#making terrain

[a-wa-c]

Eyes in the Fields

These are like 90% done, just need to add some discolouration to everything for that Turnip28 grungy feel.

Otherwise, happy with the whole eyes poking out of the wheat fields look. Might add some little greebly bits on as well for some more variety.

[the-crimson-king]

Tutorial! Post-apocalyptic Roads, part 2:

Hey there, I'm back with part two of my tutorial on how to make cheap and easy roads for post apocalyptic wargaming! Part 2 is about painting - here we go!

Last time we got to the point of undercoating the roads with matt black spray. Now time to grab the stuff you need:

* acrylic paint - light grey, black, brown, white

* masking tape (the thinner one about 1" wide)

* big old DIY-styke paintbrush, I used a 1" wide brush

* sponge - I used a bit of a kitchen sponge with the scourer bit torn off

* steel ruler & pencil

So! Step one is to mix up a nice dark grey with a hint of brown in it - not too much. I used black and light grey acrylic mixed and added brown until I was happy with the colour. Then just do a nice drybrush over the whole surface. It's tough and ready, but any major mistakes can be covered up, and besides road surfaces are rarely uniform anyways.

Then I do another lighter drybrush with just the light grey acrylic, concentrating on the edges of the damaged bits especially.

If you're doing a lot of roads I would do them all at the same time if you have the space, because it ensures that they roads match up colour-wise.

After this step, I left the roads 24 hours to thoroughly dry, as I didn't want the masking tape used in the next step to pull any paint off.

After 24 hours, time to do road markings. Now, a note here: mine are really basic road markings and probably don't really match any from any country. You can obviously adapt this system for yourself.

I used a couple of off-cuts of cork the same width as the roads to make some markers for the lines. Mine are 6mm wide so I marked the middle of the 4" road off-cuts and then marked 3mm on each side.

You can just about see the pencil lines on there. With an off-cut at each end of the road, I put my steel ruler between the markings to act as a guide for laying out two long pieces of masking tape.

There's the centre line for the road markings. I decided to make my white lines 1 inch long, and in order to keep the lines uniformly spaced that means having a 1/2 inch bit of bare asphalt at each end, then dividing the remaining space into inches.

Here's the spacing I've marked on the masking tape (gently so as not to sent the cork underneath). Then put more tape on to cover the areas that are bare asphalt between the white lines - as you can see, there's a half-inch on each end and then it's staggered along. Unfortunately my masking tape isn't exactly 1" wide so I had to do two pieces overlapped slightly.

Now that's done, time to paint! With the sponge I dabbed light grey acrylic into the gaps. It's important to only use a little paint (wipe most of it off the sponge with a paper towel - this is like drybrushing. Drysponging?) If you use too much paint it can sleep under the masking tape.

Then use white acrylic and the sponge for the next step.

If you're careful you can peel the masking tape off while the paint's still wet. Here's the result!

If you're *really* careful and managed to peel off the tape in one piece you can even re-use the masking tape 'ladder' to stick onto the next road section.

Hope you liked the tutorial! You can add extra details too, like tyre skid-marks and cracks etc, which i will detail next time, but you can use them like this and they look pretty good all together!

[a-wa-c]

May I interest you in a tiny palet in this trying time?

Making some scatter for Trench Crusade.

[a-wa-c]

All hail the Grand Painting Stick, and all palets of crates thereupon.

[a-wa-c]

In progress for some farmland terrain I'm building. Should be good for a few games - specifically AoS and Turnip28 - and is some wheat fields filled with eyes, some simple fences, and a ruined barn structure.

[a-wa-c]

Updating my trench-building techniques. Overall looking far better, and with a different glue for much tighter grip between the wood and foam.

Picking up some corrugated card tomorrow so I can start adding some rusted sheet metal to other sides for more variety.

After that, it'll be some homemade sculptamold alternative on top along with a heat gun to add some variation and we should be golden.

[a-wa-c]

Finally got most of the pieces together for the negative space trenches.

Next step is the mod podge on the red corrugated card to seal it, and then a homemade sculptamold alternative onto the top.

It's a shame it's winter atm, but I'm sure a little time near the fire will help get everything set.

[a-wa-c]

Still lots more work to do, but it's coming together well