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

Free trees 3

Good progress on the sedum trees, I've started to make the 3 CD size bases the trees will go on. 4-5 of the Sedum trees per base with some smaller trees and shrubs as well. The bases are made from foam core board with sand PVA and small stones, I'm trying to make the bases terrain features in their own rights with the ground work consisting of small hills and gullies on the bases. I'm trying to re-create the type of terrain that I remember from watching the Last of The Mohicans film. Lots of running up and down terrain as I remember it?

The trees have now been spray painted with grey matt primer spray and the tops with matt black, this all helps to make the sedum's more robust. Then they have been dry brushed on the tops with a combination of green acrylic paints.The thing that makes the most impact regarding durability is the combination of PVA and sand applied to the branches of the stem, I have done this up to 3 times over the same parts to increase the strength of the branches. They will never be the most robust of terrain items but with sensible handling they should have a reasonable life span on the table top.

The top picture shows how the top leafy part of the trees look after the PVA and sawdust has been applied and spray painted.

Right of to pre-order some 10mm Indians and Rogers ranger from Pendraken to pick up at the WMMS show on Sunday.

All the best

Airhead

Free Trees 2

Steady progress on the sedum trees, the top picture shows the first three stages, the bare twig on the left, with added masking tape on the central one. Bound round the trunk and once bulked up the last strip of masking top put on vertically running up the trunk to reduce the visibility of the tap bound round the stem. The last picture on the right shows the trunk and branches with PVA and sand applied a number of times. I did think about spraying the seed pods on the top with a PVA and water mixture, but in the end went with the less subtle method of dunking the top into neat PVA in a small tub.

The middle picture shows more PVA applied directly to the top of the tree, which is then spread out with a paint brush, then covered with a scattering of saw dust. So fare its worked quite well. Once dry I'll spray the trees with grey primer paint and then the top part with the saw dust I'll spray that bit black, then it will be down to dry brushing on a number of different shades of green. Then its down to thinking about how to base them.

TTFN

Airhead