Building of the Week - The Santa Clause

Chris ran an excellent Santa Clause this year though I was struggling with what to do for my target. His painting style was going t be difficult for me to copy and basing was far different from what is my norm I knew I could be providing a less than good match. However he did have some rather nice buildings and I thought I might have a chance of doing something that would fit.

This is a MDF kit that I have managed to loose who makes it but I decided t have some fun with it. The outer walls I coated in Reeves Coarse texture gel leaving the areas of bare brick showing. The inner walls I applied Reeves Gesso primer fr a smoother but not smooth finish. 

Then it was just a basic paint job adding smoke damage and some dirt to the outer walls after using a few different whites to get a more realistic aged look. The inside walls I tried to get a mixed room look without limiting it to much to one period.

I also had some wooden and terracotta bricks I added to the model scattering them around and dropping others down the chimney. Inside is a 28mm figure for scale.

In reality it was not quite as bright as the images look. The windows and sills had to be attached which were easy to do in fact I had no issues at all. It did come with some rubble bits but they looked exactly what they were, bits of board meant to look like rubble, not a jagged edge to be seen.

Several floor area's had tiling but I added sawdust and inked it to make it nice and grubby. I also added a few card roof tiles here and there to add to the clutter without cutting into figure placement space. Last off I used very watered down black paint and splattered the walls to give a sooty effect to the inside of the walls and make it yet more grubby.

It also came with a roof section that was crying out to have tiles attached. I was lucky enough to have a sheet of Warbase tiles in hand s it was just a case of cutting sections out and layering them up on the wooden frame and adding the odd mispositioned one to show them falling out of place, had lots of fun with that. Pre cutting I painted them as a page starting dark grey and working to light through dry brushing.

Last off was the outer base work, flocking and bush planting and I had a great time building it up. Fortunately it made it to Spain without incident and seems t have gone down well.

Building Momentum and Tuft Luck

Got home from work yesterday to a parcel from Leven Miniatures which was no surprise but what was inside the box was unknown. No I was not losing my mind, just one of those situations where you just don't know the score.

Let me explain, 

Mike: I have some new buildings I want you to paint up.

Ian: Great, what are they?

Mike: I will send them to you with a few images of how a couple of them will need to be painted, feel free to paint the rest as you wish.

Ian: OK no problems, look forward to getting them.

Ian (Thinks to self): What buildings, I don't know what buildings.......... oh shinny....... What?........Buildings?.......More Shiney......rinse and repeat  :-)

I guessed a few of them as I was aware what was on the horizon but others are utterly new to me. So you can expect all the buildings above and a few of the ones I want to get painted for the Quatre Bras board on the table over the next month or two. That's the 13 buildings you see here and maybe the same again of my own, yep 52 looks an easy ask for '14

All the buildings pictured above have either just been released or are due to be released in the coming months so these are going to be the first seen painted in most likely all cases.

Not that I stopped there, with some of my spare Christmas money I have bought some more of the excellent Tajima1 tufts as you can see from above. The bottom left are for the 28mm's I am working on now and the ones that will arrive early February, bottom right for the 6mm Napoleonic's whilst the others are mostly for 15mm though will find themselves up and down scale as needed.

So other than time I now have no excuse not to be flicking the brushes around. Lets see if I can get one of the new buildings painted up and blogged before the week is out.

Kardrakes Are Go!!!

Kardrakes Looking For Trouble

WRG 6th gave me 100 Kardrakes, that is 100 JLS/Bow armed troops that really rocked. 4 Units (2 x 24 and 2 x 26) and it was rare that I did not field them when I played. But under FoG these are replaced by a far more sedate Crescent Shielded Medium Infantry armed just with a spear. Now looking at the army list it's fair to bemoan the general loss of missile troops. I mean this is a Persian army it's supposed to be stuffed with bow armed troops but in reality you really don't get much and I think the main reason the Kardrakes became bowless was that they would be so very tough. I kept the odd bow firing troop in the mix to keep the original look even though the new army only allows 72 figures so I plan to rebase the rest and off to E-Bay they will go.



