Tree and scatter terrain

I mentioned in my last post that I was working on some new terrain. Now that it is finished I thought I would show it off with some minis. First though, a straight shot of the terrain I put together. The trees I covered in my last post, the dwarf head statues are made by Scibor Miniatures and the bases trays are made by warbases.

Here's a picture of rangers of Oakenheim patrolling the borders of the forest, ensuring there are no incursions by pesky goblins or foul undead.

And finally a photo of a few of my vikings emerging from the forest. 

I just have to get them on to the battlefield now, though who knows how long it will be before that is possible. At least the new stuff will not die horribly in their first game.

Treemendus terrain

Trees, a vital part of most fantasy battlefields. I have tried several times to make my own, but never really been satisfied with the finished result or the amount of time spent. And yet pre-made trees can be very expensive. So I was quite happy to spot a relative bargain on ebay, some busch pine trees at just over £10 for 15 reasonable sized specimens. I just had to work out how to "plant" them.

The tree "trunk" is nothing more than a twisted wire, on railroad layouts they are designed to be pressed into polystyrene terrain. But for us wargamers we usually have our trees on a flat base for ease of gaming, preferably removable to make way for troops. 

My bases are mdf trays (I got them from warbases, they are actually advertised as pond bases but I thought they were a good size for small copses/scatter terrain). How to get the tree to stand up on them? I toyed with the idea of bulking the trunk up with masking tape and using it to somehow stick to the bases, but it never really seemed a good idea and would also require additional painting. I wanted something a bit quicker and easier. 

The idea to use wooden beads came from my wife. They already have a hole so no need for drilling. Just glue them to the base, pop in a tree, job done. There are probably better ones available, more cylindrical rather than round, but these were in the house so they got used.

I applied some ground texture using a mix of diluted pva glue, sand and small stones, and tile grout. This is essentially what I use on my figure bases. I made it quite fluid and poured it onto the bases rather than apply with a brush or stick, then added extra sand to firm it up. When it was partly dry I pushed it up around the beads to hide them better. 

With the trees in place the beads are practically invisible, and when they are painted I reckon they will just disappear. I am hoping that I literally will not be able to see the wood(en beads) for the trees! I will report back when they are finished.

Rocky Scatter Terrain

Over the past few weeks I have been tinkering with some scatter terrain, just a short session here and there. I want to build some hills, but I thought I would get some practise making simpler scatter terrain to begin with. The main component of these pieces is tree bark, which I collected from a nearby forest. When trees are felled there are quite often chunks of bark nearby. Note that I do not rip bark from living trees, that would be a nasty trick even a horrid goblin would think twice about.

The bases for the terrain varies. The standing stones are based on foamboard, while the random rock piles are based on thick card. I tried to chamfer the edges a little, just using a standard craft knife. The bark was cut with a craft (jeweller) saw and I glued them on with pva glue. Then I left them for a few days to ensure the joins were (ahem) rock solid.

The bark pieces were primed white and then painted to look like rocks. I used an emulsion tester pot as the base grey, then browns, ochres and a black wash. Then I added shadows and highlights using green grey and beige glazes. Finally, I added some green tinges to represent mossy growth.

The ground was made from a mix of fine sand, tile grout and pva glue. Brown tile grout, mixed with sand makes a fairly natural looking sandy earth colour. Mixed up to a paste consistency, it's possible to apply it with little undulations, for a more natural look. When it dries, the tile grout makes it a very solid base. It's possible to use it like this, unpainted, though I did add a few washes around the stones and rocks for a little variation in ground tones.

The final step was to add vegetation. I spread thinned pva on to the ground and sprinkled on some scatter, adding darker and lighter colours to provide a little texture. I also used some scrub/tree foliage, which you can buy from rail model suppliers or online. Again, I just scattered it at random. All the vegetation was sealed with wet water (a half and half mix of screen wash and water) and very dilute pva - about 3:1 water:pva. When it's fully dried, it gives a very durable finish, with little or no shedding of scatter materials. The final step was to add a few patches of static grass and tufts.

Scattered on to my playing mat, the terrain does look pretty convincing. But don't take my word for it! We asked a local mountain dweller and rock expert for his opinion.

"Aye, it's definitely a rock"

Battle Mat day 2

After yesterday's adventure with spray cans, today is the day to play with pva glue and flocks. I used watered down pva glue with a little screen wash (I read that this helps to break surface tension and makes adhesion easier). A little thing I discovered is to paint this on to the mat in circular motions rather than straight lines, for a more natural clumping look. I used a one inch decorating paint brush for this stage, I could have saved time with a larger brush.

