Building the Bois des Caures for Partizan updated 27th May

[Anna Elizabeth]

For adding texture, would stippling a plastic bunker with tiny amounts of plastic cement melt a concrete texture pattern?

If not, you could probably stipple a little Tamiya putty, thinned, or Mr. Surfacer.

[James Morris]

Thanks for the good ideas on texturing the bunker.  I might do it next time!

Woke up today and realised I hadn't really thought about checking we had a suitable figure for Col Driant (the heroic French commander at the Bois des Caures who was killed in the withdrawal.)  After rereading the Bois des Caures chapters from Alastair Horne's classic 'The Price of Glory', the lack of a Driant was really bugging me, so I went digging in my (quite shallow)  WW1 French bits box.  Fortunately I turned up the communications set from Scarab Minis which features a very characterful officer in a kepi wielding a cloth and gesticulating heroically.  I liked the head (and it had the obligatory moustache) so I kept that on and dug out a spare Adrian helmet from Empress Minis.   

Here he is sans kepi and with Adrian ready to go:



In the battle, Driant took a rifle to help defend his position, so naturally I wanted to add one in.  With more good luck, I discovered the Old Glory French casualty pack had a spare rifle, so in it went.  With a bit of guidance from the Osprey Verdun book, some period pictures and green stuff, I hastily reconstructed a rough version of Driant with his medals and uniform.  My kids were unusually cooperative at this point (though I did let them watch 3 episodes of Postman Pat back-to-back to achieve this...)



Hopefully I can get him painted up by Sunday!

I spent a large part of this evening on the repetitive business of painting tree bases, but was pleased when my order of Woodland Scenics 'soft flake snow' arrived. I remember being very impressed with this stuff many years ago when Gripping Beast ran a skirmish in a snowy Roman fort as part of one of their WAB events at Warhammer World.  It's not amazing when it comes out of the pot but I managed to get a few trial shots to see how it worked with the terrain.  These are very rough, taken without a tripod or proper lighting on my kitchen table at 8pm, but hopefully you get the idea!



The snow was less 'sticky' than I was expecting, but I did discover that painting the tree branches with water helped it to stay on.  I should have said that we are after a temporary 'dusting of snow' effect; I don't want to have this terrain permanently painted with snow, although I know it might look better.





Tomorrow night Scrivs and I are going to meet up to put the trial game together, so it'll be interesting to see how it looks.

[tin shed gamer]

 definitely comeing across at Partizan,for good neb and chat.
Mark.

[Anna Elizabeth]

Col. Driant looks Briliant.

I love Woodland Scenics snow, too. I use quite a bit of it. Things look awesome.

[Atheling]

Great stuff James!! 

Very much looking forward to seeing the game this Sunday 

Darrell.

[James Morris]

Met up with Scrivs and Dave for the pre-Partizan meeting and trial game last night.  Not all quite finished - indeed, I need to paint a slightly greyer backdrop with some snow for that February look - but was pretty pleased with the first impressions.  We used less than half of my Woodland Scenics snow so will probably be going for a heavier snowfall on Sunday...the game clear-up ended with the comical sight of a computer programmer and a teacher trying to get large amounts of white powder off the floor of a bowls club and back into its original container...

The real thing - slightly chilly out!






Nice day for a walk if the woods weren't full of les Boches!









Col Driant has been sent to Scrivs - the fastest painter in the west - so I imagine he'll be on the Scrivsland blog by Saturday teatime! 

[Cessna]

Very nice! The snow is especially evocative.

[scrivs]

I love it when a plan comes together!

Colonel Driant has already been base-coated and washed - maybe this teatime

Almost a Breaking Bad scene yesterday evening though when myself and James had to clear up all the suspicious white powder we had spilled.

[pocoloco]

Those practise run game shots look great! 

[Steve F]

Chillingly evocative.

[Captain Blood]

Goodly. Does the job very well.
Think I'd go heavy on the loose snow to conceal the bases of all the various terrain pieces as much as possible.
But the overall effect is pretty convincing.

[Sendak]

Chillingly evocative.

  pun

[Atheling]

pun

A cold sounding comment 

Darrell.

[scrivs]

Just in time for the game, I have speed-painted up the lovely Émile Driant that James made.



He is depicted having just burned the paperwork as they evacuated the Bois Des Caures command bunker.

As usual, more pictures and commentary over on Scrivsland.

http://scrivsland.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/partizan-painting-update-emile-driant.html

[James Morris]

Thanks Paul!  With my schedule this weekend there's no way I'd have got him done in time.  I've finished off all my bunkers & entrenchments, and painted a new 8 ft backdrop for the game,  but need to do some work this evening so photos will have to wait til after the show.

Hope to see some of you at Partizan tomorrow.  Don't know which hall we're in but looking forward to the show.  Cheers!