Paddy fields

It's been a while but I haven't been slacking, I've been a bust little bee and tonight there's something to show :-)

Having been to Japan several times and seeing the layout of the general landscape (countryside that is, not the urban areas), I've noticed that paddy fields (or tambo) are quite often found on the sides of foothills sloping up to the hills proper so I thought I would make one for the table top.

Quite simple construction really, hardboard base with 25mm insulation foam layers. You've heard it called 'blue' or 'pink' foam but this stuff is actually a strange mustard colour :-/

The foam was roughly cut to shape (three layers, each smaller than the one below) and stuck together. The paths were then cut in because I wanted to get them in the right place to get the 'feel' of the location right and it was easier to do this with all the layers stuck together.

The field borders were made from 2mm thick card cut with a bevelled edge and filled smooth with normal household filler. The whole lot was given a quick sand down to get rid of the worst lumps and then everything apart from the fields themselves were sanded as normal.

I unfortunately didn't take any photos of the intervening stages but it's the same sort of process that I implement on most of the other terrain I make.

The fields themselves were painted with a very dark green and highlighted around the edges and corners. They were then given a coat of yacht varnish and will be given more when the first coat has gone off. The more coats you can put on the better as it really adds to the depth of the water.

At some point in the near future I shall get my boards out and do a sort of photoshoot but enough yammering form me, more photos below :-)

ttfn

28mm Samurai terrain (roadside shrine)

Aha, two posts today? Hell yeah!

Well, I've been off all week with nasty germs and so have had a bit of time (not much though as my wife has been keeping tabs on me) to make things :-)

For the samurai I thought it was about time to make something a bit more than stand alone and so the thought of a roadside shrine to into being.

I wanted to use items that are available from the catalogue just to show what could be possible with a little bit of imagination.

Having come across something similar in Japan it was quite easy to decide the layout which you can see on the right. The figure is an unbased Perry cavalry samurai..

I decided to make the torii from scratch (which they all are) because the ones in the catalogue are already based and I wanted this one integral to the base. Most of these rural shrines have a gravel path leading up to them but I wanted this one to have a disheveled look so some of the border stones are slightly out of place.

This shot shows the final layout and it has also been sanded (sieved builders sand) and covered in thin brown ink. the roof for the moment is separate but everything else is stuck down (a slight mistake on my part but not too troublesome).

Here we have a shot of the basic greenery on the base. I decided to go for three different types of 'growie' for maximum effect and a slightly overgrown appearance.

All the parts were painted in the same way as the catalogue items, I didn't think much point in painting them differently.

The path was drybrushed with various greys and the earth with beiges and tans, building up a nice varied tone throughout.

The growies were added with thinned down white wood glue that was randomly brushed on, the growies being scattered on at three different times, letting each one dry before putting the next one on.

There are a few places where the growies have grown onto the path (hopefully you can see them) and I've also put a few tall grass clumps on just to add to the variation. The trees are old ones from work.

I did think of using some Silfor but it seems everyone is doing it now and I wanted something slightly different. Below we have the beauty shots and there are quite a few because I'm quite pleased with this one :-) I have a few other things of this nature planned but time will tell...

ttfn

A small generic tug boat

Ah crap, it's been to long. And here I was saying that I would get at least a couple of posts a week down...

Anyway, for tonight's viewing pleasure I have a 28mm Victorian tug boat that I've been meaning to do for a while now. If any of you chaps reading this frequent the Lead Adventure Forum (and if you don't I heartily suggest you do!) you will know that I am doing a Victorian sci-fi force of a Japanese colony on Mars. Many troops and flying things have already been done and will get put up here at some point but I have plenty of civvy things in mind to go with the force and this is one of them.

Basic construction is a blue-foam hull with card and balsa wood decking with a card wheel house and plastic tube for the funnel.

The hull sides are from card and took a while as I had to  bend the card (1.5mm thick) and tape it for a couple of days to let the wood glue go off completely. It's not the best way to do it but I was feeling a bit lazy and wanted to get it done. The card was cut off roughly at the bottom following the blue foam and then I took it into work and took a bit more off the bottom with the bandsaw (it was too high as it was). The edging is microstip.

The rear 'hatch' and stowage box are from sheet styrene and perspex with relevant details from microstrip added (hinges etc.).
The figure is an unknown bobby which is actually a rather nice sculpt and was pleasing to paint.

Other little details were added such as the small sand bucket and the ladders to get to the fore deck. Rivets were glued onto the doors, roof and 'boiler' block to add a bit more of a something. I wanted to keep it simple because I know I can get bogged down in detail and not finish what I started. Fortunately, I think there is enough here to look pleasing and to be playable also.

The shot to the left is of the tug with a coat of Halfords grey primer (one of the best all round primers out there I reckon). If you click on the picture itself you can make out the details better. The canvas roll on the side of the boiler block is from Games Workshops Imperial Guard range from one of the tank kits and have proved useful in the past for various projects.

