Finished Pill Boxes

Finished the 4 Pill Boxes, with some green flock and dry brushing, the bottom three pictures show the destroyed Pill Box with the wire mesh picked out in rust colour. Over all very please with how these have turned out, they will bring the coastal defences up to strength in combination with the heavy coastal battery already produced.

Next up I will be having a go at producing some explosion markers, both on the ground and also air burst explosions. I have also been looking at producing 10mm scale buildings for my Early WW1 set up. I have briefly blogged about this before. The GHQ micro collection has been expanded over the last two years, so time to explore the possibilities. 

TTFN

Airhead

Bunker busting

OK so it should be "Pill Box busting" to go with the other titles in this project, but Bunker busting sounds much better in my opinion. the first picture shows the pill box before the application of PVA and sand to texture it. The construction was identical to the other three pill box's up to the point at which I started to destroy it!

The wire mesh was quite soft and easy to cut with a craft knife. I was going for the idea that the pill box had been destroyed by a direct hit on the roof by a heavy artillery shell or large bomb. I wanted the pill box to still be recognisable as a pill box, so not reduced to a pile of rubble. So 2 out of the 6 sides have been destroyed and the roof slab of concrete shattered and pushed off to the front and sides. Please with how its worked so fare and I must find more projects to use the mesh in.

More pictures of this one and the three others finished to follow shortly.

TTFN

Airhead

Pill Box progress

Just a quick update on the progress on the pill box front, bottom picture shows the pill box's PVA'd and covered with sand, the rigid plastic of the cocktail stick container takes the PVA glue best if it is rubbed down with sandpaper first to provide a key for the PVA to stick to, otherwise the PVA beads on the surface.

The top picture shows the start of the construction of the destroyed pill box, the mesh is from a car body repair pack. Its soft aluminium and can be trimmed with a knife, the roof section has pencil lines showing where the roof will be cut up.

TTFN

Airhead

Cocktail sticks into Pill Boxes

After all the trees this year I thought it was about time I went back to producing something of a more military nature. I always intended to produce some pill boxes to support my costal artillery bunker from July last year (link). In my local Morrisons supper market I was looking for some cocktail sticks for another project, and when I found them low and behold they came packaged in a great little hexagonal plastic box. The perfect size and shape for a 15mm scale pill box. And for the princely sum of 36p.

The second picture from the top shows the container cut into four sections. They then have roofs cut from art board and round bases to mount them onto. I then cut out some blast walls to go either side of the door. To save on the amount of time spent on producing the pill boxes, rather than cutting gun slits into the brittle plastic I cut slits into rectangles of art board and then stuck these onto the pill boxes.

Next up will be adding terrain to the bases and make a start on the destroyed pill box.

Till next time.

Free Trees Finished

Not bad for a bunch of twigs from out of the garden, finally flocked the bases and put some small clumps of foliage on the base as well. On the bottom picture in the center at the bottom of the central tree you can see some tree roots that I added made from wire, to give the impression of tree roots growing out of the high ground. Click on the picture for a bigger version. Worked out quite well.


I'm not sure about the new blogger interface, I don't like change... but I suppose I'll get used to it. I hardly have time for posting at the moment never mind learning a new interface.


A big thanks to all the people who have posted pictures and comments on this years Salute. Some mixed comments from what I have read. But from my point of view the games looked up to their usual high standard with some nice inspiration.


Next up, back to something of a more military nature, 36p for 4 pill boxes.


TTFN


Airhead

Free trees 4

More progress on the 3 tree bases, pictures at the top show supports added to the bases of the trees, to help give the trunks a more natural appearance. The Bottom to pictures show the trees when they were just inserted into the holes cut into the bases. £ picture from the bottom up shows the trees with added bases from art card with the spaces filled with poundland filler and smoothed into the base. Then PVA and sand is added to cover the filler and they are painted to match the light grey of the trunks.

On the procurement/shopping front I have managed to find some Matt Black car spray paint in my local poundland, after this was mentioned on a blog. Sorry no idea who it was that original mentioned this product on their blog. I will let you know how this product turns out.

TTFN

Airhead

Forest update

Slow but steady progress on the forest front, the top picture shows two of the CD size bases I'm using for my sedum tree stands, made from foam board on CD's with holes cut in for the trees to slot into. The base on the left has had filler and PVA and sand added to smooth out the contours of the foam board.

The other three pictures show progress with the mod-rock base which fits over the top of the soft hill. I hot glued the twigs into position for tree trunks and then small pebbles and rocks to create the look of broken ground. The first picture shows the expanded polystyrene in position to create the tops of the trees, this will be covered with green sponge flock. I've undercoated it with black acrylic paint to make any gaps in the flock less visible.

I had a good trip to the WMMS show at Alumwell last weekend, picked up some pre-ordered kit from pendraken (FIW & WW1), splashed some cash with Mr Pig as usual, four Zevezda models for £2.50p each, 3 Russian trucks which will stand in as Japanese for my Pacific set up, and a PzII, and some bargains on the book front. Most amusing sight, chap with a small bag of sand and gravel. Lots of great demonstration games to look at, a great WW1 trench set up and lots of others.

TTFN

Airhead