Early May Update

By sneaking some time here and there every few days I have managed to make some progress on a few more bits of terrain.

These 3d printed soviet concrete roads were from Modern Miniatures EU during a sale (there is a common theme with when I buy stuff!) Two variants and they print up pretty quickly. I primed them with Colour Forge Standard Grey, gave them a dry brush with Vallejo castle grey (didn't do much to be honest) and then a dry brush with Vallejo Blue Grey and that really worked well - or did to my eye. I will probably keep to the latter only next time to save time and see if it gives the same result!

I then went in with my standard basing mix, and some tufts. A range of 10mm ones from WWScenics, and some generic 4mm ones that I cannot remember where they came from and just form part of my tuft pile. I'm really happy with how these came out - I think they work well as abandoned roads in the zone.

I finished up some dirt road junctions to match the last batch (seen primed last time!)

I also merged a concrete road with a straight dirt road to get a cross roads, and started painting that after priming in grey.

And base-coated the downed helicopter in gunship green (seemed fitting and easy) and then painted on some markings - all made up!

It then got a good dousing in brown wash, with some areas of rust and grime/slime added too.

Using some 3mm mdf, cut into smaller shapes, I've started to create some pine tree scatter. Adding some small chunks of foam, and then covering in a watered down pva/filler mix. I've got some 3d printed tree stumps (free from thingiverse but can't remember which one I nabbed), I imported it into Tinkercad and cut a 3mm cylindrical hole down the centre where the trees can be seated. I think I will glue them in place to stop them falling out but will test how well they hold in without the glue as the ability to remove individual trees could be handy.

I think they will need some more filler or something to level them off and make the slopes more gentle. Potentially a use for modelling compound or similar.

I added some flock and basing mix to the Witches, Witchfiinder, SOE Ladies and Zombies. I really like the basing mix, the addition of coco fiber and rocks breaks up the flock and gives a more interesting finish. I'll need to experiment with the peninsular flock mix to add some more interest to that.

Eureka Miniatures witches and witchfinder

Bad Squiddo Games SOE Ladies

Kitbashed plastic sprue zombies

And finally after a long time sitting half done, I pushed through finishing off a 3d printed guard house (own design in tinkercad, with some additional scatter elements of resin, 3d prints and sprues.

And a 3d printed sentry hut and road block / check point. Both suit WW2 and were made specifically for 0200 but could do a job in other places.

Well that lasted.....

 A long time since the last post on here, although not as long as before! A run down of the various bits and pieces I am working on.

I've finished the bulk of the German Fallschirmjager for 1940s or early war, still have some Jump Off Points, Replen points (although I need to read the Chain of Command V2 rules more closely for that) and some supports to sort out. I've got their opponents - French Motorcycle troops from Crusader miniatures - so will get them based and ready for painting soon.

I picked up Scrapjacks from Patrick Todoroff as it looked like a fun game and something that would be possible to tinker with solo or with a mate. If I find one of those.

I used mainly Stargrave sprues and some Wargames Atlantic ones (the cannon fodder ones) to make my 'Jacks. Using greenstuff to make them look like they had spacey helmets on. You only need four figures for the main characters.

I also picked up the 12x12 images of the Modular Habitation Units or MHUs. They come as 12x12 images or on PDF. I split up the images into 6 (supposedly) 6x4 images, which meant I could get them printed fro free via Snapfish and their 50 free 6x4 images per month via their app. Postage came to around £4.

From there I pieced them together and used some vinyl self-adhesive floor tiles as the backing. I had the floor tiles lying around from having picked them up cheap in B&M a few years back for a space hulk project (Note to self- may need to get some images of that and add them to this blog).

A Self adhesive vinyl floor tile, approximately 2ft by 1ft.

The tiles were about 1 foot by 2 foot so I got 2 MHUs out of each and by luck I had three tiles total so the full 6 MHUs were sorted! Yay!

I split the tiles in half to give two 1ft square peices for each of the three larger tiles.

It was an easy and quick job, peel off the paper cover to reveal the adhesive side, carefully place down the six photos, aligning them as best I could. I did find here that either the image slicer or Snapfish had cut out about 5mm in the centre join of the images. I only noticed that after I had made a few of the MHUs already so there is a slight discrepancy in the tiles but not enough to cause me any lost sleep.

Peeling off the adhesive backing paper and sticking on the first of 6 photos (6x4) onto the tile.

Once they were stuck on I gave the surface a serious shellacking with spray varnish. If it was going to be heavy use I may have used a brush on yacht varnish but I reckon this will work for now.

The completed MHU tile

Two tiles side by side and coated in spray matt varnish

The next stage is painting up some scatter terrain for the MHUs and some opponents. I am using the leftovers from the same sprues to come up with some raiders/scavengers/bandits, and 3d printing a load of free STLs for the robots or droids.