Skellies Part 2 - the barrow

 So, I had a thick (5cm) lump of insulation foam, but it wasn’t really enough to do anything suitably useful, maybe a stand alone hill, but of course the Bronze Age-y-ness of the Oathmark undead meant a long barrow…

Of course, me being me and not wanting to have a sizeable bit of unplayable terrain, I wanted an interior…

Thankfully, for some reason, I had a hot wire cutter still in its packaging (the model shop in town closed about twenty years ago) and it was just wide enough so cutting out the interior wasn’t horrendous. Straight vertical edges were though. After a bit of fiddly trimming, the interior walls were lined with 5mm foam cut into slabs and textured with a rock. Larger stones (and the roof) were done with 20mm blue foam - I swear the black foam takes imprints from the rock better than the blue. The slab motif continued to the exterior. Much evening out was done with sandpaper and air dry clay (budget meant limiting myself to what I had available).

The bits cut out of the interior will eventually become smaller closed off barrows.

Campaign Map Part 6

Next batch - mostly woods. 

And so far:

These group shots are very useful as it gives me a better idea of how it’s coming together. Case in point, I changed two tiles, adding two new river pieces, one as marshland and a fork going in the opposite direction. Much more practical than a hill tile and another walled farm tile. But I’ve got such an itch to do more. I’ve loved this project.

Just a couple of villages to do now. Need to attack the edges with some sandpaper though, some are very snug - looks like there are little knobs from the 3D supports that will need seeing to…

Campaign Map Part 5

 Next batch, marsh, moors and a couple of bits to make up numbers in the batch. Points of interest - my own little Isle of Ely, standing stones, ruins and an isolated moor hall/farm. Last pic is everything so far…

Campaign Map Part 3

 Well, that’s all 50 pretty much done.

16 river tiles, including a manor, 2 villages, 2 woodland and 3 river bends.

34 lowland tiles, including a town, a manor, a henge, a ruin, 2 farms, 2 villages, 5 marshes (including a monastery), 4 isolated barns/cottages, and sundry woods, hills, moors and fields.

If I had the cash, I’d get more tiles as I’ve really enjoyed making these. Mountains and coasts may yet happen.

Campaign Map Part 2

Progress so far:

A henge tile and some moor/hilly terrain tiles:

A manor house and a village on river tiles:

Ruins:

Farmland, including a village and a courtyard farm:

And forest/woodland tiles, including a village and some occasional fields:

I’ve some river tiles still being worked on, including marshland.

I’m currently at about 37 tiles done, with 13 to go. I need more river and another marsh (currently at 12 including 2 marshes). The plastic ME set had 48 tiles, 24 of which were river, but they don’t appear to have distinguished between wood and farm land. At the moment, not planning on doing mountains or coastal.

EDIT: Forgot to add… I added some steel washers I found in a drawer looking for some bits, as I realised I’d need a way to track the party on the map. I’ve made some banner markers with bits and added a small magnet at the base, just strong enough to keep them upright.

 

Randomness

 So, end of December and January almost done. But I have been busy… just not finished anything.

All simmering projects that get to move a bit as I’m still out of work. Oathmark Goblins (infantry and slave sprues) have been mixed and matched and almost set for finishing, but I needed a change… so looking at my homemade Mighty Empires lite to act as a Five Leagues campaign map. I’m basing the tiles on what terrain I have so will be river, village/farm, plains and forest initially. I have some 3d printed tiles a while back (50 of them) but they have a little lip within the larger boundary lip, so have been using plasticard to bring it up to one level. This has allowed me to work on the tiles, before committing it to the hex tiles as I was very unsure if this would work. But it’s looking pretty good so far. Settlements are 2mm stuff from Irregular Miniatures and I had some of the tokens from the original 90’s edition of Mighty Empires, and they match quite nicely. 

Captain Kronos WIP

A quick WIP of the next Hammer homage…

 

Very happy with these even though my greenstuff is pretty much off. Just not sure when I’ll have a painting mojo moment…

A source of fan cobblestone…

 Right, I’ve found a decent textured wallpaper that has a 28mm passable fan cobblestone pattern (the larger end of acceptable that works for me):

This was a quick paint job and drybrush and is serviceable with a bit of dressing. This is the original finish:

I found more sandstone colours as well with the same pattern. This was from here: https://wallpapersales.co.uk/acatalog/gb6175-mosaic-berkeley-seriano-wallpaper.html - which did samples for £1.20 and what arrived is A2 folded. So I only painted half of an A4ish after folding as supplied. A roll is £13.