Flocking time

I used a selection of flocks that I had in my terrain box. A medium green for the majority of the covering, with a yellow green for a few sparse highlights. I also had some very dark (soil) flock which I mixed with the medium green for a dark green shade. I tried to make distinct clumps of green with a few darker areas in between.

Flocked

After the flock was added I sprinkled on some clump foliage, to represent scrub, weed bushes, etc. It's tempting to go to town here and really start blending it all in, but this is just a quick game board so it was on to the next step. Some very diluted pva and screen wash was sprayed over the whole mat, I tried to give it a really good soaking. Then I lifted the whole thing and dragged it down in to a sunny corner in the garden to dry off. The fact that most of the flock and foliage did not tip off at this stage I took to be a good sign.

Sunny corner

I guess I spent about two hours in total, spraying paint, applying pva and flocks, then soaking the whole thing. Hopefully, when it's fully dry it will stick to the mat and not shed flock in the house. Time will tell!

Battle Mat on the cheap

The other day I was in the supermarket (Aldi) and spotted these grass mats, priced at £7 each. With a size of 2m x 1m (roughly 6ft x 3ft), I thought it would be ideal for my dining table, which is sized 5ft x 3ft. The original mat is rather a lurid green shade, but I had a plan.

Vivid green mats

Armed with a trio of rattle cans and a window of fine dry weather, I sprayed some random patches to dull down the green.

Field Grey, Dunkelgelb, British Uniform spray cans

After a few minutes, the first pass looked like this. The next stage is to add some flock and grass.

Already looking less uniform green

Less than ten minutes to get to this stage. I want the paint to be fully dried before I move on, and have a browse through my collection of flocks.

Viking Longhouse WIP

Returning from a spring break holiday, I was looking for something quick and easy to do to get me back into the hobby groove. I know, I thought to myself, I will get the roof on the viking super hut, that should be simple enough. What a mistaken idea that was!

I bought the tiling sheets from the ever dependable warbases. They come in A4 size and are strips of a thick card, laser cut. You have to cut each strip to size and glue it on to your roof. It's probably quite easy with a standard roof, but with all the slopes and angles it proved quite time consuming. Two afternoons of pretty tedious hobbying later, and it looks like this. Almost there I think, I am pondering whether to put a beam across the apex.

It looks good, but it's definitely a job for the dedicated enthusiast. All future roofs will probably be turfed!

Dark Ages village growing

More progress on the viking longhouse - I have replaced the mdf roof supports with twigs from the garden. These were leftover from a prune of my birch trees. The twigs were dried in the microwave, then roughly cut to size. I trimmed off the bark as I figured it would just drop off anyway over time. I chose a random size and positioning along the sides of the building, but the front has slightly straighter and thicker "tree trunks" to make it an imposing entrance for visitors. I might add some decoration on these entrance pillars. The work on this building is now almost complete, just the roof tiling and ground texture to add.

Two plastic buildings are also ready for priming. The lake town house I modified slightly by covering the leaded windows with wooden shutters made from coffee stirrers. There are still a few bits left over from the house boxset, which I will be using as walkways through the muddy ground. The other building is a Renedra ramshackle barn, which I built straight from the box with no modifications. There's also a cart, this was another Sarissa kit which I modified a little with balsa wheels and harness.

That's three quite imposing buildings to start my viking settlement, I think I need some more basic dwellings next, which I hope to scratch build. I also want to add more extras to really bring it all to life - fishing nets, benches, cooking utensils, and such like. And fencing, lots of fencing.

Viking Longhouse

I had quite a few viking gifts for Yuletide, one of which was the Sarissa Precision longhouse. It's a really characterful building, though as with all mdf kits can look a bit flat, something I wanted to attempt to remedy. So I decided to add some texture to the building walls, in the shape of wooden coffee stirrers. These are easy to cut, trim and glue, it just takes a little extra time to add some basic beams to make the building more lifelike, less flat pack.

If this had been a standard building, this could have been the end point, nice and simple to do. However, this is a longhouse, the residence of the jarl and it has a very fancy roof, which complicated matters a little.

The new beams made fitting the side roofing a little more challenging. The usual precision fit was affected by the addition of the coffee stirrers, resulting in some gaps where pieces would normally have butted together. I also had to trim some of the roof supports because the coffee stirrer beams had covered some of the holes where they were inserted - I had mistakenly taken these to be window slots. Not a catastrophe by any means, just a little extra work to get it all together. The roof gaps I filled with wooden poles from an incense jar. My vikings don't like the smell of manure, they prefer the sweet smell of lavender and pine.

With the roof poles added the build is nearly complete. The roof tiles will have to wait, I will probably buy some from warbases. When these go on I will make sure they fit right up to the walls, so all current gaps will disappear.

