'Desert' Isle finished!

The weekend saw me finish work on my Desert Isle... OK, its not exactly 'desert' like, it's got a fair bit of grass cover for starters! But you get the idea I am sure, right? ;-)

Anyhoo, I went round the edge of the cliffs and beaches with some Woodland scenics Realistic Water, to add a 'wet look'. Once dry I then mixed some white paint and Water Effects together and went round again adding in wavelets on the beaches, and water splashes against the rocks.

I also painted the top of one of my games tables sea turquoisey blue (It's a Dulux paint, local shade known as 'Otaki Forks')

So there you go, basic Isle, suitable for many settings and scenarios... but you know I couldn't resist dressing it up a bit, so dug out my jungle vegetation and some rocks and let my pirates have a brief explore!

"Arr, there be treasure here mate!"

"So, where's that darned 'X' ?"  !!!

Hope to see it in action, sometime soon! Though I will need to finish off my little jollyboat, so my pirates can at least get from ship to shore! ;-)

Desert Isle - Part 4, WIP - virtually done! And LOTR Battle Report (Link)

Work has continued apace, over the weekend, with several projects on the go, both terrain and figures... the desert isle getting the lion share of time... it was time to paint it up...

First up, I went with an earthy dark brown base tone and painted the rocky areas in this...

I then dry brushed on a mid grey, followed by a lighter grey. I included a little brown paint in both mixes, just to give the grey colours a little 'warmth'...

I then glued on some fine beach sand to the beach areas... with thinned PVA glue....

Then painted this over in a sandy yellow and PVA glue mix to colour it and seal it down...

Once all that was dry I flocked the rest of the isle interior with Mid Green static grass over a green paint/PVA glue mix, with my flock shaker...

So this gives a simple base for our Island themed games, whether Pirates in the Caribbean, or some Isle off the coastline of Middle-Earth, or perhaps some Isle, where strange goings on are occurring in the Victorian world of Empire of the Dead...

I made a whole load of jungle themed terrain and Palm Trees some time ago that will nicely fill the Isle with vegetation... Or if not jungle then regular woods and bushes will do nicely with some suitable ruins or some such...

The final bit to do here is to add some Woodland Scenics realistic water and water effects to have some waves lapping gently up the beaches, and splashing up against the rocks...

I also managed to just about finish the Ford for our Flight to the Ford scenario... and got all my hills re-flocked and ... I got the Nine Mounted Ringwraiths finished painted, just need to varnish and base detail them...

And rather excitedly, I manged to find that WitchKing of Angmar mounted model I was after. Struck a deal with a nice chap from Australia, that I found via the Facebook 'Wargames Buy and Sell' Group. See, Facebook is actually useful for something after all! ;-) So, if I can get him painted up in the next week, that completes the Nine, with the right model to lead them!

A busy weekends modelling was capped with a thrilling but brutal game of LOTR SBG with Chris... he had come up with an idea for a scenario-ed battle, and detailed all the forces. His first battle report is here on his blog ...

LOTR battle report on Chris' blog

Chris wanted to do some of his own battle reports, whilst I concentrate on our LOTR Journey book campaign here.

Thanks for looking, it will give him a thrill to see some blog hits :-)

Desert Isle - Part 3, WIP

Continued work on the Isle last night...

This time adding cat litter, along the rocky coastline...

This is just budget cat litter (Countdown Homebrand here in NZ), of varying grain size... which gives a realistic looking rocky or rubble area... but whilst looking cool - its terrible for standing miniatures on so here I am just using it in rocky areas where they wouldn't be going, if they have any sense!

Please note, no cats have had to cross their legs... our cats go out side and do their business in the veggie plot! ;-)

The Cat litter is glued on by first covering the desired area in thinned PVA glue, quite watery, at roughly a 50/50 mix...  This makes the adhesion with the cat litter much better than straight PVA as the cat litter is porous and absorbs the watery gluey mix. The cat litter is then liberally sprinkled over the glued surface and left to dry.

Once dried I brush off the excess, then add another layer of water/glue mix over the top to seal it down.

You could go on like this adding later after layer if you wish to build up the effect.

