US Airborne, Roads and some Tanks

I haven't posted in a while, how unusual I can hear you all say, well I have been busy.  I've managed to get quite a lot done in between games of Bolt Action over the last few weeks.

US Airborne

Painting the Fallschirmjagers has slowed right down as I'm yet to figure out how to paint a good looking splinter camo so like all good wargamers I switched to another (easier) project.

A couple squads of US Airborne laying around in the sun.

So far I've managed to finish:

• HQ Squad including (Lieutenant, Medic, Radioman and Forward Observer).
• 2 Squads of 10 men including NCO, 2 Bar and a mix of SMG, Rifles and Carbines.
• 30 Cal LMG team.
• 50 Cal HMG team.
• Sniper team (upright and prone).
• Light Mortar team.

There's probably another 30 miniatures in various stages of completion which I'll probably get done this weekend (maybe *crosses fingers*).

Terrain

Roads, I cut these out of 5mm MDF and glued sand onto them and then painted them with a latex paint.  Nice and easy, maybe and hours work all up.

 

I've got some "wobbly" river pieces cut out just waiting for some attention but I'm just trying to find and easy way of building the banks up a little so they don't look so flat.

Tanks and Vehicles

Just a teaser shot of the tanks I've finished: Sherman M4 Sherman, M4 Sherman 76mm, Stug III Ausf.B, Tiger I and a Warlord Sd.Kfz 250/1 Neu Halftrack.

 

I'll get some more photos of these up in the next couple days, but I must warn you now that the decals may not be accurate for a vehicle operating in North West Europe and the camouflage has been completely made up.

Anyway I'm off to go play another game of Bolt Action.

Terrain: 28mm Ruined Church - Part 1

I've started putting together the ruined church from Dave Graffam Models.  Initially I started building these out of MDF for extra strength but the extra time it took to cut and glue the MDF just sucked all the fun out of building the models.  Foam board is much simpler to put together and coupled with some fast drying white glue the process of putting this together has been very enjoyable.

Foam card makes for a faster build, all this in one evening.

The outer wall goes up first.

The tower starts to take shape.

 

 

 

With a little luck I'll get this finished before my next game tomorrow night, I just can't wait to see it on the table.

Terrain: 28mm Wooden Fences - Part 3

Just a quick update to show where I'm at with the fences.

Some bases cut out of 3mm MDF.

Glued to the bases and left to dry overnight.

In the morning I had these...

The first coat of paint is done, they need a little work here and there but I'll see how they look on the table tomorrow night before I spend too much more time on them.  I'll leave them to dry tonight and then I'll put a bit of flock and some field grass here and there on the bases tomorrow.

Oh and here's a sneak peak of the next terrain project...

Terrain: 28mm Wooden Fences - Part 2

I really haven't been able to spend as much time working on the fences as I would have liked over the last couple days but I have made some progress.

I've managed to build six 15cm longs sections and have started working on the posts.  These were a little more fiddly than I initially thought as the balsa wood doesn't offer too much resistance to a sharp hobby knife.  Remember: saftey first kids.


Very fiddly work, but worth it in the end.

Cutting the grooves in the posts allow for a nice realistic fit to the fence.  I could have just glued them to the two horizontals on the frame but it just didn't look finished.



The posts fit rather nicely.

The extra effort is worth it as it "looks right", well to my eyes anyway.



The first finished fence.

Hmm, some trimming required here I think.

A little bit more effort that I had expected for this step but like everything in this hobby "easy" and "cheap" rarely go together.

MDF bases tomorrow night...

Terrain: 28mm Wooden Fences - Part 1

As great as the table looked on the weekend it just needed a little more "something".  Not quite sure what that "something" is but I'm hoping some fences and telephone poles will get it there.

To start the fences I cut some 1.6mm balsa wood into 3cm strips of varying widths.  I intentionally cut them at varying widths and didn't make too much of an effort to cut straight.



Lots and lot of pailings.

I want my fence sections to be roughly 15cm long, I will probably make some shorter 5cm ones at a later time to give a little flexability when laying out terrain.

The frames were glued and left overnight to dry, only this morning did I notice the glue I used was a fast drying one and I could have continued building these last night... oh well.



15cm fence section frames.

With the dry frames it was simply a case of run a bead of glue alling the horizontal frames and start placing the pailings.  Again I wasn't too careful about how I placed the pailings and i think the angled ones and broken pailings add some character.  I had thought about adding bullet holes to the fence but I want to use these for fantasy games.  Maybe I'll make a section or two later with "modern damage".

A fence, now to base and paint them.

I'm going to pick some more balsa wood today to use as fence posts and then to base them on an mdf strip, add sand, flock and paint.

Dave Graffam Buildings – Wrecked House Part 1

While waiting for the glue to dry on the split ruin building I started working on the wrecked house.  This build was a lot faster than the previous one, so fast in fact that I found myself waiting for glue to dry on this building.