I am really happy with the end product. The little modifications have taken me some time, but I think it's well worth the effort. As I said, without the complication of the side roof it would have been really easy to do.

I think more modifications are needed, as the roof corners each need a pole to support it. And I am toying with the idea of replacing the rather uniform struts with something a bit more rustic, it shouldn't be too hard to do. Something to make it look more like the Trelleborg viking longhouse.

Lake Town Fun

As you can probably see from this photo, one of my gifts this year was a Lake Town House from the Lord of the Rings range. I had thought it had good potential, as the architecture style was generic enough to be used as a Rohan, Viking, Victorian era or general fantasy building. The walkways could be used as in the box, as a harbour side, or in a muddy village setting as pathways (I got this idea in a recreated Danelaw village in Yorkshire). The boat would have lots of uses and there are quite a few little extras like baskets, barrels and such like. Here you can see the house built, with the square wooden platform intended as the house base, instead used as a dock/jetty.

As I was building the couple of barrels I remembered I had a set of Renedra barrels squirreled away and cracked them open too. My dock area quickly filled up and I was just about to throw away the used sprue, when it occurred to me that it could be a useful frame. A little bit of work cutting and glueing coffee stirrers to the used sprue and I had a second dock area. They could also be used to make elementary shapes, to make planked buildings like small sheds or animal shelters. Fun times.

May The What?

Incident at Hab Zone 161

May the Fourth Be With You. It's a thing, apparently.

I am not really much of a Star Wars fan, but I do like a good pun. To celebrate this great day for geeks everywhere, I put my sci fi collection together with my newly painted  rocky outcrops for this little image which I have grandly titled Incident at Hab Zone 161.

The figures are from the (long forgotten?) Sedition Wars range. They painted up really nicely and would make a great little force for a skirmish game. I really should get some more of them painted.

This is the kind of sci fi look I prefer, less Star Wars or 40K, more Moon Base Alpha.* The base in the background is the start, potentially, of a little side project, just primed at the moment. I really should not get distracted, this is what happens when you tidy your garage!

*from the series Space 1999, with hair styles courtesy of UFO

Rocky Outcrops

Having a tidy up in the garage, I came across these random shapes. I had made them some time ago, from gap filler foam - the stuff used by builders and plumbers to fill in holes. It comes in a tube and I just sprayed a few blobs on to greaseproof paper (baking parchment). When they were dry I peeled off the paper and removed some of the weirder lumps with a hobby saw. Then I partly brush primed them white, fearing that solvent primer would simply melt them, then left them to dry. And then found them again several months later. With renewed resolve I speedily painted them, using army painter primer and some cheap craft paints. The primer did not seem to affect the foam as I had feared. Quick and easy rocky outcrops to add to my desert terrain collection. Now I just need some figures to explore this new wonderland!

With shrubs and (real) rocks

With spaceship wreckage

Battlefield in a Box - ooh catchy, somebody should register that name

Painting a Hill

Painting terrain is a nice break from the usual grind of soldiers. It's possible to blast through in a couple of hours, especially on a nice sunny day when you can dry each of the stages in the garden. I dug out a plastic hill to see just how fast it could be done.

Primed white, then Army Painter English Uniform

Shaded various browns, Woodland Scenics Earth and Windsor and Newton Raw Umber

Rocks painted grey/buff with cheap craft paints

Rocks shaded with grey, stippled blue/grey, final shade with umber gouache

The gouache I picked up in an art shop specifically to use on terrain projects. It's almost solid in the jar, a little goes a long way. Dilute it with water, mix with other paints and apply with a big old brush. The theory is that after it's dry you can wet a brush and remove it, but I just use it as a wet pigment or shader.

In total the hill took me around two hours, some of which was me relaxing on a bench in the garden soaking up vitamin D while the washes dried in the sun. It was a really enjoyable change of pace from the usual stuff.

Desert outcrop?

My original idea was to paint up the groundwork in this way, then add some turf and grass to make it a backdrop for my photography (and use in games of course). However, I realise it almost perfectly matches my desert terrain mat. So I could just stop here and use it in desert battles.

Some of my figures actually don't mind this barren feature and look quite at home on the hill terrain, but most would prefer a bit more foliage. I think I will sleep on it, maybe get a few desert games out of it before I cover it with flock and turf. My next batch of figures to be painted will take me a few weeks so I have plenty of time to decide. At least this dwarf is happy at the moment, no doubt there will be grumbling when the grass starts to grow.

Lightweight and Portable Gaming Board?

