Buildings and Terrain

Yesterday, I ordered a couple of boxes of plastic spruce/fir trees made by Zvezda (item #8222) from the Michigan Toy Soldier Company. These look very similar to the plastic trees featured in all those photos in various works by Charles Grant, and I think they will help impart that “old school” feel to my table top.

I also took a stab at my first Dutch/Northern German house (with gables) and had a basic structure all cut out of heavy cardboard and glued together in about 45 minutes. The structure is very basic (I’ll paint on the doors and windows) and measures about 3”x4” and about 4” tall. So, it’s slightly under scale but looks good next to the figures and won’t take up too much room on the table.

Today, I’ll add a balsa chimney or two and cut a base on which to glue some blasa and cardboard "ruins". These will fit inside the house. Then I'll have the first of several planned buildings made in the Charles Grant style. Maybe I'll even add a coat of reddish brown poster paint to approximate the red brick of old houses and buildings in the Baltic region. Depending on how time goes later today, and if the mood strikes me, I might cut out and glue together pieces for a couple of other houses and maybe a church too. Then I’ll have enough buildings for a village. Photos will follow here – naturally.

Comments

Bluebear Jeff said…

I've always enjoyed making the various buildings I've made for my game table. I tend to use "foamcore" instead of cardboard . . . but the difference in materials is not very important.

I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of your buildings. In fact, some pics of them in various stages of construction would not be amiss.

-- Jeff

1:59 AM

The Eventual Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment. . .

The Anhalt-Zerbst regiment musters in the drill square to sort themselves into platoons and companies during the coming weeks Fall maneuvers if you will. A large dose of real life the last few days with the start of classes next Monday, various preparatory meetings, and finishing up a few other things this week. But, I managed to sort out 60 or so Minden Austrian infantry from the pile and get 'em stuck to temporary painting bases. Must carefully drill out the hands of several NCOs for flagpoles and pole arms this weekend before the usual basecoat. I'm thinking of mixing the usual white gesso with the usual light gray to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. Applying both base- and undercoat in one fell swoop as my grandmother used to say. In the meantime, the recently finished squadron of Saxon cuirassiers has been placed carefully in one of the clear acrylic boxes on my shelves until I have the suitable flag to affix. -- Sto...

And We're Off!!!

Arrrgh! Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus. Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown. More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart. I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands. In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands. As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff. Depending on ...

Presenting the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere!!!

Here they are, with the rearmost nine figures still drying, three squadrons of the Anspach-Bayreuth Kuirassiere, now in the service of the Grand Duchy of Stollen. And now, it's onto that artillery!

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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