Monday, June 02, 2014

Durins Causeway continued...

Happy Birthday Mrs Queen, thanks for the long holiday weekend! The long weekend here has seen more terrain modelling work on Durins Causeway, and the Watcher Board.

I have skim coated the whole structure of the causeway, in polyfilla, and then built up the rocky areas using off cut chunks of white poly, (left over from the pirate isle build) and expanding foam filler (Sika Boom)...

I also sourced some bright yellow LEDs to have a go at making some flame effects with water effects resin, for the gullies in the base... but that will wait for next weekend, probably...

So here's the causeway done up to this point...



The left side wall panel, with 'shooting gallery' for goblins... pillars still to be constructed...


More expanding foam filler added... to side wall...


...and main board...


The foam filler will then be carved up with a box cutter knife into a more rock like appearance,  getting rid of the unnatural ballooning circular whirls... this will then be skin coated in filler again, and finally painted with sand textured paint...

The only thing I am pondering now is, I started this build going off the game base dimensions quoted in the scenario; a 24" x 36" board. Then I decided to add the side wall... The only problem is, when I now add this side wall to the board, for the rocky wall with goblins shooting gallery... it looks VERY close to the causeway... compared to movie images... whether its just a case of, well get used to it, that's how I've made it... OR... expand the width of the board, moving the side wall further away and adding an extra piece of base board and back rock wall section to join it all up??? I'm going to have to ponder this... I cant make it too far away, or the goblin bows will be out of range!

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Back to the Watcher board, and I have had great success with the 'Envirotex Lite' epoxy... for the water area. I made three successive pourings and each dried easily and clear within about 5 hours. I used a translucent dye (Olive Brown) in the mix to darken the colour of the water. Once this was dry I went over the top surface with 'Liquitex Gloss Gel Medium', and used a stippling effect with end of a make-up blusher brush - a spare one rescued from wifeypoos stash - she wont notice one went missing surely??? ;-)  This has dried well and I am very happy with the result.

I am just putting finishing touches to the stream and water fall, should be able to put finished pics up Monday or Tuesday... and then finally get to play the Watcher in the Water scenario... its been a long wait!

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To finish off the weekend, Chris and I had a game, continuing on from the last battle game we had that featured on his blog, the rescue the artifact one... the gist of this game was 350pts of woodelves led by a weakened Legolas, fleeing through Mirkwood, but having evaded their pursuit from the battlefield, are then ambushed by beast in the woods; wargs, spiders and bats... It was a quick and brutal little game, which Chris might write up for his blog, so I wont spoil the read by giving the result here!

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As a final touch for the weekend, having completed the Hobbit dwarfs, and little weapon stash yesterday, I couldn't help but break open the Trolls; Bert, Tom and Bill and got them assembled today... great models, cant wait to paint them up!

Busy busy as always... till next time...

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PS - forgot to mention this before but Ste is having a give away , check out his excellent blog here:
http://offtclub.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/as-promised-competition-time.html

PPS - After the switch to Google+ comments trial - I wasn't happy that it still wasn't giving me an email feed of comments (couldn't find any setting to tweak to change this), nor was it logging any comments as a number at the bottom of the post on screen, plus the comments pane within blogger 'desktop' had disappeared ... so I switched back to routine Blogger Comments... If you have left a comment under Google+ comments, it may well have now disappeared... Thanks for putting up with the disturbance to service here!

UPDATE - 6/6/14 - Just noticed, since the side panel had not been attached to anything, as the glued on foam blocks and expanding foam has dried the wall piece has warped in over ... stupid mistake to make... so That kinda forces my hand - I'll widen the board and glue extra mdf sheet with reinforcing strips to counter the warping of the side panel.... I am actually now thinking of adding a piece behind the top door of main panel, a flight of stairs down to it... this would allow a join up with Dwarrowdelf section and Balins tomb... modelling megalomania - my mind knows no bounds - or sanity!? ;-)

36 comments:

  1. Sensational! This should play brilliantly, you might have to film it for us and add a thumping backing track!

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  2. It's already great and just keeps getting better Scott!

    Christopher

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  3. Brilliant piece of terrain, can't wait to see it completed.

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    1. Thank you Sir, a little ways yet still but I'm getting there!

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  4. Just amazing! Why not just change the range of the bows for this particular scenario due to smoke/dark etc and save yourself the extra building?

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    1. Thanks, yes they are good suggestions, will have to have a think...

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  5. Coming along very nicely, Scott. The foam filler has a nice strength to weight ratio too. I used to to fill the inside of the hill terrain I used in my Haenju game. Very sturdy and easy to apply and later cut. Best, Dean

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    1. Thanks. Yes it messy to apply ( I wore disposable latex gloves) as its an absolute sod get off skin unless you have the spray solvent. Agreed its light and easy to cut/carve once cured.

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  6. Great stuff.. Expanding foam..a great idea.

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  7. That is fantastic coming along nicely. Are you going to create platforms for sneaky goblins to stand on and fire arrows?

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    1. Thanks Simon, probably just the blue framed 'shooting gallery' for now from the side... I reckon once some appear there, and those following shooting down from top level, that should be enough firing positions...

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  8. Fecking hell... fecking coming along lovely!

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  9. This one looks amazing! I would never have such dilemmas, "to expand such a huge construction or not" because I don't have where to keep it afterwards! You have! So, expand it, make it great, make it a masterpiece!
    Panagiotis.

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    1. Thanks you Panagiotis. I agree and am tempted to widened it to improve the 'look and feel'

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  10. Bloody fantastic so far. LED lights!! Bloody fantastic idea!!

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    1. Thanks - I got that idea from Celevue on One Ring Forum, how he made a campfire for his Weathertop sceanrio...

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  11. Outstanding stuff Scott. Normally I would say to build terrain to work within the rules, but in this instance 18 inches would be restrictive. How about a house rule that Goblins on the ledge can shoot anything on the board?

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    1. Many thanks, I was thinking something along those lines, as the goblins will be shooting down, so ranges should be increased...

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  12. Coming along nicely mate. Seeing as you're using led's in the base why not make the rock wall for the goblins free standing and place as near or far as feels right. Then you could game it with the lights off like your EoTD houses! Stick the soundtrack on in the background and you're good to go. Also it might make it easier to store.
    Either way it still looks awesome, I'm amazed you can keep the image of it straight in your head whilst building.

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    1. You raise a valid point Ste , thanks, some good ideas there...

      I must admit a lot of builds are from ideas in my head, - I rarely make a plan before hand - I am not that organised! I just keep building till it looks right... :-)

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  13. This thing is monstrous! Nobody can accuse you of lacking vision mate :-)

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  14. This is really shaping up to be quite a project! The goblin shooting gallery might work better for gaming a a free standing piece.

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  15. I thought I had already commented on this post, and have just read the PPS. Anyway lovely progress Scott!

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  16. My anticipation for seeing this finish is really building! It's definitely going to be sweet!

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  17. Replies
    1. Thanks :-) Made a little more headway last night, having widened the base board by 9" and have the side wall in place now...

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