A few photos of recent projects

Just a few photos of some of the things I have been doing. Once the Martian mat gets dry, I'll photograph it and show you all how it came out.

First up is the unobtainite deposits. Martian landscaping, blue crystals. Ready to play! Also useful for BattleTech, which my sons and I are getting into a little.

These are shots of two different rock outcroppings I just finished for Venus. The basic forms were given to me by Dan Martinez, aka Cacique Caribe, aka One Swell Fella. He was out of space and just couldn't bear to discard them, so he "Gamed them Forward" to me. What do you think, Dan?

All I did was paint them with flat black latex house paint, then spray with textured rock paint. Paint the base dark green. Once paint is all dry, I painted PVA all over the base and in strategic nooks and crannies and added static grass. The vines were done with a line of PVA riht out of the bottle, then some 'weed' green ground cover flocking was sprinkled on. Poke a few holes in the foam and glue in a few bits of aquarium plants and floral stems from Hobby Lobby. Spray all with a coat of gloss clearcoat and a coat of matte finish. Done!

If you look on the left edge of this photo, you can see the rocks 'before.' The blue foam is nice, but I like the way they came out better. Don't you?

Resin Minerals Painted

I bought a pair of pieces of Armorcast's resin "Pyrite Crystals" from a local gaming shop last week, and got them painted up over the weekend. Finally had time to take a photo of them and put together a few thoughts about them, especially as compared to my previous crystal project, the green 'handwavium' ones I made of carved pink foam.

My review:

• Nice quality casting.
• Good stronge yellowish beige resin
• Very little flash or pitting
• Nice lines
• Details okay, but not fantastic. Just a clump of rock crystals.
• Super easy to paint.
• Price: $5.00

What I Did:

1. First I used a sharp hobby knife to clean up the little bits of flash, mold lines, etc.
2. Then I washed the pieces with warm soap and water, rinsed and dried with paper towel. Let it sit overnight to air dry more.
3. Next, a little bit of superglue to fill the few small bubble pits. Let sit for an hour to cure.
4. Then I sprayed each piece with flat white paint.
5. Color on the rocks was achieved by using several coats of thinned Vallejo Intense Blue. Ground color was Ceramcoat burnt sienna.
6. Brush watered PVA glue on base (using 100 for $4 cheap-o plastic bristle brush), then dredge into my Mars ground mix, and let dry.
7. Next morning, two coats fo Testor's gloss, followed in afternoon by Testor's flat.
8. Will finish by brushing on a coat of water-soluble gloss onto the crystals to make them shiny.
   

Photos of Martian Rocks and Hills

Three different finishes on these rock formations. I'll create a poll over them, but I would like your input as to which looks best. All three rocks have essentially the same paint job and foundation: 1/2" pink foam, with black flat latex brushed on, then three colors of spray. The rock on bottom right shows this. The second rock, at the top of the triangle, got a spray of textured paint before the three-color spray, and also has a bit of iron oxide gravel on it. The third rock was painted and then I added a pretty solid coating of iron oxide gravel and fine ballast to the top.

Here's a long, ridge-like outcropping. The sloped edges are considered passable, the rugged nearly vertical edges are not. This rock, like all the others, has the three-tone spray paint on 1/2" pink foam. In the background you can see another hill, with another small rise added to it. In the scenario I am creating, the British must pass between this outcrop and the hill to reach their destination off board.

This formation is one of the most complex ones I have done so far, up to four layers thick, but I really like it. It makes for a pretty good high ground to hold, though there isn't much cover. It does provide a good vantage over most battlefields, so if you have a long-range weapon, this would be a good site for it. It's also difficult to scale, as most of the faces are cliffside.

The Hills of Mars...

I am doing a little bit of terrain work these last few days. I have finally come up with a method that I like for using pink 1/2" thick foam insulation board.

I have a hot-wire foam cutter, a cheapie I got at Hobby Lobby a couple of years back for $10, I think. That's what I am using to shape the pieces, cut smooth bevels for the hillsides, rough faces for cliff sides, that sort of thing.

I'm using spray adhesive. Sounds a little crazy, I admit, but it seems to hold like cement and doesn't eat the foam. This way I can stack multiple layers for more impressive rock outcrops and hills.

So I cut the foam to the shape I want using the hotwire. Then I glue the layers together. So far so good.

The next step is painting. I found some black latex wall paint I had leftover from a DIY project, so I used that. Painted it on the foam, let it dry. Now when I spray paint the colors on the foam, the foam doesn't dissolve away!

Finally, once the black is dry, I hit the foam with three colors of spray in at least two layers of each color. You don't have to wait for each layer to dry - I like the mixed look, it seems mroe natural.

I'll post pictures once I get some decent lighting. I tried to take a few shots tonight, but... too dark.

Handwavium Crystals

Ahh... the fabled handwavium crystals of Mars... such beauty and power...

How do I make some?

Basically, the handwavium crystals are nothing but pink foamboard insulation glued to a thin (1/16" or 1.5mm) plywood base, painted and flocked. I made them in a way that is essentially scale-neutral, like most landforms. In 25/28mm, they are big rocks. In 15mm, they are huge crystals.

Anyway, step-by-step (and yes, I should have taken photos. It was late and I wasn't thinking about the blog. Sorry.):

1. Make the crystals. I took some scrap pieces of foamboard, and cut them into basically crystalline looking shapes, making sure I kept at least one side as flat as possible. I used a hotwire foam cutter to cut the foam. To make the thicker crystal, I glued two pieces of foam together after cutting them into shape.
2. Make the bases. I took bits of scrap plywood from my River project, and cut them into irregular shapes with a hand-held fret saw. If you had a thin blade for a small bandsaw, that would work brilliantly as well, but I don't have a bandsaw yet.
3. Glue the foam to the plywood using Tacky Glue (a thickened PVA, like Elmer's White Glue, available at craft stores in the US). Let that dry.
4. Paint the plywood base. I painted mine with Burnt Sienna craft paints, as they are destined for Mars' red soil. You may want to try a different color for other planetary surfaces.
5. Paint the crystals. I chose green shades, to stand out better against the reddish soil of Mars. Again, you may choose your own colors. I painted the whole crystal in Vallejo Deep Green, then painted ridges and edges in Vallejo Intermediate Green, and finally did a thin line of Vallejo Light Green along the edges and drybrushed a bit in the center of the facets for a light effect.
6. Flock the base. Last, I painted some thinned down PVA glue on the bases and covered the bases with the reddish-brown sand I am using for Martian terrain. At this point, I also added a few small details around the crystals, like gravel and undergrowth.

I am going to use a similar technique, but different colors and shapes, for some "unobtainite ore" on Venus soon. I'll post photos when I am done.

If you want to see more photos, check the photobucket link in the margin for wargames terrain.