Next was deciding on the colour scheme, something simple was called for but recognizable as a generic tug. In this Google images was my friend and the next shot shows the basic colour design I went for.

The white strip was painted first and then it was masked out with normal masking tape and a scalpel blade was stuck flat to a block to create a constant level to cut the masking tape around the shape of the hull. When doing this a few light strokes are much better than one heavy one because even tough the blade is stuck down (with superglue) it can still drift off line if you're not careful. The lower portion of the tape was removed and a deep red was painted on the bottom of the hull. When this was dry the process was repeated slightly higher up to create the upper edge of the white band, black was painted above this line and when this was dry the masking was removed to reveal an even white line all the way round the hull.

There were some slight mistakes but I left them on as the tug is a work horse and I didn't think the owner would be too bothered by a sloppy paint job ;-)

The deck was painted with Foundry Palomino light and then given several different brown washes to give some depth to the deck. The wheel house was coated with Foundry Granite and washed with a mix of Devlan mud and Thraka green inks again from GW (some really stupid names for their paints :-/  ). It was then dry-brushed with a light grey I had. The stowage box was painted with a light grey, washed with the above and the touched up with normal white paint.

For the rust I mixed a very watery but bright orange ink and used a fine brush to localise where the rust might form. The main hull was dry-brushed with the same light tan colour used for the deck as I wanted to tie the whole thing together and the windows were given a coat of very dark blue with no high lighting because I don't think it works to well. the funnel was given a band of white but I decided to leave the funnel the same colour as the wheel house instead of doing it in more traditional tug colours (tan, red and black) as it will match my Japanese aeroneff force. The chap on the front is a converted Copplestone Chinese general.

The final shot is of the rear and it shows the details off quite well.

I went around most of the edges with a very dark brown ink just to help emphasize  the shading. The rigging (two pictures above) was simply black thread with a touch of thin superglue to hold it in place and as soon as I can get my dratted printer to work again I will print out a Japanese navel ensign just so we know who's it is :-).

If anyone has any questions (because I've been quite brief) then please leave a comment and I'll get back to you. Thanks for reading (if you managed to get through it all). there will be another small post tomorrow about my Hail Caesar samurai and samurai terrain.

ttfn

More yamashiro

Just a short post to show the gateway for the yamashiro that I'm working on at the moment. It's based on several of the many yamashiro that have 'appeared' in Japan in recent times (Think how motte and baily castles are studied in England as an example of what I mean).

This gateway is quite a simple one which will make it quite easy to cast.  It will come fully assembled with the gates under the block house hopefully positionable and either painted or unpainted like all the rest of the catalogue items.

I've still got a wall with an integral building to make amongst other but this is ready to go in the mould this week along with the angled walls and with luck it should be on the website by next week

Of course, there are many different styles of gateway, wall, tower etc but like anything, it's getting the best choice and balance for the wargaming table.

Anyway, enough from me, I have things to make and cycling to watch :-)

ttfn

I have my mojo back !

Well, after a cracking holiday, rather bad e-mail problems and a short time being a couch potato I'm back making things and rather enjoying it as well :-)

First off, I've been busy all weekend making more of the large 15mm samurai terrain commission, a selection of which can be seen on the right here.

Before it goes to the client I think I'll do a proper set up on my boards and get some really good photos done as it all looks quite good at the moment as it is (even though I do say so myself ;-)

There is quite a wide selection of items that were ordered and it's been fun doing them all actually. Whereas my preference is for 28mm, doing these has given me a chance of doing 'more' to fit on the table as it were. I'm not going to drastically change to 15mm but I think I'll get a few more painted and see what small scale rules are out there (skirmish most probably).

Having made a steep Japanese style mountain before in 28mm it wasn't to hard to make a 15mm one, just cutting down the growie detail a little bit and obviously the scale of the trees.

It has a base and rear face of MDF as it will be placed on the table edge.

The flat area on top is for a small temple which is almost ready for casting. It's basically the same as the odou from the 28mm catalogue .

The trees are removable but some of the small bushes have been permanently glued in to break up the large surface area of the mountain side. There is another one to do which will sit in the corner of the table, more on that in a later post.

There are also some river sections that have been done and more to do. It's been quite difficult to get a river colour that I'm happy with but I think with a bit more work this one seems to fit the bill.

The sections need another couple of coats of varnish on them and some slight variations in tone to the water and then they'll be done.

There are also a bridge and water mill sections to be made and these will get posted when they are complete. I'm half tempted to paint the bridge red but that's not really accurate for the countryside ;-)

Next up is a stepped to go in the middle of the table, not too happy with the height of the steps  but we'll see what happens.

All the terrain has the same groundwork on them and I'm quite pleased with the result, it's not to flat in colour but not overly colourful (if that makes sense).

I think I'll make some of these for myself but perhaps slope the edges a bit more to make their impact on the table a little less imposing.

