Saturday, December 23, 2023

Painting River Pieces

As promised, here is the blog post on how to paint the resin cast river pieces I described in my previous post. First, all of the resin pieces were coated with a primer coating of flat black spray paint.
Next I used a bottle of Navy Blue cheap craft paint. The fact that this is cheap paint that does not cover the primer in one coat is actually an advantage! The look I want is a covering of navy blue with black undercoat showing through. You can see what I mean below.
The next step is to apply dark green (green velvet) in the shallow areas of the water. I use an old bristle brush and heavily stipple the green paint onto the rivers. After that using a lighter green (moss green) I add a lighter stippling of light green paint into the same areas. These green layers will add a sense of depth to the water. It is dark blue to black mid-stream but fades to lighter green on the edges where underwaer rocks are visible.
The next color to apply is burnt umber. Apply a solid covering of this dark brown paint to the river banks, the gravel, and the rocks. This was my most time consuming step.
Now we start dry brushing with a medium gray (Storm Gray). Dry brush the gravel and the rocks, doing your best to avoid getting gray paint on the river or the banks.
Next I dry brushed the banks with a medium brown (nutmeg). And then I dry brished the rocks and gravel with a light gray color. (dolphin gray)
The next step is to apply some ink. As the dry brushing is done, it is inevitable that some of the gray and brown will get onto the river surface. Typically it will be on the surface right next to the water's edge. To fix this I use a mix of 1 part sepia ink with 3 or 4 parts green ink. Dilute the ink with 4 or 5 drops of water and then using a small wet brush, apply the ink wash to the edge of the water. I also apply the ink wash to the gravel and the rocks to give them more variation of color. Here are three photos of the same area. The first is the piece before this step and it shows how the dry brush has lightened some of the water areas. The next photo is taken while the ink wash is still wet so you can see exactly where it was applied. The third picture is after it is dried.
Using a product called Mod Podge, a glossy sealer, I add a layer of gloss all over the river areas. Using a shader brush I push the mod podge into the edges of the water. Be careful not to work this too much with the brush, when it gets frothy it will leave some bubbly texture. A little bit of this effect is okay, but you don't want to obscure all of the nice depth of color that has been applied. This product goes on white-ish and dries clear and glossy. Here is a photo of it when wet, and afer drying.
Now I add one more coat of gloss with a product called "Triple Thick". It is basically really thick acrylic gloss medium. I generously dab this stuff onto the river areas to give the finished pieces a rippled surface of water. When dry it makes the water reflect in lots of different directions. Again it goes on white-ish and dries clear.
The final step is to use watered down white glue to glue green flock onto the tops of the river banks. Here are a couple of photos of my finished set of 34 pieces, and a few pictures of them on the terrain mat.

Monday, December 18, 2023

Making river pieces

This will be part one of two posts. I have recently made a 4" hex mat from a pice of green camo fleece. I also made a set of simple styrofoam hills to match the 4" hex grid. Now I am working on a set of river pices for the same terrain system.
These are pieces of very thick cardboard - about 1/8" thick. I cut four 60 degree curves, 2 four inch straights, an 8 inch straight, a 120 degree curve and two forks.
Next I added river banks using sculpey clay, train ballast for small rocky patches, and a few actual rocks to be, well, rocks. Everything was textured with sculpting tools, and then sealed with watered down white glue. Finally I glued the pieces down to a wooden board and built the walls using black foam board. These walls will provide the sides of the rubber mold.
I used OOMOO-30 from Smooth-On to create the rubber molds. This is a two part epoxy product, you mix it together, and pour it into the frame. Once it is cured you can remove the originals from the rubber mold. As you can see from the photos the demolding process completely destroyed my originals. No big deal, I expected it. Here you can see the purple rubber molds that are now ready for pouring resin pieces!
Here is a picture of one mold starting to set up and turn white, the other has two pieces freshly poured with the clear resin liquid. The product I used here is Smooth Cast 300, also from Smooth On. Smooth Cast is another two part epoxy. You pour the two parts together, stir and then carefully pour it into the mold. It sets up in about 5 minutes and is cured in about an hour.
And here is the result! A nice pile of river terrain pieces! One trial size of Smooth Cast got me 34 river pieces. The next blog post will show you the painting process. See you then!

Thursday, November 23, 2023

20th Georgia Volunteer Infantry

Happy Thanskgiving everyone! Hope you can spend quality time with family and friends today! I just completed painting the 20th Georgia Infantry, CSA. I got these guys done pretty quickly. I guess I am finally learning to take some shortcuts and go for volume rather than perfection. Here are some backyard photos of the unit. Enjoy!

Thursday, October 12, 2023

The 7th Michigan Infantry

So many of my miniature wargaming projects seem to creep along very slowly. It is so hard to find the time to push a project over the finish line. When I was young I had lots of time for hobbies but little money for them. Now when I am old I have enough money but little time. However there is always hope. Every now and then, a little bit of time instersects with the completion of a long delayed project and then suddenly something pops out of the queue! This is exactly what happend just the other day and now I will present to you the 7th Michigan Infantry. I hope you enjoy the photos.
Also, while I am here editing a post, I will share a photo of some hexagonal hills that I made for my 4" hex mat. They are servicable - not a work of art - and should look fine when combined with trees,buildings, roads, rocks, and bushes.

Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Making a wargame mat with hexes

I've decided to make a wargame mat with 4" wide hexes. This is primarily for my American Civil War collection. I have previously played ACW battles using my "Double Canister" rules on a 3" hex grid as you can see here. Those three inch hexes can get pretty crowded so I'd like to move to a 4" grid. This project began with a piece of green tie-dyed fleece that I bought at a fabric store. The original fleece is really bright, eye-popping bright! It hurts! So I bought three colors of camoflauge paint at the Home Depot; brown, green and tan. These paints come in spray cans and they are very neutral colors and they are completely flat. After painting a test piece, I went to work. I started by painting the edges of the fabric with the brown paint and then randomly sprayed sections of fabric with the brown. Next I used the green paint to somewhat cover the fabric and bring the oveerall tone of the color way down. Finally some tan highlights here and there.
The next step was to add the hex grid. I printed out a 4" hex template of disconnected hex edges. I think that the edges form a more recognizable hexagon than if I had only painted the vertices of each hex. I printed the template on cardstock and then used an Xacto knife to cut small holes at the end of each line segment. These holes are just big enough to allow a #0 brush to paint a small dot of color on the fabric. So using the template, I paint two hexes worth of dots on the fabric. Then using a flat shader brush I paint the edge, connecting the dots. I water down the acrylic paint, and paint one straight stroke between the two dots. Finally I go back with a second stroke in the opposite direction to work the line into the fleece material. In the photo below you can see the two brushes I am using and the light gray paint bottle.
The first row of 18 hexes, covering six feet of fleece, took me about an hour to paint. The rows after that have gone quicker because there are fewer line segments to paint, and I am getting more proficient. Last night I did an entire row in 30 minutes! So far I have done 4 of the 12 rows required. These hexes will allow me to comfortably place six infantry figures, 3 cavalry, or an artillery piece with 3 crew, in a hex. I am looking forward to getting these soldiers out of their box and on to the game table! Although, once I finish the ground mat I will need to make hill pieces that fit this 4" grid! One project creates another.

Friday, July 8, 2022

Big Bads for Dungeon Heroes

Here are some recently painted monsters for dungeon crawling games. Enjoy! This Hydra from Reaper is the most recent mini I have painted.
Here are some older ones that haven't been posted previously.