Television is rather a frightening business. But I get all the relaxation I want from my collection of model soldiers.
Peter Cushing

Tuesday 7 October 2014

"The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black..."

Nothing like a bit of Joseph Conrad to brighten your day, I think.

So two nights of landscaping. A simple grey primer painted with acrylics 'borrowed' from school stock provided the base coat. Alas, whatever medium YPO are using in their acrylics drys in geological time so that was it for Monday night, leaving the state of affairs looking like this:

Untitled

Tonight, I attacked the mud with good old drybrushing followed by a wash to bind it together. The was is still slightly wet here, hence the shine:



I went with an almost Martian palette for a couple of reasons: first, I'm thinking of doing something Martian with my remaining line infantry and secondly, for this one, I wanted a ruddy colour to allow the red coats to act almost as highlights.

I was going to go with something similar for the rock - almost an Ayers Rock orangey look - but decided at the last moment that I wanted something darker to act as a background to Barney. It's not, geologically speaking, totally kosher but I've got a dinosaur facing off against Victorian infantry so I think the good ship HMS Verisimilitude sailed some time ago.



The last job for the evening was the basic colour on the vegetation. I used the same colours as on Barney, just with no wash. As these are Tamiya they give a very matt, flat finish which works well on the broad leaves once they've been given a touch of gloss varnish at the end. A different highlight to the dinosaur colours will give enough variation whilst still keeping a certain unified colour scheme.



So the final score for tonight looks like this:




and with a couple of the chaps to see how the whole thing is pulling together:

Untitled

So the last things to do are:

  • Finish detailing the plants, roots and flowers especially
  • Fasten in the troops and Barney and final blending of them into the base
  • Final landscaping - some scatter, static grass and sand to add the final level of detail.

It looks like I'm on track to get this one finished for the weekend at which point I can start planning the next one.

6 comments:

  1. Looks great! The coloring of the terrain and rocks reminds me of places I've seen in parts of the deserts of southwest North America.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was aiming for Africa - I seem to have missed by a few thousand miles!

      Delete
  2. Now you've got to be pleased with that? Cracking work Herbert, well done that man.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Michael. I'm quite pleased, yes. Things are coming back slowly. The acid test will be the next one as that will require some conversions and kit-bashing to get the effect I'm after. If I can pull that one off then I'm pretty much where I want to be and ready to try something more challenging.

      I have to thank you though - the idea for the DVD base was nicked from your Jolly Jack vignette.

      Delete
  3. I didn't mean to imply it's restricted to here. What I meant to imply is that those kinds of color combinations can be found in nature. It seems likely that they can be found in multiple locations around the world. So I think you're doing well. It really does look excellent!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry, I didn't mean to come over as if I was annoyed at your comment - I was trying to be funny too late at night! Thank you very much for letting me know that the colour combo actually exists.

      Delete