Here: https://www.homeflairdecor.co.uk/berkeley-mosaic-arch-texture-pewter-wallpaper-by-seriano-gb-6174-p2982 - is the beige one which has a nice picture that convinced me the texture was good. But is now out of stock.

I think this works. Sadly I don’t think it will work for me as it’s very European and/or fantasy and I’m more Tudor England at the moment and they don’t quite work. But, anyone doing Three Musketeers, WW2, Frostgrave, etc. I highly recommend it. Even the sample size (if you can stretch out the creases) would be enough for a posh square or plaza. Hope it’s of use to someone…

Market Hall WIP 6

The Market Hall gaol gets some straw and a slop bucket. The straw is bristles cut from an old toothbrush, the bucket from a very handy set of market goods from Etsy.

Mainly baskets , barrels and sacks of grain and veg, a couple of empty baskets and half barrels allowed for dressing both the gaol and also the base of the orange trees I did, complete with some oranges that came off the Temu trees.

This is the rest of the set in progress. That’s a lot of fennel…

 

Market Hall - a splash of colour

I needed to paint some colour… and the plan was always to have some decorative bits.

 

Market Hall WIP 4

Plodding on, not had much mojo lately, but doing little bits often so getting stuff progressing… just the roof tiles to add then painting…

I wanted something carved on the topmost roof section, so I could ID which way round it goes instantly. Toyed with various options, but decided a carved relief of some kind. Much searching and a callout on Lead Adventure provided a bit from the Pegasus Hobbies grim dark cathedral sets.

Now the downside with adding balsa is everything gets a touch bigger. So roof extensions. But the end result should be good. Need to tidy my desk I think.

Market Hall WIP 3

 Market Hall pimping and October is flying by… anyhoo, settled on what I wanted to do for the viewing gallery, stairs from Petite Properties and a new gallery floor giving more space and an overhang. Chair and table for the judge, but no room really for a useable dock in the middle.

Fun fact - dock comes from the Dutch for chicken coop.

Sharpe Bayonet

Obligatory Sharpe reference. A mix of Wargames Atlantic and Perry bits and a Victrix hand for Sweet William, although the arm needs more work.

 

Market Hall WIP 1

Some pimping begins… managed to track down a 4ground market hall at a similar price to when it was in production, so it needs to be brought up to match my other 4ground stuff… interiors textured and a little balsa for the door and window lintels for a bit of depth. Need a lot of balsa to start the timbers externally so just tarted the door to the cell.

Other pics of my older 4ground buildings can be found here, here and here…

Would be nice if some picked them up to continue the line…

Some plastic WIP

 A bit of plastic jiggery pokery from the weekend. Inspired by a post on the Facebook Silver Bayonet page, a native scout option, in this case Lord Summerisle’s ghillie.

I also picked up Here’s The Ruckus that was free with Wargames Illustrated a few months back, so figured I’d build the remaining minis from the Perry sprue that contributed the Living Armour.

Sci-fi City Block WIP 5

Some alternate buttress toppers for when the eagles don’t fit the theme. Made from plasticard, foampvc and some spares for the old Palitoy Millennium Falcon that I got cheap. Magnetised as the eagles.

Sci-fi City Block WIP 4

 Block sign, magnetised and held reasonably well. Jobs a good one.

Sci-fi City Block WIP 3

Art Deco eagles for a Mega-City One flavour. The eagle heads are from a TTCombat building corner gargoyle set, which I can no longer find on their site now. Pimped them up with various precut MDF pieces from eBay for the body and wings.

Lord Summerisle was weekending on my desk.

 

Sci-fi City Block WIP 2

 So… yeah, bigger than planned, but I’m liking it. Feels right. Hope the paint job feels as right. Planning on setting specific magnetised signs and statues to keep it flexible.

Sci-fi City Block

 Part of my vague Mega-City terrain, a corner piece to represent a cityblock or any building really. Made with a foam base structure, chipboard/cardboard cladding, then thin plasticard on the board to allow panels and greebles… the Maelstrom’s Edge greeble sprue will come in handy. Random unfinished block gang member for scale.

And this will go between them. Bits from a Playmobil airport and foam. It will get the same cladding as above, so hopefully it will all work together. I need more foampvc to do the base before I go any further. 

It’s also much bigger than I anticipated. Could be an issue, but plowing on regardless. If it’s too big to store, watch for eBay… 😂