Tuesday 25 January 2011

Desert terrain pieces for WW2

The Ilkley Lads need some terrain bits for Vapnartak. Four minefields, two built up areas and twenty seven dug-in markers.

Mine fields. These are 4mm ply, drilled for wire (spear off-cuts) posts. Wire is 'unwound' picture hanging wire. I decided to paint the wire rusty - 'metal' wire always looks a bit odd to me.


A couple of desert buildings. The ones on the left (very nice little models) are of unknown manufacture with scratch built 'compound'. The one on the left is scratch built, the surrounding wall is made of cat litter. Palm trees are white metal (I don't know by who).


Dug-in markers. At some point I may buy and paint dug-in figures. Until then I'll use markers. I'll need lots, so I made a mould and cast them in plaster.
Master, mould box and mould. I used a sheet of glass to make the bottom of the mould smooth and completely level.

Plaster of Paris in, then scraped flat (the reason for making the mould on glass). Bottoms are almost flat - so very little sanding is required.
One soon becomes fifteen - making masters and moulds save lots of time in the long run!

Once dry, and a quick rub of sandpaper on the bottoms, I PVA glued them to thin card. Plaster is brittle, and this should protect the thin leading edge. The card was trimmed (to nothing) before painting.
All paint is household emulsion and a bit of artists acrylic.

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