Sailing to the Ghost Archipelago - Bloggard's log ...

[Bloggard]

thanks.

here's a pic of the larger landmass, and taller hills having been painted / sanded / flocked ...




re: sanding - I just do a mix of craft paint and pvc glue (about 50 / 50 or so) and then sprinkle sand on. Seems to dry pretty well / hard.

flocking. think I might have had a 'road to...' as far as this goes, and have some faux fur on the way to see if I prefer it to 'proper' model grass.
On the face of it, it should be much more flexible for reasons I'll elaborate upon when I have hold of the stuff.

[LiamFrostfang]

  fab!!!!

[joe5mc]

I am loving this thread! keep it coming!

[mikedemana]

Man, I'd love one of those Bayon temple ruins from Angkor Wat! I assume it is an aquarium piece?

Looks great -- your players are going to love your table...

Mike Demana
www.firstcommandwargames.com
http://leadlegionaries.blogspot.com/

[Bloggard]

thanks LFF and Joe5mc - much more to come  

hi Mike - yes, here in the UK at least there a number of aquarium pieces using that basic look - I'll put up a group pic in due course.
quite a long way to go before I've got the terrain done - faux fur has come, and I think it's going to work ...

[Bloggard]

ok, so here are some of my aquarium pieces.

I'm in the process of dry-brushing them all white-ish as shown, to fit in with my cork 'ruins' pieces.
bit of a shame in that the original pre-paint jobs are really good imo (and nigh on indestructible - don't know what they use!) but was necessary to my eye.




also - finally took the plunge, having acquired a jeweller's saw, and have cut my finished figs of their bases (as per pic higher up in the thread) and glued them on accordingly. With the final fig in this set I've got into pinning at long last and that seems to have gone well, so from here on in I'll be taking that approach.




btw - I did the 'use Klear polish on the base' thing to try and avoid super-glue fogging the acrylic and it seems to have worked, with very little in evidence.
having said that, with the pinned figure I've used a 'canopy non-glazing' pva glue - will see in the morning if that's worked or not.

[LiamFrostfang]

  way cool!!!

[Bloggard]

cheers LFF.

getting there with the overall set-up etc, and should get some pics up for that over the next week or two.

here's some concerning the Umbum ('clever paper' too, but you've gotta go with umbum) ships I've built.

they're remarkable quality for cardstock models. Very thick card is used, with a degree of 'relief / 3D texture' (i.e. embossing or debossing of some sort I guess?). They go together very well indeed, with only the 'proper' string rigging be too much for me (I just 'glue' enough on to give a reasonable impression! - they are intended for 'ages 7-70' ... so I guess that says something about my skills  )

yes they're technically too small in scale - but I see the boats in GA as being 'sports' yachts effectively, and I generally prefer models / terrain in 28mm to be 'undersize' - looks better to my eye, with correctly proportioned stuff often seeming too big (particularly on smaller tables).

They're mainly for set-dressing I can't deny, what with no official rules for ship to ship to action, but there have been some rules for boarding (a wreck to be fair) in one of the WI articles, and I'll look at adapting / extending those  ( have to look at movement rates etc I guess).
quite like the idea of a moonlit raid by a heritor and a few crewmen upon a competitors vessel - with a few sea beasties thrown in ...





glimpsed in the background is the faux fur I've ended up using as my main island ground cover.
looks great to me, and some very useful advantages to it in terms of embedding other terrain features; I'll elaborate upon those in due course.

[Corporal Chaos]

Very nice and wonderfully done island. The boats look quite good.

[Doug ex-em4]

cheers LFF.
.....they are intended for 'ages 7-70' ...

Damn! I like the look of those and I’d  quite like to get some but it appears I’m too old....!

Doug

[CPalmer]

Those are some great looking boats!

[Eric the Shed]

Those boats are from a russian company - very cheap as well

link

http://russia-best.com/

I am using the Dhows for my Sudan campaign

[tin shed gamer]

It's not a rule system I've played.
But I'm intrigued by take on it, The idea of smaller chunks of land I can store easily appeals to me.
( come to think of I've ships pirates,slann,and palm trees  ) I'll watch how you get on and come Partizan I'll pick up a copy (of course when the Mrs asks I will be blaming you ).

On the subject of the boats,I've a Chinese junk,and the Arab Dow on order,for a couple of Pulp ideas.
For the two it came to the grand total of £18.64p including p&p to the UK.(placed the order on the 2nd Feb no idea when they'll arrive though.)

Mark.

[Bloggard]

I've had a bit of trouble with one or two orders from them, but all my ebay orders (4 in total) have come through in the end.
An amazon one I gave up with but that was amazon at fault iirc.

Umbum / cleverpaper are the 'make' as per my post above.

[Bloggard]

time for a bit of an update - lots of stuff I meant to post but haven't got 'round to but might as well get up to date with a couple of pics of a dry-run layout:





so, I've gone the whole-hog with the fake fur I mentioned further up the thread.

to my eye it works - allowing placed scenery pieces to embed much better than a flocked / static grass surface etc.
I've sprinkled plenty of 'scatter' flock tho', which helps to break up the monotone green, and add texture; it did look a bit too 'frankie howerd' (if of a green variety) without ...

funny thing is that overall, as far as I'm concerned, what I said at the beginning of my ramblings really does hold true: in isolation all the components look a bit shonky (some more than others) and certainly betray my decidely modest modelling skills, but all together and it pretty much achieves what I was hoping for.
Also a lot of the titivation I was expecting to have to do (like drybushing the trees etc) doesn't seem necessary now everything's in place, so that's good.

I've bodged an extension to my board to make it 6 x 4 - my aspirations are very much towards the bogdanwaz / chris palmer setups (although if I get anywhere close in terms of actual game-play / scenario-design it'll certainly be more luck than judgement) - and I wanted more 'space' for narrative / exploration.

Obviously with this setup there are no water areas, but that's due to the scenario I have i mind.
a good thing about the setup overall is it's flexibility in this regard: switch the board-covering fake fur with the crushed velvet 'sea', and I'm good to go with an islands type set-up etc.

anyhow - should get some pics up of recent figures painted soon, and hope to be having a mini-campaign weekend after next (although we'll prob. be lucky to finish one game I suspect).

still got to do a quick 'interiors' area too....