Tiny Worlds Stone Walls: Painting part 2

Continuing from my last post, the walls needed some foliage, of course. First up, static grass in two colours. Spring green and some 'African Grass' which has a nice scorched grass colour. Notice the hedgerow now ncludes bushes - two small lumps I had spare from the AoW hedgerows set.

Finally, of course I had to add a scattering of Mininatur Tufts - early fall and late fall. These make an appearance on most things these days, i tried to drop them into the crevices where i imagine bushes and weeds will grow from. And with that, I declare them finished!

Here's a shot of the hedgerow connector. Not bad except the flocks are slightly different since I did the hedgerows.

And to finish off, some Perry plastic Redcoats making use of the cover, to show them in action and the scale.

And there you have it - I hope you I enjoyed my first two-part review and tutorial!

Tiny Worlds Stone Walls: Review and Painting part 1

I spent ages towards the start of the year looking for some decent stone walling in 28mm scale. Everything I found was either a ghastly pile of kitty litter, or way over the price I was happy to pay. The nicest I found was from Architects of War, while I really like their hedgerows set, I couldn't quite justify the cost - the walls cost the same as the hedgerows but seem worse value for money to me - no foliage and only 34" of wall, as opposed to 40" of hedge.

Eventually, eBay came up trumps: these resin casts from eBay store'Tiny Worlds'. I bought two sets a four and a six pack. I think together they a bargain price of £16 including postage.

So they score highly on value for money as there is over 45 inches of wall here. The arrived well packed and surprisingly nicely sculpted, including good variation - two sculpts of the long 6" lengths, as well as a ruined section. Then there are two sculpts of a shorter section of 3" and a ruined one of that length, plus two end-pieces. I like the mix of lengths, should be able to snake them around the board a bit more naturally.

I've two relatively minor gripes:
-the casts had a lot of small air bubbles and needed quite a bit of tidying with a knife. I had to do a fair bit of work filling the bubbles - you am be able to make out the darker spots above, where I'd green-stuffed them. And of course I haven't caught them all.
- they are perhaps a little bit low - 20-22mm including the base. I did consider mounting each piece on 3mm board to add a little height, but decided it was far too much faff. I'll post a shot with some 28mm minis in my next post.

Other than that, I'm really happy with them for the price. Overall a solid 8/10.

I dint normally post painting tutorials, mostly as I wouldn't presume to have that many original techniques to share, especially with terrain. I think my style is too clean to lend itself well to making decent terrain. But I remembered to take photos at each stage for once, so I will use them.

After the prep and a burst of white undercoat, I thought I'd save on using modelling acrylics for the a decorating by buying some decent emulsion - Little Greene Stone Dark Warm seemed a nice start. This is how they looked after two coats.

Next up, some washes, on the earth banks rather than the walls: two washes of Watered Vallejo 'Earth'. Then, a wash of watered Vallejo 'Charred Brown'. Finally, some sparing use of precious Devlan Mud, in the very deepest recesses. Each stage was quick, but all these layers meant they took the most part of a week of evenings to paint as I'd have to wait for each stage to dry. But doing them between other projects meant this wasn't much of a problem.

You may note one end has no wall and was sprayed black. This is to make a piece which merges into the AoW hedgerows I mentioned earlier. I knocked this up by mounting a short piece onto Foamed PVC (great stuff!), building it up with wood filler then some sand for texture. It'll get foliage later.

Next up: drybrushing of course! Vallejo Earth plus some GW Bleached bone, highlighted to bleached bone on the earth. The wall being lighter, I started with bleached bone and did a couple of highlights with white. And here we are, looking pretty good, but not quite finished...

British Foot Artillery, and a cunning transportation solution

Another week, and another photo of my British Napoleonics, this time a battery of the Royal Foot Artillery:

Miniatures are Victrix plastics, with Architects of War hedges filling the background and Hovels ltd atrillery emplacments. These were a bargain and painted up brilliantly but have yet to see the tabletop. The smoke is the best material we've found to date, the lining of Perry Miniatures blisters. This is much, much more natural-looking than cotton wool. Progress on Napoleonics has stalled as I worked on the WWII project, but I hope to put some time in soon.

I'm also often trying to find an 'optimum' solution for tranposrting figs. I've got a Figures in Comfort case that I love, but they are a bit too pricey to have enough to hold all of my various forces. So, for plastics and odd scales I've been experimenting. Here's the solution for my 28mm Napoleonic British:

So, top left to bottom right we have 95th Rifles, KGL light dragoons, Royal Foot Artillery, 28th North Gloucestershire Light, 28th North Gloucestershire centre, two unpainted units of redcoats, and finally the 42nd 'Black Watch'. Since I took the photo the painted 42nd have doubled, and the Rifles have been finished. Redocats next, when I can bring myself to it!

It is a standard A4 box file, lined on the bottom with sticky-backed steel sheet (I got mine from Principles of War). The troops are then based on Gale Force 9 magentic bases. The Colours are just short enough to fit in. The magnets are strong enough to rank the models up, they don't move as long as you don't shake the box too vigourosly. The only ones I would be worries about would be my Perry metal cavalry.

British 95th Rifles on patrol

The first Napoleonic unit I finished was, of course, some 95th Rifles. I think the reason I've kept at the Naps was a childhood of watching Sharpe. So, probably like most British players, when I sat down to paint I started with the Rifles. Here they are patrolling a Peninsula road:

Perry Plastics with metal command. I've six more plastics already prepped, half of them converted to add variety. I'm sure I'll finish these up soon: they take about half the time to paint compared to Redcoats!

Terrain-wise, at the back is an Architects of War hedgerow - a novel way of basing trees and for an all-inclusive kit I thought it was well-priced. The road is from Terrain Warehouse, I was much less happy was these, they are quite wide and deep and I felt they needed quite a bit of tidying up to make presentable. But it is pretty solid, and well priced at £30 (in postage) for 6 foot of road with various curves and junctions. Finally, at the front is some carved up coir matting as a wheatfield, a trick I picked up from one of the blogs I follow.