Saturday 18 July 2020

More Desert Terrain - Wadi's

Whilst my desert board was assembled I figured it would be a good idea to build some additional terrain.

It became apparent in our last game that I really needed a low ridge and if this could be combined with the build of a wadi. So with my thinking cap on (its quite small) I started the build.

For obvious reasons I wanted to tie this into my other desert terrain so the colour schemes, basic construction etc would all be similar.

First up on some offcuts of hardboard I marked up some simple shapes. Each end would be 12.5cm long in a straight line so they could butt up to the next piece. The curved pieces can slot together so its a good idea to number each piece e.g 5 can fit with 5a.



Once cut and sanded I flipped the hardboard over onto the rough side and glued down bits of cork bark left over from my last build. Each piece of cork stands between 2-3cm high.



Once glued down I could play around with some permutations. It became evident I needed more so a further six straight sections were added to the pile.



With the cork glue dry I could then for the reverse slope with polystyrene. This was cut roughly with my foam cutter and glued in place



an even bigger wadi !!


With the polystyrene in place I could 'slope' the block in place, again using the foam cutter.


The gap between the polystyrene and cork was infilled with small off cuts


Once dry the flat areas are then coated in pva and covered in sand. Twenty four hours later its already to paint.


The flat areas are painted nutmeg brown (big can of matt emulsion from Wilko's) and the cliff faces matt black


The cliff faces are then drybrushed with the nutmeg brown


Once the paint was dry I heavily dry-brushed all the flat areas with yellow ochre acrylic paint


A final heavy dry brush of titanium white brings it all together ...

A finished wadi across by desert board


You can se how the pieces interlock below


and are wide enough for a single stand of troops


The wadi can then be separated to create a low ridge....



and with a bit of creativity used to denote a river bank...note the blue tiles are just loose





More soon

20 comments:

  1. Hi Eric- Very cleverly made - excellent terrain- great work there. Cheers. KEV.

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  2. Excellent and inventive additions.

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  3. Nicely done Eric...
    They should come in very useful...

    All the best. Aly

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  4. That is a great idea and the finished result looks stunning!

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  5. Very effective and love the way they can lock together.

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  6. Very effective! I like the versatility of it all.

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  7. Excellent, I had plans to do something similar, but your idea is much better

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  8. That spilt design is brilliant Eric. Very clever indeed!

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  9. Brilliant idea Eric. Inspiring modelling and inspiring blog! Where did you get the sand from for the terrain? I'm after exactly the same sort of sand for basing my figures and doing odd spots on my table terrain?

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    1. Bird Sand from Wilko's...alternatively use builders sand but bake it first to dry out

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  10. I love home-made terrain and the finished effect of these is brilliant!
    Regards, James

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  11. Just cut some templates scaled to 10mm figures, marked some foam/plastic card to match and cut them out.

    Tomorrow I will chamfer the appropriate edges and cut cork tiles to make the escarpments.

    Thanks for the inspiration.

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  12. Looks great and very useful in other configurations.

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  13. Damn... luvin the work Eric...
    Awesome dual purpose scenery idea
    Cheers
    Drew

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  14. ...weighing in a little late on this, but very nice work! I like the look and the versatility of the pieces. A quick question; was cutting the bark into sections fairly easy? I have boxes full of bark, and have used it in the past, but never sawed it into pieces. In my mind it's too fragile for that. Was it fairly easy to cut?

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  15. ...and I answered my own question. Cork not bark!

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    1. Hi Dave - very easy to cut - I put the cork pieces into the vice on my workmate and used a regular saw. Just take it gently.

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