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!

Bushido: WIP Board Part 4 (Finishing)

 Touch up and finishing the board's sides isn't as glamorous as a resin pour or making stands of bamboo but it is important and as you have probably seen by now, sometimes the materials fail even as materials succeed.

My son Nate pulls off the corner dam.

 
In this case the foam sides ripped a bit here and there when pulling the second resin dam off, mostly due to the cheap foam I used to begin with, but no worries, we'll clean it up. Peel off the silicone used to seal the Duralar to the board and you are ready for caulk.

In previous parts of this build I mentioned I had to do a small, second pour on one end of the board, because the initial 33oz didn't quiet fill the whole thing. So I mixed another batch and filled it in. With that cured, the second dam comes off and we can tackle the "facing" or sides and bring the whole thing together by making a nice "show side". For this task you can use wood veneer, foam core or something similar. This time I used brown caulk, since I wanted to clean this up in a fast fashion and not paint it unless I really needed to.

Using a wet wedge of cardboard to skim the caulk once it was applied, I filled in around the resin water sections, making clean lines and smoothing the irregular portions of the foam. In all, this was 30 minutes of work, though I know my way around a tube of caulk. If you are new to that, practice first. Read the "tooling" times listed and mess around with it. I use caulk in MANY terrain builds. I even sculpted a missing brink on a fireplace entirely out of caulk on a construction job... it's versatile stuff so give it a try and keep it handy. You'd be surprised what it can do for miniatures too.

Up next: The Bridge

Bushido: WIP Board Part 3

I started to take off the dams that formed the resin; sometimes that exposed somewhat tacky resin, which is ok. It will cure, just give it a few short hours of air. If you built and sealed your dam right it will rip right off. In this case, I used pretty cheap and old foam board and it still tore free cleanly, with only one divot of foam tearing away. No worries! Backfill with caulk and repaint that area. After some tidying, it will look nice.

Right after the damn is pulled free, you see this. It's pretty clean. You can pull away the rest of the silicone or even paint right over it (if it's the paintable type)

Itsunagi seems pleased so far. The river will hold a lot of bodies.

Bushido: WIP Board Part 2 (Resin River)

In part 1 of this build I showed how I rehabbed an old board as a sketch for new water techniques through the assembly of a large river section.

Now, in part 2, I wanted to show some WIP pics of the refinishing and painting of the riverbed and the prep for the resin pour, then, the initial resin pour itself.

As mentioned in Part 1, I added rocks and grit, then sponge painted the rocks, using earth tones. I added some washes to the riverbed itself for some contrasts. If you try this you will notice that what is understated painting without resin becomes very prominent under the lustre of gloss resin. If you have painted a miniature somewhat matte and then gloss sealed it then you know what I mean. Saturation and contrast bumps up a few notches so it is best to be subtle.

In this pic we see the Duralar and foam core "dams" that will be used to form the resin. My method uses Duralar facing the resin, backed by thick foam core and attached/sealed with clear silicone. Especially with deep resin pours, the outgassing process will force the hot, molten resin into every nook and cranny on your board and if it hits foam then the gassing becomes dramatic. Whatever silicone remains attached to the resin after the removal of the dams can either be left or scrapped away.

Here is the dam on the other side of the board.

Here is the first resin pour. This board took more than 33oz.of resin  for the entire length and even then I had to fill in the other end in this picture after this first pour with another smaller pour. Note the finished dock, I seated this using clear silicone. The legs, or footers, are attached to the floor of the river bed with silicone which is a great adhesive that is strong, yet is near-invisible in resin and as importantly, won't bleed or be attacked by the resin's chemical reaction.

Another view of the dam and dock section. This is the deepest water on the board, hence the dock for boats.

Some riverbed painting detail. If you texture it right, the painting is easy and natural. See part one for a description of materials used.

Here is the whole board curing, with a large plexiglass cover to ward off dust.

Checking out the boat with the dock, after the resin has cured. It takes about 24rs for a thorough enough cure for this sort of horseplay but it was fun to put down some figs and see how it is all coming together. Note that I kept all scenery away though, the resin has set and was not impressionable but it could still catch flock and adhere it. Resin is weird. Note the bubble trails from gassing, likely from inside the rocks themselves.

A WIP sampan on a WIP board.

