Wetland

Some wetlands terrain bits. These have taken a long long time to finish. 

This was my test piece using plasticard scraps, tufts, static grass and UV resin. The key unknown was how the resin would react to grass. It’s kind of lumpy, but also could get drawn up the grass/tufts which was something I’d need to avoid.

But first I had to build them. I decided to use 2mm foampvc for the raised bits, which would give a deeper pour (2mm less some for texture and grass). The edges were wide so I could try for a gradual slope and the base was 0.5mm plasticard. This was a mistake (see later).

They were textured and grass added. I used winter/dead static grass to give a decayed tone, but gradually added some of my usual spring and added these to the edges, subsequently adding more spring towards the edge. Tufts were dead shade from WWS. although these were later replaced with winter and autumn from Geek Gaming Scenics. The WWS ones were just too regularly shaped it didn’t look natural.

The pours took an age. Some of the areas were too wide with hindsight and would take a full day on the window sill to set completely - I have a UV light, which sets it, but finger prints are a hazard, so direct sunlight was required. And the heat reaction of the resin setting warped the plasticard. Bugger.

Mistakes were made, so when the resin was done I needed to bend the boards back and sand down the heat sag a bit. I also needed to grass again. This hid dodgy pours, blemishes and allowed a more ragged uneven ‘shoreline’ than the original's cut out foampvc bits. Glue was painted on the resin in wiggly lines for mid water tufts and the new tufts were added. Some small flock bushes were also added. I also added something I’d forgotten to add, a sunken barrel and some logs. I also added some more resin on the banks for shallower areas, as they didn’t look boggy enough for me. I smoothed these out as best I could before more waiting for the resin. These then needed grass to redo the ragged bank look. So much waiting. But they look ok. I’d do some things differently if I was to redo them, but these will do.

This pic is the old tufts:

And  the new again for comparison:

Dirt roads…

 So, April and May kind of got away from me. I’ve been doing bits, but not finished anything. I should have posted WIPs I suppose. Conquistadors and wetland to appear at a future date…

Anyhoo, one of the things was some thin rubber roads from eBay. I got a set of junctions/curves and a set of 3x straights. I decided I’d go for another set of straights just to be on the safe side, but the vendor was ill and I had to wait. I planned on stripping back their flock and repaint/reflock to match my stuff, and to ensure consistency, had to wait for the second set to arrive. Once here I brushed off as much of their flock as I could and gave it a quick base coat and drybrush. The wheel ruts got some Mortarion Grime as that gave a more dirty water/mud feel to those. I entertained resin, bought thought better of it. One of the second set of roads wasn’t as nice a finish, didn’t bother me really, chap had been ill and 5x straights would be enough so cut off the less finished bit and have a short straight if needed. My standard spring flock and some tufts and flowers and job done.

So, some simple dirt roads, reasonably price on eBay and pimped easily enough. Lord Summerisle and changeling for scale.