Sunday 3 February 2013

Terrain - Initial Thoughts and Bocage

Good afternoon all, 

For quite some time now a visit to winner Dave's place for a game of FOW, meant taking along some terrain, as I simply don't have very much.


It's well past time I addressed this woeful situation and get my terrain on.  I have one object...get some terrain and get it fast.


Here's my first stab...





High level, I bought a mat for £5 from homebase and cut it up with a craft knife to make the cropped fields.

Then I bought a dark brown mat for £1, from a little hardware store in town.  £1, I should have bought a couple!  Interestingly Mrs winner, mentioned that these looked more realistic than the battlefront battlefield in a box ploughed fields.  I was able to cut these with scissors...very happy.


Next, you've probably seen the roads in DrCox's and Ben's AARs.  So these are made from cork tiles that I bought in homebase.  Again I simply cut them with a craft knife.  I spent some time last night, cuttting the sides of the roads so that they're not so sharp.  The great thing is I still have plenty of tiles left and can use them to make more interesting roads.


Now, none of these things are complete.  I want to chop the crops and add some burn marks etc.  Not sure what to do with the ploughed field, patches of grass?  Leave them alone?  I'm open to suggestions.


Okay, so the one thing I did spend a bit of time on, is the bocage, pictured here.




I made this by first buying a length of floor scotia, covering it in copious amounts of PVA and pouring cat litter on top.  I had to repeat this a couple of times to get the edges.  I don't fancy doing this again, cat litter is horrible to handle and is possibly too large for the scale.  This process took about 3 days.  Once dry I covered the lot in emulsion that i bought from the odds and ends table in B&Q.  This helped tie the whole thing together.  I got the airbrush out after that, various shades of grey on the stones and browns at the bottom.  Then I pva glued some gale force 9 meadow blend flock in and around the stones near the bottom (I'm thinking of adding some more).

To top it off (and this is important)you need a mate called Adam who has two colours of clump foliage.  You need to steal this clump foliage and then with a glue gun stick it all over the top of the stones.  Cheers buddy, I guess I owe you some clump foliage.


Finally I really watered down some pva and using a fat childs paint brush, I dripped it all over the foliage to give it some solidity.




I'm quite happy with it, hope you think its okay too.

Next up, I think i'll focus on the roads.  I think airbrush greys, a wash or two and some flock on the edges.


Thanks for reading.


Winner Dave

4 comments:

  1. Excellent results for the price Sir!!

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  2. Looking better in real life! But dude I said you could borrow the foliage!

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  3. The dark brown mat - Excellent. I have one right beside me. How could I not have seen it's obvious use.
    Great. Thanks!

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  4. If you get some of those green pan scourers, cut a thick piece, stick down onto a lolly stick and then stick on clumos of foilage = instant bocage.

    Bear in mind that the Normandy hedges are TALL. Many reference them towering over the troops (who had to dig through at root level to see into the field they were attached to.

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