Well,
I believe I mentioned I'm not much of a blogger, and I've proven myself right again; sorry for that, as more updates could have been squeezed in. I took the pictures, but simply did not have the time to write up the next post.
By now, the actual road pieces have been finished, although I'm still hard at work on the additional scenery, cars and whatnot. So, I guess I'll take you through an abbreviated step by step before showing off the finished product.
You all saw the pieces with their basecoat on in my last post. So the next stage was to liven up the road surfaces, as they were a bit too pristine, and also the banks received their shading (through inking) and highlighting (several drybrushes). Once the painting stage was over, I proceeded with the application of the static grass.
I used unthinned wood/PVA glue for this, stained brown through the addition of some Vallejo dipping solution. I simply paint the glue on, patch by patch, and then dab large clumps of the static grass into it. I then vigourously shake and tap the superfluous grass off, and gently blow over the surface (not on; over), which causes the individual blades to stand up. Once dry, there is some more shaking and tapping. The result at this stage looks like this:
And I could not help myself to take another beauty shot at this stage. Regretfully, the unfortunate not-Shaun took a wooden floor to the face when I attempted to put him back in the display cabinet after last post's picture, so he's undergoing reconstructive face painting at the moment. Here is a Gothic girlfriend of his, doing the honours of posing with the ubiquous 'Black Car'. It's starting to look like something, eh?
As you might notice, the hedgerows have now had their foliage added, making them look pretty nice all of a sudden, be it a tad brittle at this stage. The glued and then spraypainted reindeer moss has become quite stiff and strong at this point, but the glued on (by means of more PVA) crushed parsley is still very brittle here. Although it really looks like a hedge already.
I would later give them several thick coats of sprayed on varnish, before highlighting the green leaves with thinned down Citadel Camo Green. Like a very wet drybrush is the best way to describe the process. Of course, this was followed by yet another coat of varnish.
The hedges still need their bases finished and will undoubtedly receive at least one more coat of varnish before being deemed reasonably gaming-proof. They look awesome, and I'm going to try entire trees at some point, but without proper armour in the form of thick layers of protective varnish, they would be too vulnerable to the rigors of tabletop combat.
Next stage of the road pieces was the addition of more static grass. I used a short, mostly green version in the first stage, but here, I used a longer, brown kind, looking like tall, dried grass, which I added in clumps, here and there.
Then, the third stage of the grassing process followd, almost immediately, with both kinds mixed. I filled the large gaps in the grassy areas with that mix, which looks the most realistic of them all. I wanted the banks to look overgrown, without too large, and connected patches of dirt and rocks.
When that was dried, I used small pieces of reindeer moss to create shrubs. I mainly used the tops, as those are naturally formed like an individual shrub anyway. These were not coloured; this is their natural tone, which looks the best I think.
The moss I used here is even older than the styrofoam used for the banks by the way! They're left overs from when I made model railroads back in highschool. I must have been around 16 or so when I put all that away, mere months before I got my first box of Beakies! And because I always wanted my own gaming table, but never had the space, I've always kept the stuff I could one day use as terrain. I've used several pine trees from the same era to create some wood section for on the table already, and now these hedges. Remarkable how well they kept over the years (over 20 years!). For most of that time, they were stored simply in an old Revell model plane box. Only a couple of years ago, did I transfer them, colour by colour into ziplock baggies. Can't beat nature I guess...
But enough rambling! Here are some shots of this stage:
In that second picture, you can see I've used the same technique as on the hedges on some small shrubs, just for variation.
Finally, I added some coloured foam flock in patches all over the banks, to represent weeds growing inbetween the grasses. Here and there, it has crept into cracks inbetween rocks, or is growing out of some dirt on the road surface. That stuff really does grow everywhere eh?
You can see the finished result in the next couple of pictures, with added additional scenery. Regretfully, those pieces are not yet finished, but bear with me, as I bravely struggle on to get more and more ready...
A car chase at full throttle over a winding country road:
The mysterious chase car is zooming past. Boy they're going fast!
And finally, there's that darn black car again. Who are those people anyway? Some 5 minute Photoshop action took care of the backdrop...
The first gaming session was played with them last night, and was a resounding success. All players loved the experience and I'm relieved they're actually looking forward to using the setup again. We had to play without the additional scenery, and the cars were not finished yet (and had they rolled for a crossing pedestrian during one of their encounters, I would have been forced to produce a bare metal figure), but the basis is there. As it was though, they had to swerve around slower cars, brave curves in the road at breakneck speed.
They managed to shoot out 3(!) tires of the car fleeing from them, sending it careening off into a bend's bank, finally flipping it over. The nazi driver was instantly killed, and his German buddy knocked unconsious. Miraculously, their captive (one of the Player Characters, whose player had been on a long, work-induced, hiatus, but was joining us again for the first time this evening. Of course I had this all planned...) was thrown out of the trunk (hands and feet still tied) and survived without even a scratch!
And as the heroes drove away, compatriot liberated and one unconsious nazi in the trunk for further questioning, the crashed vehicle's leaking fuel finally reached the still red hot exhaust pipe, exploding the wreck in a spectacular fireball, visible to the elated heroes through the rear window of their vehicle...
Like I said, we play with the World of Darkness system, and the magazine rules were geared towards use with the 'Legends of the Old West' ruleset, so I had to modify them accordingly. I had to convert to a D10 system, and find a way to use the WoD skill system within the game, as it did not cater for different skill levels in, for instance, shooting or driving. But we made do.
I even created a little booklet as a handout for all the players, so they could familiarize with the rules. I also made a conversion table for converting WoD characters into the .45 system, which I mentioned I will be using for combat scenes:
So, next up are the cars and other additional pieces, including some unsuspecting pedestrians. More news at eleven...
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