While the column supports were optional in the previous build they’re really needed in this one.  Not so much for the strength in my case but to actually hold the floor in place while I drill and pin it to the walls.  The cardstock columns looked too fiddly to muck around with so I drug out the ever useful balsa wood.

Two 6.5mm strips back to back, cut to length and then glue to the floor.  I gave the glue on the floor fifteen minutes and then glue on the upper floor.  I was happy enough with the results that I added two to the other building too.  An inkwash and a light drybrush should do the job when it’s all dried.

A couple shots to give you and idea of the size of the wrecked house.

While waiting for glue to dry elsewhere I added a few bits of rubble here and there.

After all the construction so far there’s about a third of the MDF sheet left, which may be enough for the tower and ruined cottage.

But even working on three buildings per $5 sheet we’re only talking about $1.66 per building.  Not too shabby at all.

Dave Graffam Buildings – Split Ruin Part 2

Spent a little more time on the split ruin this morning and it just keeps looking better.  I eventually settled on using cardstock for the roof and it looks better than I thought.  It helped that on this model you fold the roof over so it is actually two sheets of cardstock thick.  I’ll have to do that with all the buildings I think.

Here’s a few shots of the building assembled and based.

I’ve added a little bit of sawdust, pebbles and wood chips to add a little 3D rubble.  The rubble on the artwork is great and won’t get in the way of the miniatures so I’ll leave that alone.

Working on the wrecked house now while waiting for the glue to set on this one to dry.  Tonight I’ll start painting the edges of the MDF and give the rubble a grey/black paint/wash and then tomorrow night I’ll look at flocking the rest of the base.  If I’m feeling adventurous enough and I’m not too tired from work I’m thinking of putting a little stone wall near the side door, we’ll see.

These Dave Graffam buildings really are the business.  They’re simple to build, look good and still allow you to get your hobby groove on what’s not to love?

Dave Graffam Buildings – Split Ruin Part 1

Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?  Well I’m no John “Hannibal” Smith (Murdoch maybe) but I’m always happy to improvise.  I had intended on using 3mm MDF and a hot glue gun to put my first Dave Graffam building together but a few test runs of the hot glue gun showed that I had maybe 4-5 seconds before the glue dried too much to reposition the MDF.  This was just a little too quick for me to use it on my first build (ie I’m fit to bouts of procrastination).

First up I cut out one side of a wall section and then traced it onto the MDF.  I took care to make sure the straight edges were in fact straight but the ruined edges I took less acre with.  This is a ruined building after all and I intend to paint the edges so I can hide am edge that’s out a 1mm or two.

I went with adhesive spray to stick the artwork to the MDF because it dries fast and doesn’t tend to run or drip everywhere.

One of the reasons I couldn’t use the hot glue gun is that I wanted to “pin” the walls together.  I have a roll of 0.9mm wire and a 1mm drill bit in a hand drill and it cuts into the MDF like butter.  I drilled into the wall section about a centimetre and glue them in with super glue.

Then drill two holes into the opposing wall section, line the edge with MDF glue and press together.  I let that join dry while I cut out the rest of the artwork and MDF for the opposite wall.  It’s starting to look good even with just three walls and the floor artwork sitting in place.  Again I left it to dry while I cut the floor pieces.

Floor pieces all cut, glued and ready to put into place.  MDF glue on all joining edges and two pins on the left and right edges really give the floors strength.  Not that there will be a lot of weight on them but there’s no chance of getting any bowing that happens with some multi story cardstock buildings.  This build does come with some columns to insert which would help with a cardstock building but I won’t bother with those.  I may paint up some balsa wood pieces and stick them in but I’ll wait and see, they may just get in the way of moving the miniatures around.

Only have the roof left to build now, I was going to just make it out of card but I’m thinking I’ll get some balsa wood or try to find some 1.5mm-2mm thick card.

 

Once the roof goes on I’ll base the building on some 3mm MDF and add some piles to the floors to help break up the “empty box” look that it has going.  Some small off cuts, pebbles and sand should do the job.  One of the other Graffam buildings has some furniture to build so I’ll make some for this too.

About 3 hours of build time to get this far and I’m guessing maybe another hour or two to finish off.  It’s a little slower than I had hoped but things will be a lot quicker on the next ones now that I’ve worked out how to factor in the extra thickness of the MDF to allow the internal walls to match up with the external walls.

Once the construction is finished and the paint dried I’ll give it a coat of matt varnish, especially the floors and outer walls where most of the handling will be.  A great thing is that if a section does get damaged all I have to do is print that page out and glue it over top of the damaged bit, easy fixed!

The actual size of the building is surprising too, I had imagined it much smaller.  A squad could quite easily hunker down inside.  The wrecked house and ruined tower builds are going to be downright impressive!