 So that is it for this update. I will be back after I remove the dams, finish the facings on the board, add wave elements to the water and flock. After that, I need to finish the aquarium bridge below for the board set, using Apoxy Sculpt and a little ingenuity.

This set up is the board before the riverbed painting and resin. I wanted to see how the other terrain elements I have been making matched the feel of the board. So far so good I think. Chiyo seems to like it.

Bushido: WIP Terrain Board

Ok, some backstory on this project. I'm into Bushido now in a big way... love that game. I have an idea for a series of linked terrain boards, the first being a beach board with a dock, village and other assorted features I'll save that for later. From this first board I would expand out the series but I know I need to up my game with rendering water. I have done more than my share of resin forming and pours for water in other projects and while cool and fun, they aren't very animated or alive looking. So I've been expanding my vocabulary with resin water elements through various techniques.

This is what an old, "finished" board looks like. If it was a restaurant it would be called, "Passables"

WAY back in the 1990's I completed four panels towards a 4'x6' river board for 40k. It wasn't very well conceived but it was well-made and survived intact after more than 2 decades of games, including use at a GW store. I still use the flocked side of one board for Strange Aeons games but that is about it. Since I managed somehow to hang onto them all this time and not use them and decided that I'd want to try out some of the water effects I've developed on my own and learned along the way from others. So, I needed to do a sketch or practice piece.

I am a full time dad, full time worker and part time Grad student, so I don't have time to burn but I do have extra terrain to burn.

So I took a good section of the river and re-tasked it towards trying out some water and at very least, it can be a basic Bushido board.

I scouted out a 2'x2' section on a 2'x4' board, similar to the one above. I then mounted the foam board to a 1/4" thick 2'x2' wood backer using Tub and Tile Liquid Nails (so it won't attack the foam) and spiked it with my nail gun. I weighted the whole deal down with furniture and such and then used a hand saw to trim off the extra. All told, an hours worth of work, vs starting from scratch.

Grit and rocks and glue. Sounds like a Friday night to me.

Next I trimmed some of the riverbank to look more gradual and worn, instead of a 90 degree drop from ground to the creek bed. The more you trim the shoreline on an angle the more usable table space for minis you lose. So I didn't go nuts. I then added a layer of "deck grit" in the riverbed; this is a product sold at DIY that is basically a super tough sand texture in paint form, it is very liquid and applies well. It also happens to be great for sealing foam against resin (which attacks the crap out of foam) so this is a great fit for anything that will have resin on it. Finally, I used Mod Podge as a layer and poured out concrete rubble from my broken front step. You can see I went for a natural lay out and only added one or two really large protruding rocks, which I hope to show current behind them, downstream.  A few coats of Leather Brown Army Painter primer (thank god for that stuff) and it is basically ready for paint. I am in the middle of converting a cheap aquarium bridge with balsa and Apoxie Sculpt. I made a balsa dock to go on the shore too.

So that is where I am so far, stay tuned for more progress! (edit: Part 2 is here)

New river bed primed and ready for paint.

Reaper BONES: Completed Lit Flame Markers

See the completed pics of my lit fire markers below and check out the original WIP post here.

 

Reaper BONES: WIP Lit Flame Markers

As mentioned before in the lit Reaper ghost tutorial, the Reaper BONES line features translucent models, including ghosts and fire elements (both fires and fire elementals).

Here is the WIP for lit fire markers and some production notes. See the lit Reaper ghost tutorial in the link above for steps on prepping the halves of the tealight. After the prep steps have been done, move to the following.

Unlike the lit ghosts, the base for fire will be visible. Just like the ghosts, I removed the tealight dome on the upper housing to allow for the bulb to fit into the miniature. I cut/drilled a hole in the bottom of the fire, just like the ghost. Note I used the large fire piece, instead of the smaller model and an orange tealight instead of a green one.

Then I covered the halves in Apoxy Sculpt and after a few hours of setting, I sculpted in lines for stones and I also rolled the halves over cement to give it texture. Once cured, simply paint and reassemble. Bam! Easy peasy. I suggest that you play around with detailing the top of the tealight, the fire area, with elements like stones and even wood, to add to the illusion.

I'll be using these as flourish on Strange Aeons boards and maybe as objectives for Bushido.