiled water, Flat Medium and flow improver. The colours I used were Brown/Black and Green/Black from Atelier. (because it was cheap) It was hard to tell what the wash would turn out as the medium is very milky before mixing so I experimented a bit. I put the Brown over the whole of the Church and the Green mix around any corners. I'm not sure you can actually tell though. The grouting still looks a bit bright but I keep seeing buildings on TV and locally which look this bright so will leave it alone now other than matt Varnishing it.

The Windows were copied from a link on TMP which I had found the same week as I was building the Church. The round Window is exactly the correct pattern for this window but the side windows needed cutting up before sandwiching between the two halves.

The roof looked a bit plain now so I decided to order some laser cut Tiles from Charlie Fox Trot (as well as a Garage). These tiles went on really easily and came out quite nice. I think that they are a bit over scaled but ordered enough to do at least one of my Berlin Buildings.

The Church is quite large as you can see from the in game phots. I will use it for WW2 and Modern as my Buildings in these collections are large. It would actually do from Norman Times onwards.

The interior Grout showing original colour.

Red Vectors Walls

I mentioned these in an earlier post and now have them on the table.

I think I should have a disclaimer on this Blog that says "I make the mistakes so others don't have to".

Well my plan to use some card covers to add texture was only partly successful! The paint I intend to use on my Berlin buildings turned out to be not very good. It is supposed to be a primer and paint in one can. However I found that the paint would cover the MDF but it would not cover the card at all well. I ended up with blobs of paint in patches on the card. (The card probably has a protective coating on it as it was intended to be used as binding covers). 

So one side of the wall had this blobby coating and the other was clean.  I then covered everything in some Matt Black primer and then doubting the coverage of the top coat I then coated the walls in Brown spray and then over sprayed with the top colour. By this stage the texture was pretty much lost but there is nothing I can do about that. The walls got a wet brush of Vallejo Pale Sand which is close to the 4Ground colour of the House. I also used the same colours on the trim on the wall topping, German Cam Orange Ochre and Green Grey highlighted with Light Grey for the pillar etc. I used my ground technique which I use for my Zulus on this and also picked out the brick work using the same paint mix I used for the roof. The walls turned out quite well and look close in colour to the house once they are put together on the table.

Wall with some scrap from the house kit.

4Ground Detached House 2

At work I received a small reward as a customer said something nice about me. So not having anything else that I needed at the time I thought I'd buy a 4Ground building for WW2. I have some of the Dark Ages buildings and have mixed feelings about them. Mainly making them look realistic so I don't think they are just painted blocks of MDF.

I was quite surprised at how many pieces were in the box but did not like the finish of the roof. My solution was to cut the corners off a heavy paper bag and glue them to cover the joins. I have used folded card board on my Old West buildings, but found that once the glue was applied the card tends to straighten out again which means you need to keep applying pressure to hold them down.  I also had the matching Vallejo paints that match the house so it was an easy job to touch up the burnt edges. I did not have any suitable colour to match the tiling but discovered on Youtube from a Railway Modeller that Green and Red makes the perfect colour. Just use a bit of white to lighten if needed.

 I am quite happy with how this turned out.

The house fits in with my small collection of WW2 terrain. I have had a game set up since Christmas where I use the Cards from TWAT as unit activation and the rules and Dice from Bolt Action. I am not sure what to call the mashup. TWAT Action is the best I can come up with , LOL. I have since bought Chain of Command which I will try once I get bored of this game. Unless I just go back to using TWAT of course.

Over the Christmas break I made up this Sarissa Precision Radar station but did not Blog about it. I added a ladder on the rear, metal plate on the roof, reduced the size of the door and also found some mesh for the dish itself.

WAT arrived on Friday so if I am asked to run a multi player game I will put this on.

These walls came from Mini Bits/Pendragon from were I am buying my MDF bases. They are made by Red Vectors but are a bit basic. They are a good height to block sight for a man on foot or a Tank Driver. I added some textured card to make up for the lack of detail and to add some much needed width. The small balls on the pillars come from my Air Pistol and I also added some detail to the top of the walls. I do not like the gates supplied with the set so will make something up when I get inspired.  I will try and match these to the 4Ground House.