Look at my bocage!

I finally managed to throw together a few strips of bocage for our Normandy campaign, and I have to say I’m pleased with them!  Just a strip of plastic board, bit of hardfoam on top, sprayed army green, and used the hot glue gun to flock them using the wonderful thick flock from Woodlands!

10 mm bridge

In order to complete the 3+ meters of river tiles I made, I started working on the special features: a bridge for a ground level macadam road, a bridge for a raised earth causeway, and a lock.

First step is making the two bridge sides, and make them equal.  I went for a 7 mm height, to compendate for the unit bases.

A narrow strip of plastic to support the deck is glued in,

The deck is cut out too long, and then sandpapered to size so that the road to bridge transition is smooth.

Penciling in the road and river boundaries.  Using foam and card I build the river banks.  Tomorrow I'm basecoating and brushing the earth tones mix on.

Set of 10 mm river tiles: phase 2

All of the regular tiles have been constructed, plastered, based and painted in a mic of browns and greens, and then covered with a thick layer of home made burnt umber terrain wash - and STILL there is some foam peeking through - but nothing that the subsequent flocking will not take care of.  But before flocking I am going to carefully paint the river bed white, and then gently wash with greens and blues, topped of with a good strong gloss varnish.  Some pieces are still in the pipeline:  The bridge + road crossroad, the river + stream junction, and the lock for the Carentan scenario (and any other scenario where a lock is needed, of course).  All  combined that's over 3 m of river!

Making a river set for 10 mm - phase 1

On the list of terrain I still have to prepare for playing SSOM is a good set of river tiles, including corners and so on.  I cut up a few 100 x 250 mm sheets of pp, 2 mm thick, and started cutting 50 mm wide masking tape.

I cut it in a wavey line, then glued the straight edges in the middle to get a natural flow while still keeping a 50 mm width.  On both edges I indicated a 25 mm bank, in order to make sure the rivers fit together well.

I made a total of 8 straight pieces, that's 2 meters of river, and some corners, 4 straight corners, and a ford.

Using leftover strips of foam I made the rought bank shapes.  After doing all the pieces I cleaned up the edges and made sure the banks more or less aligned.  Not perfectly, but I managed to get rid of the biggest misses using an exacto and a big dollop of patience.

I cut roughly and let the glue dry overnight before starting to refine the shapes: that way I avoided tearing off pieces of foam.

I made up a bowl of home improvement plaster, and started smearing and sculpting.  Quite a lot of plaster went into it, but I did manage to get all corner parts done, and partly finished the ford.  With the plaster not yet completely dry, I start tearing off the masking tape.

Apart from a few smudges, this makes for very nice edges.  The smudges will probably remain, I might try to clean them up later, but it just adds a bit of irregularity.

Second attempt at making modular 10 mm WW2 houses

 I restarted working on a number of modules that will allow me to make a large collection of house fronts and roofs for houses in a row as found in Normandy.  I use pattern sheets and a mix of scratch built components, and add a sheet of plastic, cleaning up the edges with white milliput so I can make clean silicon moulds out of them.

Just for dimension illustration: a 10 mm leader walking past a house.

10 mm windows

I have acquired some windows from houses in HO scale that I have been using, and it kinda works, but I want to try and make my own.  For this, I'll need a two part cast, and 10 mm windows are small!  THe size I'm going for for a full size window is about 6x9 mm.  That means the woodwork is made in 0,5 mm evergreen strips.
It took me the better part of an evening to finish one window, partially finish another (in another style) and finish one window frame, all of those without gap filling and sanding.  On the plus side I have finally found a good use for my 5x magnifier glass.

Not so brilliant mould

I tried to make a mould from a piece of wall with the exact size of a two floor terrace house, and although the borders are now a lot better than the first time around, I failed to notice a dent – not enough putty – in the stone texture.  I’m gonna make some casts in ceramofix, zellane and resin to test the detail and smoothness, but after that, this mould is gonna go where all the others so far have gone: in the bin.  That’s another 5 Euro.  I’m gonna stop using the paste, and start using the liquid version, I expect better results with that, once I have found the perfect container to make moulds in.

10 mm WW II Terrain: French country house and factory

Here's another piece of terrain ready: I acquired a bag full of railroad leftover bits and incomplete kits, and I scrounged some of the bits in order to make houses in an appropriate scale, with decent detail.  For some reason, the pictures didn't perfectly focus, but I'll be buggered if I descend the stairs into the cold again now that I'm sitting here warm and cosy...

First Post! 10 mm bridgehead

These are my first steps in the 10 mm domain:  the first terrain finished that actually looks good enough not to throw into the bin straight away.  It still needs a bit of roughing up, and I'll improve the water once I start on my river beds, but for now it's the proud start.