I spotted these in Halfords (UK car parts shop) the other day and thought they might be feasible to use as a lightweight gaming board. Weighing in at just over 2kg and costing £10 I thought it was worth investigation. As you can see from the wrapper, they fit together to make a 6x4 board. My dining table is 5x3, which is fine for skirmish games like Saga, but can feel a bit cramped for Warhammer, even Dragon Rampant. So I was hoping that it would provide a cheap solution. I could either use it straight from the pack as a table extension, draping a cloth over it, or add some texture and paint.

Opening up the pack, there was a fairly strong chemical smell - there is a little card in there suggesting they are opened in a well ventilated room and left for 24 hours. I pieced them together and was surprised how snugly they fit together. However, they are very light and would be unsuitable for use on a small dining table, the overhanging areas would not be rigid enough, I doubt they would hold the weight of a metal regiment. I will probably put them to use in my garage, laying them on a large table (table tennis size). It remains to be seen how well they take pva glue, texture (sand, gravel, etc) and paint - that's an experiment for later in the month I think.

In place on the dining room table

Interlocks well, but not colour matched if that matters to you

Tile reverse, maybe useful in a sci fi setting?

Iron Hill Dwarfs rumours

It seems that Games Workshop have not abandoned the Lord of the Rings range. At the Warhammer fest event over the weekend details have emerged of some new models, including these rather nice Iron Hill Dwarves. The game system has been taken over by ForgeWorld, so they will probably end up being at the premium end of the price range, but it's always nice to see new figures for the game. It's a system that I came to a bit late, I managed to pick up quite a few cheap plastic items on ebay but some of the more desirable old metals are far beyond my price bracket. It has been mentioned that some of the old, discontinued range will be re-released, so I will be keeping my eye on developments there.

As much as I love the dwarfs, there was one news item that really got my attention. This Lake Town house was in the ForgeWorld cabinets, but some forum posters are claiming it will be a plastic kit and that it is scheduled for release later in the year. If this rumour is true, that would be amazing news. I have been looking to build some viking/Rohan/dark ages terrain for a while and have always balked at the idea of scratch building stuff like this. While there are some reasonable mdf kits around, none of them quite capture this kind of level of awesome detail. If it is true, I think I have my xmas list sorted already!

More desert terrain

A little more scatter terrain added to my collection. The trees are made from garden cuttings - ivy makes great gnarled and twisted trunks. The foliage is horse hair, sprinkled with flock, though I might revisit this step to add more. There's nothing painted here, just the bases. I liked the natural look of the twigs so decided not to add anything to it.

The rocks are even simpler to make. Collect rocks, glue to base, paint base, done. Interesting looking rocks are essential here, again unpainted because I liked the natural tones of the real thing. The plants are also natural, some kind of lichen I think - I find it lying around on the floor of the forest after a storm, presumably it is blown from the tree bark. I mixed up some dilute pva, sprayed the lichen - this stiffens them up and hopefully will preserve them for some time. If they do rot away, there's always more post storm walks to be taken. The grass tufts are Gamer Grass, I posted a review a while back.

The desert terrain collection is coming along nicely now. There are ruined buildings, a crashed ship and some craters. Then these new pieces add a more natural element. Next up I will attempt some hills and rock formations to give some substantial cover and the interest to a battlefield that height always brings. Maybe a few more trees and bushes to round things off.

Desert Trees Ideas

Not local, nor hilly

Real life has been busy recently, so I have had little time for hobby activity. Over the weekend the sun came out for a short while, so after a nice walk up a local hill, it was time for a less nice session of gardening. Pruning and tidying the garden, I discovered that a huge ivy had blown off the neighbour's roof and was hanging down the side of my house, blocking access. I had to remove it as best I could. Now if there's one thing I like less than gardening, it's heights, so perching on top of a ladder wrestling with some very tough ivy vines was not my idea of a pleasant afternoon. Still, once it was done and in the garden recycle bin, I could celebrate with a beer and the rugby down the pub.

A few days later I was admiring the latest update on possibly my favourite blog, the Gardens of Hecate, and it got me thinking about my desert terrain collection. Trees are probably the last thing on my desert list, but I was inspired by the effect a few lone trees could have. Googling desert trees returned images of what are basically bare twigs - some with a little vegetation. And that's where the ivy comes in - what could be better as a gnarled and twisted tree trunk? So back to the garden recycle bin I went and rescued some of the old vines. Suddenly the gardening session seems so much more worthwhile.

This final image shows just how simple a desert tree can be. These should be really easy to "build" and base, to add some easy vegetation to my desert gaming board. It's also an interesting picture for the hill feature in the background. Desert hills or dunes have been on my mind for some time, but they require a little more planning and effort than the twigs. I have started to gather materials, from which ideas will materialise - but that's another post for another time. I am hoping to get some hobby time over the Easter break. A handful of desert trees and maybe a few thickets of scrub and thorny bushes should be easy enough to knock together. We shall see.