What An Ugly Lot

Originally painted in the late 80's I think. A mix of Essex, Museum Miniatures and Chariot. I really like the mixed look of the whole unit. I still have some more to rebase for this army and the ones I will sell. I also gave them a quick wash in Devlan Mud whilst I have some left. Again Cath took the photo and she has done well including the vines in the background.



Ready For Battle

Not as well painted as I would do in this day and age but if I remember rightly I was rushing them to get them ready for a game in the hope that the extra firepower would give me an edge. Looking now and seeing the bow cases straps unpainted I blush with embarrassment.



Lost in the Grapes.

Rather than wait for the next battle I thought I would take the opportunity to show off the vineyard in this photo shoot. Not sure if these guys are waiting in ambush or waiting for a tipple. Lee popped over last week and said rather nice things about the vineyards so once I have eaten more grapes I will be back into production.

Of Olives and Grapes

Lee and myself agreed to split up the terrain pieces for FoG between us. Off he went and bought most of his agreed bits, oh and lots of other bits we did not discuss (roads, rivers hills.....) I think he thought we were playing in Sherwood Forrest judging by the number of trees he bought. Note to self, must pick a forest in the next game, don't want to see a grown man cry!!!)

My plan was a little more reserved, I planned to build some pieces so all I had to pit against Lee was a few bits of Plasticard! Well time marched on and due to the painting challenge I decided to put the idea on hold whilst I concentrated on getting the lead out. Not that it stopped the idea's flowing and the prep. At last I started with just the one test piece. First up was the vineyard (which also doubles as olive groves), we are allowed a max of 4 of these and I plan to do 6-8 bases as these also act as open fields or can be made into rough ground with markers. The base is simple enough and no reason to buy them. I will also make a few with walls around them to act as enclosed fields as well. The vines (which make better olive trees) are a simple modeling clay bank (DAS terracotta) mounted on lolly sticks that I have stuck cut down grape storks into. The grape storks need to be very well dried out (put in the oven as it cools after Sunday's joint has been removed) or like me just allow to dry out over a few months. These are rather tough and really look the part. Look great as 6mm dead fall and shattered trees. I then painted the banks and lolly stick base, I did this with Vallejo Saddle Brown but a little on the thin side as it allowed the red of the clay to come through which made it look a lot more earthy. I have mixed colours of Woodland Scenics foliage and just cut it into strips and bunches and stuck to the limbs and allowed to dry. When I flocked the base I also added flock around the base of the banks which hides the stick and any gaps that are caused by the shrinking of the clay.

The end result is a little rough and ready but I felt looks the part well enough. From a gaming distance they actually look better. The vines bases are not glued in place so can be moved around to allow figures to move through them. In fact I will use one less bank per terrain piece as it is a bit too crowded. I did mean to add some 15mm figs for scale but forgot in the rush to get Cath to snap them. Wait till we get a game in and I will make sure they feature.

Time wise it took much longer than I expected but I did a lot of it whilst I was ill so that will have slowed it down a fair bit. I will do the rest in one go once I have reloaded on the storks, it takes up more than you would think.

Cheap Terrain

I have two issues at Castle Willey. One is space, with my wife doing a lot of crafting, two kids doing my head in and what can only be described as a significant ASL habit I really don't have a great deal of spare space for figures etc. The other issue is ££££ I really can't afford to spend to much in the way of real money on terrain given that I will not be working any time soon. When I left off wargaming all those years ago we really were not into the best looking terrain anyway. I think I would have developed in that direction for the want of new projects etc. So for the time being I can live with cheap and cheerful. Besides I don't think this looks too bad.

On this shot you don't see the earth effect, look at the larger shot below for that detail. Simple, just steel a few pennies from the kids money box, paint one side and then coat in water down PVA. Then once it has dried just add a little more watered PVA on a few patches and add the desired earth effect or whatever. Once dried add more glue on the unearthed parts and flock. Once it is all dried again (lots of waiting ain't there) add your brush or whatever. I am also doing a few with bits of rock and yet others with a water effect so I can create broken ground and marsh/swamp.

For a better effect use other material than a cut up bit of cloth. This will do me until I see something that I will just know is just right. I have lots of access to cloth off cuts (did I mention Cath did crafting?) So it ticks the cheap box but how about the space problem. Well it all rolls up and stores out of the way. A case of win win if you ask me.