Bushido: Bridge and Completed Board (Part 5)

I completed the bridge and took some final pics of the completed board this weekend. Ta-daaa!

The last piece I wanted to make for this board was a bridge, which you may have noticed as the original, unfinished version here and there through the WIP (and you can see completed above). This bridge is an aquarium item that I got from Amazon for about US$12.00 and is humpbacked, which is of little use in a miniature game, where you'd never trust your models to stand on it, even assuming blu-tak on the bases. The pitch was too steep.
PlastCraft makes 2 great Asian-style bridges cheaper and requiring less effort so I probably would recommend that kit for the preceding reasons but I had already bought this bridge and wasn't going to waste it. So to make it work I added some balsa platforms, measured and placed at intervals to accommodate average bases and movement. These were to be the basis of landings for an Apoxy Sculpt facelift. You may notice that I walked a fine line between realism and play-ability, erring on the side of model stability. I can go back in and add small, steep flights of steps between landings for realism's sake when I get my hands on thin balsa struts but for now this will suffice. I do like the details on the bridge and the height is such that it really blocks LOS across itself and gives great fields-of-fire for archers and the like, better than other kits. It is also basically a lump of rock now with the dried Apoxy Sculpt and is very strong, so I am pretty happy with that. So here are some shots of the bridge build and final pics of the board. I do have large fern beds in progress for this board but I'll show them later in a Bushido battle report.

The bridge before

Here is the bridge enrobed in Apoxy Sculpt, cured about an hour, smoothed and ready for detail.

The first step to detailing was making impressions of rockface using a piece of textured wallpaper. If the Apoxy Sculpt is too fresh then making these impressions will deform the basic shape, so let it set up for awhile first. Since temperature,  humidity and your mixture will impact the tooling time, I can't give you a perfect time period for this but I can tell you that firm to the touch and somewhat hard (what she said) is what you are looking for.

The bullnose added in, using a basic sculpting scalpel.

Adding cobblestones

Checking the "look of it" with a mini. Seems good  so far. Finished with the sculpting I let it cure overnight, prime it and prepare it for paint the next evening.

Here it is with a basecoat of 50/50 desert tan and ceramic blue.

Sponge painted with desert tan

Some green paint with flow enhancer as a wash added to horizontal areas, to emulate mossy areas. Note that the yellow in the tan compliments the green well.

Itsunagi approves. Note the texture on the slab Itsunagi is standing on echoes the texture on the sides of the bridge enough that it looks like it goes together. Could be better but it would certainly be worse without the texture.

Here's the "moss' being mixed: Woodland Scenics Blended Turf, water, Matte Mod Podge, and green paint, mixed until thick. I added that here and there to most horizontal surfaces and that was that.

Up next: Bushido figs, a Bushido battle report, Strange Aeons stuff and some more terrain!

Khador Ulhans: I hate you. Plus: Gamillions of other things I'm trying to do at once...

 So I'm planning on running Ulhans and Markhov together at some point in the upcoming Fall campaign since I eventually want to have an all pike, all lance army under Vlad. you know, something for the kids. I brought the 5 unassembled Ulhans on vacation with me, to knock out some pinning/gluing and building.

Fail. What the hey-hey PP? The fulcrum for the model is the lower half of the IFP rider, supporting the upper IFP and telephone-pole pike on top AND the weight of the giant horse on the bottom when you pick it up and move it.  You make the IFP’s waist 2 pieces, split down the middle from front-to-back along the thinnest part of those pieces? You suck. You could have easily made this one piece. 

But you didn’t, so now I have to pin two separate pieces of lap to the horse. When? I dunno.

Still reading? In other news, this stuff is underway. My converted Vlad, a pinned Doomreaver unit attachment and Drago's murderously thin bicep reconstruction are all underway. I also fired up the Man O’ War assembly line with 2 units of Man O War Shocktroopers and one 3 man Demo Corp unit. I have the option of adding one Man O War to either the Shocktroopers or the Demo Corp. Prolly go Shocktrooper.

Legion of Everblight: Finished War pack

 Here is the completed Hordes war pack (plus 2) I did for my buddy Jon. I am pretty sure that the Shredders and maybe other models don't need an arc to speak of but I don't have a book or cards to be sure. Anyway, I marked all models with an arc, easy enough to paint over.

I also added adhesive-backed felt into the Privateer Press Legion dice tin. I've done this with the other original dice sets I own... the felt deadens some of the noise of rolling into the trays.

Hordes WIP: Lylyth

Here's Lylyth from Legion of Everblight. I didn't mention this before but the guideline that I am following with this Legion set is what I put out in a sitting is what the finished product is. Gotta keep to schedule.  Touch ups, corrections and details are allowed later but to get everything to a level of "done" you have to push. That constraint forces you to make choices between what is ambitious vs what is needed and achievable. So the result is tabletop standard and not bad at that. Left to correct: Shade on the inside of her cloak and some weapon clean up. Warpack left to paint: Carnivean and a pile of Shredders.