Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 6

Warning!

I should have seen this coming but the Tamiya paint, well moreso the Tamiya Thinners, reacted strangley to the craft paint I initially sprayed on the hedges. Not in a bad way mind you, but weird none the less. Almost a day after I splrayed the Tamiya paint on the hedges the paint still hadn't dried. What I had was a tacky, almost rubbery goo on the surface. After three days now it has dried and hardened up but for a while there I was worried that the hedges were ruined.  So the moral of my tale here is don't mix your paint manufacturers, or better still: test and test again.
 
So back to the hedges....  I've managed to mostly flock two pieces of the hedges using different methods. 
 
 

The hedge below is using Model Scenics Foliage and comes out like a fluffy gauze. I cut out strips and glued them on with MDF glue (it's slow to dry but the fumes won't stink out the house and I have heaps of it). It's the easier of the two to put together and I think it will survive being handled fairly well.  The few places where the foam shows through is pretty clear in the photo ut you really don't notice it on the table.  The only thing I don't like about this one is that the colours are pretty one dimensional.  Also I think I'll get maybe 4-5 of these done from a $14 pack, these could get costly.

The hedge below was made up using a combination of Model Scenics Bushes and some offcuts of the Model Scenics Foliage.  The hedge looks fuller in both depth and colour variation but I'm worried it could suffer from too much handling.  The coverage needs to be fuller using this method as the flat areas of the foam show up against the undulations of the flock.  Once this is done I might even give it a light spray with some spray adhesive to help hold it together.  The process of flocking sothing usig this method is quite slow as you can only do small areas at a time and only one side of the hedge until the other side dries.  I could use the scenics glue as it dries faster, I'll have to investigate this I think.  Again I think I'll get maybe 4-5 of these out of a $14 pack so I need to get down to the game shop and see if they sell bigger/cheaper bags.

I think I'll continue flocking using both methods.  Mainly because I want to use the stuff I already have and secondly I don't want to have all my hedges looking the same.

So far I'm pretty happy with the results of both methods.  The cost is starting to convern me a little but hedges are a common terrain element in just about any wargame so it might be a worthwhile investment.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 5

If you look really carefully at the photo you'll notice millions of tiny little cuts all over my hand... no?  Can't see them?  Well the thinners in the paint did, not immediatley.. oh no it waited, it waited for me to completely coat my hands with the stuff.  Almost got finished and then a tingle... tingle turned to a pins and needles feeling and finally the pins and needles just fricken' hurt.  Luckily all I needed was some warm soapy water and a hug from my youngest.

Hmmm oh yeah I did some more work on the terrain too.  The tree bases below will need a little brush work to bring out some of the details, possibly a bit of flock here and there.

I tried the paint (Tamiya) on a small piece of spare foam and I really expected it to shrivel up, but it didn't so I gave all the hedges a spray of green on the foliage which helped hide almost all of the silver/white bits that were left.

You can see here the coverage is quite good.

Lastly I got the forest bases painted, everything here took almost 5 complete pots of the Tamoya paints but the colours looks great. 

I'll let the paint dry overnight and I'll have a go at flocking the hedges tomorrow.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 4 - Update

I managed to get all the painted hedges glued onto their bases.  Still not sure what I'll do flock wise.  I'd like to use the scenic bushes as that would them a natural look with some nice depth and volume, the catch though is that it's pricey stuff and I'd probably need 3-4 bags at $15 each.  Too pricey, I'll have to see if they have any larger bags available and if that would work out any cheaper.

Tomorrow I'll start putting the flock and sand on the bases of these, the trees and the forest/woods stands.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 4

Not quite sure how to progress with the hedges, the foliage/flock I've bought looks like it might be too chunky and I'm having a little trouble breaking it down.  I decided to put the hedges on hold while I mull it over, so I've turned my attention to the trees.  These should be simpler, so if I take the tree bases (the round ones), the trees themselves, the forest bases and shake it all up...

I end up with this:

A closeup of the base with 28mm Blacktree Wehrmacht miniatures for scale.

Ok so I didn't actually shake this together but they went together pretty easily.  Once the putty is dry I'll add sand and flock, same with the forest bases.  I'm pretty happy with how they're turning out.  I should only need 4-5 trees per forest base to look like a forest while leaving plenty of room for miniatures.  I'm also thinking of making up some bases with rocks and shrubs on them to make parts of the forest innacessible to infantry.

Hmmm... now back to those hedges...

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 3

Trees!  They look nice and they're perfect for 28mm gaming.  Probably won't get much done with them tonight as I really want to get some of the hedges sorted first... but first I need to finish cooking dinner.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 2

I managed to get the airbrush out and gave the foam pieces a first coat.  I'm using cheap poster paint which cost $2.50AUD for around 400ml so I didn't expect the coverage to be great but I'm impressed so far.  The real test will be when it dries as the cheaper paints tend to shrink quite a lot.
 

I found the paint was going on pretty quick and easy so I just kept going, until I ran out of space on the cabinet... so I had to find other perches, like here.

And here...

And here.

I also managed to get a bit of paint on the forest bases, the trees should be arriving either tomorrow or Friday.

I've managed two nights in the shed - in a row - woo hoo I'm on a roll (for me it is).

Plans For Tomorrow:
If the coverage on the hedges is ok after the paint dries then I'll cut up some more bases and start gluing them down, otherwise I'll grab the airbrush out again and give them a second coat.

Terrain - Hedges & Forests Part 1

I needed a break from making the Whitewash City buildings for Gutshot and Sixgun Sound so I thought I really should get some decent scenery and terrain sorted for Nuts.  So I started at lunch today by purchasing some of the Woodland Scenics range of bushes and foliage.

A while ago I had made up a heap of hedges and hedgerow out of the expanded foam found in the PC boxes from work (we throw away sooo much of this stuff).  Initially I was going to have the hedges sit directly on the table but the more I thought about it the more I'm convinced they'll need an MDF base more for weight than stability.

So off to the garage I went and half an hour later I've got these.  The white things are the amazing average looking (but free) expanded foam hedgerows.  The bases have been cut out from 3mm MDF using a jigsaw and then hand filed.

And another shot to better show the scale/size of the hedges.

I had it all planned perfectly.  A liberal snake of MDF glue on the base, press the hedge down and then secure using rubber bands.  Oh it worked so well... until I used up my entire supply of two rubber bands.  I did have a whole gosh darn bag of these somewhere but I couldn't find them anywhere.

A comprimise was settled upon: masking tape.  It works pretty well and servers the purpose well.

I also cut out some 6mm forest bases, I won't do much with these until my e-bay trees arrive from Queensland.  I'd like to base the trees seperatley and just sit them on top.  That will allow for easier storage and the trees can move around the miniatures and not the other way around, which will help with games that use stands and not bases (Warmaster, DBA etc).

One thing I will point out is that I got sick of filing the hedge bases pretty darned quick so I grabbed the router and gave these bases a quick once around.  Didn't come out as good as I'd hoped for but for 30 seconds of work I really can't complain.

So the plan now is to go and watch Fringe and let this stuff dry overnight.  Tomorrow I'll have a look at how well (or not) the glue has bonded.  All going well I think I'll get the airbrush out at hit these hedges with either a black or green undercoat.  Once that's dry I'll try to work out how to put the scenics stuff on.