So there we are, rocks done...

Next up will be to paint up the cliff faces in sand textured paint, then add a sand layer for the beaches. Then paint up all the rocky surfaces, and finally paint and flock the top...

I am going to leave the top flat as is, that way differing setups of hills, rocks, villages vegetation can be placed as required. It will also make storage easier...

Desert Isle - Part 2, WIP

A quick update... Sunday I managed some spare hobby time, so polyfilla'd  the rocky cliffs of the desert isle... a few pics for your perusal...

I left the books in place, though wrapped them in plastic carrier bags in case I got sloppy with the filla...

Next up, fun with cat litter...

I am now pondering ahead to colour scheme, and whether to paint the cliffs a grey colour, or a more limestone/sandstone colour...

Any geologists out there who know a bit about the Caribbean care to advise?

Cheers
Scott

Desert Island Discs... A terrain WIP

Well, I guess if you are going to play some pirate themed games, you're going to need a desert island for them to bury their treasure on!

Many moons ago I had planned on doing one of these, but as usual, distraction by other games led me astray...

Our recent pirate shenanigans using both LotHS rules and EotD rules, elicited a comment from Dave, that I should make a desert isle, so the idea was resurrected... so I'm blaming you for this Dave! ;-)

I thought afterwards I could perhaps also try having a small garrison there of Gondorians or Fiefdom troops for LOTR, and have them try and repel a raid by Corsairs of Umbar! One of the great things about some terrain pieces is its multiple uses! :-)

These guys might finally get an outing too!

I had a left over 4' x 4' x 2" poly sheet, which I took the bread knife to and hacked into it 4 landing sites, which will lead down to beaches, and then hacked in a rocky coastline around the rest.

Yes I know, desert islands are not normally 'square', but I was trying to maximize the playing area for our prospective games...

Having got cut out the general isle shape, I went and got a sheet of 12mm thick MDF. I decided to go thick to try and minimize any warping from using the PVA glue, to glue the poly sheet to it...

I used the poly sheet as a rough template, drew round it, and then set the jigsaw over at as much of an angle as it would go, and cut out a matching shape, allowing extra space all around...

I then used a chisel and tenon saw to further reduce the angle of the beach. I am trying to make terrain, that when you put figures on it, they don't fall over - one of my pet hates!

So we ended up with this...

I then turned it over and applied several strips of duct tape, across the back, along the edges, to again further try and reduce any warping... I hate warping too!

Once all done, I flipped it back over and glued on the poly sheet with PVA. Weighted down with all those spare rule books and history books - they always come in useful for something! ;-)

I then got some off cuts of dense poly foam, and tore it into varying sized pieces with my fingers, then glued these round the perimeter cliffs... several pics below so you can see what I mean:

I left this to dry fully over night. If I have any spare time tomorrow, I'll set to, skim coating all the rocky bits and cliff surfaces with polyfilla.

Once finished the Isle will sit directly on the painted sea surface on my gaming table top... so there will be space to have ships alongside...

While that was done and drying I decided to make a ford section to go with my existing river pieces. I am just about up to the Flight to the Ford scenario, in my Fellowship of the Ring campaign with Chris, so felt this would be a must. 5mm MDF sheet, cut to shape. Some cardboard strips covered in sand textured paint for river banks, and some red lentils for pebbles and river stones in the ford itself. The laborious bit was placing each in turn, rounded side up...

Once that was done, it was left to dry...

Finally on the terrain front for today... I decided to redo my hills. I made a heap ages ago with a polystyrene ceiling tile cutter, but the mouth of the cutter was fairly small, meaning the angle I could cut the poly at was not the best... hence the miniatures falling over problem, so I resolved to fix that and got the bread knife out again and hacked down the hills sides to gentler slopes, and sanded smooth, so the figures wont keep falling over...

Far more figure friendly - I just have to repaint and re-flock them know... a job for tomorrow if the hobby shop has any static grass in stock...

So that was today's terrain effort... might get round to a spot of painting later this evening...

The weather was not the best today, so no guilty feelings being in all day and the kids were out at a friends birthday party, so that was cool too! Sometimes you have to grab opportunities in time when you can!