PROJECT LEWES

Well I've chipped away at this terrain project for more time than I care to reflect on but thanks to some school holiday leave with my daring daughters, I got 'some' downtime and put the finishing touches to the marshland for my Lewes table-top. This first shot was an indulgent one but just goes to show how realistic natural light in all its forms can render a model at the right time.  The next shot is the completely finished marshland. As you might make out, I edged some of my bogs with foam foliage and put a few dots of static grass at the extreme shallows. I'm not happy with the acrylic lacquer but am satisfied they look wet enough - less pools and more wet mud. This feature of the ground has in fact caused far more effort on my part than it may ever justify but if we play the game enough times, some units are bound to get driven into it. Here's what the Royalists will be looking at as they form up to advance up the slope of the Downs - rather them than...

Back to my boards after a frustrating absence and a brief stint in the Pacific. I re-read over my previous posting and there have been a few 'u-turns' in my approach to these marshes. You may see the results of my attempts at brushing colour into the synthetic fur. Not at all what I had in mind but it left the terrain with that sodden, well-trodden look like a wet cow paddock. I'm actually happy with the results where I had them but ended up returning to the spray gun to colour the remainder. The reeds have been sewn into the pools by cutting crosses into the paper and foam beneath and pushing the ends through blobs of Selley's Liquid Nails. The reeds are taken from picking apart a brown fiber door mat. I just love this stuff for clumped grass, crops and reeds. Once unraveled, the fibers are bunched and double over and can be either glued as a double-clump or adjusted to an alternate length. Once glued, they paint up easily and so I gave them an uneven dark green c...