Well that's enough chatter from me, I'll put up some more pictures below for your pleasure :-)

ttfn

Aha! Back from holidays :-)

Well, it's been a while but I'm back into the fray at last but obviously having been away I don't have much to show for it :-/

But what I do have is some more figures for Hail Caeser to sort out and show :-)

This is going to be my generals command base for the samurai, I thought about making a full on maku screen version but (as always) it was going to be too big, probably not a real problem but for the time being I'm keeping things fairly small.

I've also got 32 pikemen primed and started for the Sanada Clan but using the ladder motif instead of the 'Roku mon ji' (six coins) to represent a different member of the clan.

I've also dug out some Norman crossbowman and started to rebase them this morning, it's only a small unit for now but I know I have another 8 somewhere and eventually I'll dig them out and get them painted. The thing I like about Hail Caeser is the fact there are no strict lists or points systems to adhere to like so many other rules systems out there. Just play with what you like or have (within reason of course :-)

Obviously there has to be some historical accuracy involved but it is rather free form, which I like. It is also a good impetus to get all those unfinished figures painted!

The other unit that I have is the cavalry but I'm going to leave these based as they are (25x50) because I quite like they way they have turned out. I have about another four primed and ready to go but these won't be done for a while yet.

Some levy troops will be next on the shopping list to balance the force out a bit more, unarmoured spearmen and crap cavalry, several units of each.

I've also got to think about some terrain for them, but what though... ;-)

ttfn

Finally some samurai

But only a couple of shots...

There should be some more later today whether I get them based or not. It's a command base for Hail Caesar even though I haven't got the rules yet, it's on order though :-)

The clan is Miyoshi carrying on from some of the first Perry samurai figures that I painted many years ago. The unfortunate thing being is that the Miyoshi clan got wiped out in the latter half of the 16th century... bit of a bugger when I'm interested in the late Sengoku period.

But never mind, I still like the clan mon and already having a good many units already painted I decided to carry on with them as a sort of 'what if' situation (albeit a tenuous one).

The shot to the left shows the rear of the group and the commanders Haori which I kept simple but I think it works well.


There is a constant colour theme in the group and even the retainers have the clan mon on their armour and jingasa which I don't normally do.

I have started to base up any new figures I do on 40x40's in preparation for Hail Caesar, the basing I have already will work fine but I like a change (if a small one).


As with pretty much all of my figures I don't paint the eyes anymore, I actually thinks it detracts from the feel of troops on the table. I understand and appreciate when people do it but it needs to be done well to work properly and I can't do that anymore :-/

The last shot is of my entire collection as it stood a couple of months ago, these are being used in a photoshoot at the moment so I have nothing to play with but I have enough bare lead to do the same amount again :-D (not that I get to play that often)


Admittedly the photo is a bit dark but you get an idea of the force composition. There are Sanada and Miyoshi clans there and also a small force of either Ikko Ikki or Wako depending on the senario.


Any, that's enough from me, I have figures to paint and scenery to make :-)


ttfn 

Painted AWI house

Well, that went quicker than I thought, and turned out rather well :-) The windows are a tad too blue but I don't think it matters too much.

Now the hiatus has abated somewhat I should be down to a few postings a week :-)

ttfn

28mm Samurai terrain :-D

Today, I have mostly been working on 28mm samurai terrain and masters. First off, I made a sketch model of what I want the 28mm white castle walls will look like both in general appearence and the frequency of shooting holes and the rear supports. I still need some working out to do so that they will fit together in a nice modular fashion.

I will also have to make corners (both internal and external) and of course a gateway but I'm happy with the way this has come out.

Keeping a balance between wargaming and reality is always problematic but I think this does the job well enough.

The wall is 100mm high and the the length is 200mm. Depth on the top is a plentiful  50mm and the depth at the base is about 95mm. These dimensions could change but not enough to make much difference.

I'm probably going to have three different top wall choices as looking through the books I have there are so many variations on a theme that it's almost impossible to make a catch all (well, I think so anyway. Once you start to research deeply into anything, even the smallest difference in things becomes apparent).

The idea being is that when the walls are ordered you choose which top to have and if the choice is unpainted all the bits get supplied and if painted then it's all assembled and sorted for you.

I only wish that the real thing would be as easy to make as the mock up :-) In fact, it's almost tempting to make a whole castle this way and colour it in and use that... But being the purist that I am, it's not going to happen.

The other main thing that I've been working on today is the yamashiro corners (as seen below). for the moment I'm only going to be casting the 60 degree corners, the 30 degree ones will be done at a later date after all the other main components are finished and cast up.

I've started on the gateway for the yamashiro but there's not enough really to show at the moment but when it's ready it'll be posted :-)

To complement the range I will be making the following,

A wall section with a small building attached
A large barracks (similar to the one already available)
A tenshu or keep, smallish but useable
30 degree internal and external corners
A well
A couple of small ancillary buildings
And if time and cost permit, a corner tower built into the wall.

Well, that's it for now, the walls will probably go into the mould this evening but I want to get on and finish the AWI house from the earlier posts :-)

ttfn