Clearing the decks part two

The other project that got finished off to make way for the Sea Vixen was a large piece of gaming terrain.

This is the Ruined Tower made from the Hirst Arts mold number 65.

I'm not going in to the construction here because Bruce does a fantastic job of this on his web site. I will however mention the "landscaping". I have been looking in to making modular terrain for my war games table (to be built this winter .... after the Vixen!). I found an ideal material at my local Home Depot. It's DuPont's insulating board. Its a dense foam that comes in many thicknesses. I picked 1". The pieces come in 8 foot lengths so I was able to cut four, two foot square terrain bases from it.

The ruined tower sits on the first completed terrain base. The raised portion is another piece of foam board cut to shape with a bread knife and then sculpted with a modelling knife. The exposed rock was base coated with grey primer. The rest of the piece is coated with a sandy color I picked up in the odds and ends bin at my local paint store.

All the subsequent materials used were Woodland scenic products. I washed the base coat with a dark earth and dark green washes. I then sprinkled four different flocks to get the changes in vegetation color I was looking for. The pool and stream were made using realistic water (great stuff if you read the directions and ONLY pour 1/8th of an inch at a time).

Some large pieces of flock were added and then Army Painter tufts finished the look. Everything was "locked" in place with Woodlands Scenic Glue. Wonderful stuff.

Check it out. the perfect place for the Amon Sul scenario!

Getting Started

My primary pastime can be summed up in one word TOYS. I love toys especially the ones I played with as a child. It was this regression that got me back in to playing with and more specifically painting toy soldiers. I specifically call them toy soldiers because in my mind that is what they are. Even though I might spend hours painting them, researching uniforms and trying to present them the best way I can they are at the end of the day toy soldiers.

The quality and sheer depth of available resources has changed by orders of magnitude since the time I first bought some Hinchliffe Napoleonics way way back. I'm guessing Games Workshop ( a lightning rod for many people) had much to do with this as they explored the world of plastics after buying Citadel Miniatures. Even in the area of materials for basing the figures there have been changes. The recent release of Army Painters "tufts" has brought a new dimension to my bases.

Since this is my first post I had thought I would talk about some miniature I had painted recently but I'm actually going to show a picture of a scenic item I built. If you haven't heard of Hirst Arts before I suggest you check out the site Hirst Arts

While browsing the net looking for ressources I could use I came across this part of the hobby which simply fascinated me. I dipped my toe in the water by purchasing two molds. The first was to build dungeon walls for a Mage Knight Dungeon game, the other was to build a Ruined Tower for Lord Of The Rings (LOTR) games.

Here is the result of building the dungeon walls.

Making the castings to build these walls was straightforward if not a little tedious. I used dental stone which I sourced from a vendor on the net. After making about 20 casts of the mold and baking the resulting pieces it was a little like making simple lego models. The fit of the pieces is very good so within an hour I had all 26 walls built.

If you decide to give this a shot I highly recommend following Bruce Hirsts directions on casting using the wet water method. This avoids almost every blemish in the casting process and is actually very easy. "Wet water" you ask? Read the directions :-)

Painting was also straightforward although the paint had to be thin to get it in to all the joints between the pieces. I used a black undercoat and then went with three successive layers of dry brushed on greys to get the depth. Worked out fine and I actually ended up selling this on eBay for a nice price.