Tag Archives: terrain

Terrain Week

I needed a break from painting my Germans for Chain Of Command, so starting this past Thursday, and finishing today, I worked on terrain.  I planned on making some bocage, but after a trip to the hobby store, I ended up with some strip styrene to make tank traps with.  Then, I saw some great 15mm stone walls on Brookhurst Hobby’s site, so I ordered those.

bocage_start bocage_start_cross_sectionIn the model airplane section of my local hobby store, I found this curved piece of wood, as well as the flat pice I used as a base.  This will serve as the basis of my bocage.  I glued them together, let it dry overnight, then cut them with a circular saw, since I don’t have anything more subtle.  Then I sanded the sharp edges to a slight curve.

tank_traps_start tank_traps_start_2At that same hobby store, I found this strip styrene.  They had all kinds – I beams, hollow square, etc.  I thought it would be perfect for tank traps.  I used superglue to make the tripods, and glued them to some leftover wood from the bocage base.

The mini is a 15mm Sci-Fi soldier from Rebel Minis.  I’ll be using him as a size reference today. For you Flames Of War players, he’s almost exactly the same size as Battlefront’s plastic soldiers.

walls_startThese are the 15mm walls, cleaned and ready for primer.  They are resin, and are made by Peter Pig.

bocage_primed bocage_with_rocks bocage_with_rocks_paintedI primed the bocage black, glued some model railway ballast rocks to it, and let it dry overnight. Then I used some leftover Citadel sepia shade on it, and let that dry.  Last, I dry brushed it gray.  I like the black / brown / gray combination.

tank_traps_primedI used some vinyl spackling mixed with sand to fill in the base of the tank traps.  I talk about that process in several other blog posts.  I let that dry overnight, then primed it all black.

 

wall_primedAt the same time, I primed the stone walls black.

tanktraps_top tank_traps_completeI painted the tank traps and base.  I used the sepia shade on the base to good effect, I think.  I could probably use more practice painting rusty metal, though.

walls_closeup_full walls_extra_closeI’m really happy with how the walls came out, and they were really easy to paint.  A dry brush of gray, followed by a dry brush of white.  Then a green dry brush for the grass, some light dabs of tan, and a tan paint for the weeds.

The gate is brown, with a yellow-brown highlight and a black wash.

bocage_complete_side

bocage_closeup_2The bocage was a lot more work than the rest.  I used Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue.  I spread it all over the top, then stuck the foliage on it.  I used several different colors.  After it was dry, I touched it up with some more glue and foliage.  When that was dry, I soaked the whole thing in watered down PVA glue.  That took 2 days to dry, but they are pretty solid now.  Nothing is falling off these bocage.

Finally, some static grass on the edges.  I think I need a “greener” static grass.  This is “winter grass”.  I need to get some “summer” grass or something like that.

treesI had originally ordered some Woodland Scenics trees from Amazon when I ordered the foliage, but they turned out to be too small to stick on the bocage, so I based them on the last of the leftover base wood from the bocage in 2 groups of 4.

all_terrain_on_workbench all_terrain_on_grassThe fruits of 7 days of labor.

I’m going to get back to painting my Germans, but at some point I need a lot more trees, some more tank traps, some farm fields, roads, minefields, etc.  The list goes on.

I really enjoy making terrain.  It’s a nice break from painting minis.  Now I can attack my Germans with renewed enthusiasm.

What’s on my Table – June 2013 Edition.

I’m taking a break from painting Dreadball to work on some 15mm stuff I got from Rebel Minis.  I’ve got a Monster Hunter International RPG campaign starting next month, and I want to get some monster minis ready for it.  To that end, I ordered a bunch of werewolves, zombies, cops, FBI agents and more from Rebel Minis and Khurasan.

all_clean

This first batch is from Rebel Minis, since they arrived first.  In fact, I ordered on a Sunday night and they arrived on Thursday.  Now that’s quick service!

There’s a some shipping containers, some sci-fi troops to round out my Earth Force, some “mall cops”, who all have awesome mustaches, werewolves, and government agents.

Here they are after cleaning.

 

primed_and_ready

Here they are primed and ready for paint.  In the back are some minis that have been hanging around my work table waiting for paint for a while now – 2 from GZG and 1 from Khurasan.

 

rebel_minis_15mm_shipping_containers

The finished shipping containers.

 

rebel_minis_15mm_werewolves

The finished werewolves.  They are kinda boring, I think.  Brown on brown.  I tried to get some red on the eyes, but they are too small – I just made a mess that I had to go back and fix.  Same for the teeth.  Anyway, you can tell what they are.

 

In the back of those last two pics, you can kinda see a special order I just got from Khurasan.  More on them and the rest of what’s on my table in a future post.

Happy gaming!

Barbed Wire Barriers

I made some barbed wire barriers, and it was pretty easy.

I used:

  • toothpicks – from my local grocery store
  • steel wire – from my local hardware store
  • rectangular wooden bases – from my local craft store
  • super glue / paint / basing material – the usual stuff

in_production

Take a 3 foot long piece of wire, and fold it in half around a pen or pencil.  Hold both parts of the wire and spin the pen in such a way that one strand wraps around the other strand.  So one stays straight while the other wraps around it.  When this is done, cut the loose ends off, and wrap the whole thing around the pen to make the spiral shape shown above.

Cut 3 sections of toothpick.  I cut the tapered ends off and kept the middle part.  Wire cutters work fine for this.  Take 3 sections and glue them to make the “tank trap” shape show in the picture above.

Glue 2 of the tank traps to each base.  Prime and paint the base and tank traps.  Put your basing material on the base.

Once the whole thing is painted and based, glue on the barbed wire.  Paint some rust / blood on it.

 

wargame barbed wire

There ya go. Cheap and easy.  Fairly quick, too.

I use these to play Gruntz, and I make them impassable to vehicles, and infantry has to stop, and take an extra action to cross them.

Alien Plants

Continuing on with porting my older Imgur articles to this new blog:

I followed this tutorial on the excellent TerraGenesis site and made some alien plants from plastic drinking straws.

alien_plants_w_yellow_900_web

I painted them green, and washed them with black.  Then I based them on some wood rectangles I got at the local craft store.  I glued some sand on the bases and I was done.  Or so I thought.  They looked a bit drab, so I added the yellow to the ends and it really made them pop.

If I was to do them again (and I will, I plan to make a bunch more) I would wash them with brown.

It was a really quick and easy terrain project.

GZG’s 15mm Fuel Drums

I painted up GZG’s 15mm fuel drums (type A) the other day.  They were easy to paint.  I primed them black, dry brushed on some gray, then a smaller dry brush of red-brown for rust.

I based them on some small wood rectangles, then glued some sand on the bases.  Then I washed the sand a sepia color, then dry brushed the sand with a tan.  When that was all dry, I brushed on some very thin PVA glue-water mix to hold it all together a bit more permanently. The I dry brushed some more tan, as I felt it needed a bit more.

GZG Fuel Drums GZG 15mm Fuel Drums

 

That makes for some cheap and easy terrain. 🙂

In the past, I had assembled a card stock “print-and-fold” barrel, and it took a lot of time to cut the small bits out, and gluing such a small thing was tricky.  I think these metal barrels we easier, quicker, and much more durable.