Wednesday 22 April 2015

LXXXV. The Cemetery Project vol.5

This week I built a piece of rough area terrain featuring stone tiles, empty planters and a small tree.

This piece was built almost entirely from scratch, and was a pleasure to do.

Materials used:
  • MDF base
  • sand + acrylic gel for the earth texture
  • plaster tiles and miniature bricks
  • home made planters and vases
  • a branch and leaves from the Citadel Wood kit
  • static grass tufts
  • birch seed leaves
  • paints and pigments

I used those planters I talked about in vol.2. The bead vases are here, too.

Just as I was preparing to invest in a few packs of Mini Natur grass tufts for the cemetery project, a friend told me about his recent discovery: Gamer's Grass. You can find a review in this month's issue of FPM and Old Fogey wrote about these tufts on his blog last week. So I'm just going to say that in my experience both the product and service are of good quality. At the same time these are more affordable than other brands I've used so far. I know where I'll be getting my grass from now on.

The rectangular tiles are Juweela bricks, and the square ones are of my own making. Step-by-step presented below.

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How I made my stone tiles:

I used a plastic movement tray for my mould.

Poured plaster in the tray.

Cut a grid using a ruler and markings on the sides as guides. This is best done when plaster is solid but still quite wet. I messed up a bit this time - some of my lines are visibly wobbly. I should be more careful next time.

When it dried completely I removed the tiles from the tray. Before applying them to the base I sanded their edges a bit and added cracks and other damage here and there.
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The Garden of Morr iron fence received a painjob as well. I have to admit the result is a tad underwhelming. Perhaps the stone parts are too dark? Not sure... I am planning to buy some Mini Natur ivy and make it grow on the fence; perhaps this will liven it up.





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15 comments:

  1. Lovely work. Ivy on the fence would be a great touch.

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  2. Another excellent piece. Can I ask what colours you use for your earth/mud?

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  3. An absolutely brilliant piece of terrain, Ana! Full of great little details and faded beauty -- very much a memento mori, in a way, which seems fitting for the project ;)

    Amazing work, as usual!

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  4. I think the addition of ivy, will be just the ticket for those fence pieces. Regardless, they look very good already, so don't be too hard on them. :)

    The area terrain is amazing. Your use of greys and oranges/browns with all those details really gives it a life-like appearance.

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  5. Another fantastic piece from you.Thanks for the information about GamersGrass - I'll definitely give it a go.

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  6. Thank you for sharing your opinions, everybody! .

    @Gaz Shaw - the mud/earth starts as dark grey. Then I add random splotches of Vallejo Cobra Leather+black+some water and Vallejo Desert Yellow+black+some water, and I let them bleed into each other at places. When this is dry I add a small amount of pigments: Vallejo Burnt Umber and Natural Umber.

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  7. Outstanding, Ana. The large planters look even better when placed in context like this. In fact, all the element work very well together.

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  8. I admire peopple who put so much work in terrain pieces. I can never motivate myself to do that...

    Certainly they set the mood for a great, atmospheric game.

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  9. Lovely work, attention to detail caught my eye, must look great on the table :-)

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  10. Just finished going through your blog and instead of commenting on every other post about how awesome everything is I decided to just say it here. Everything is awesome.

    In saying that your Countess really stood out, really an exceptional piece. Also, thank you so much for your Ruff tutorial! Trying to figure out how to do that is actually what lead me to this blog.

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  11. Thank you, yoshimi488 and Mathew. And welcome to the blog. :)

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  12. This terrain piece is wonderful! A great way to expand the Gardens of Morr also. I went out and bought some plaster the day after reading this... :) Love the tones used across this terrain project.

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