Palm Trees Again...

Over the last few weeks I have been receiving a number of parcels for the Shedwood forest project and in amongst them were some Palm Trees I had ordered a few weeks back from China...
sourced on ebay - search for TDT18 40pcs Layout Model Train Palm Trees Scale O 18cm

Basing these was very straight forward and very quick. Last Sunday night I prepped the bases - Off cuts of hardboard cut into 15 irregular shapes and then sanded. Using a drill piece that matched the mounting stem of said palm trees I drilled a few holes in each base. Most of these are clustered in 2’s and 3’s. The Palm tree is then glued into place in the hole with ‘hard as nails glue’ and left to set over night. I reckon this bit took about an hour.

The next morning before work  I clipped the remainder of the stem off so the base was flat. Liberally soaking the hardboard base in pva I covered these with medium ballast. Time taken for 15 bases c30 minutes.

The following morning  I then painted the bases with acrylic raw umber. Time taken 30 minutes.

The next day (weds?) I had a rest.

Thursday morning 30 minutes of drybushing both the bases (buff) and the leaves (scorpion green)

Friday Morning – adding the static grass – 20 mins

Saturday Morning – putting these new additions out with all the other to show off the palm forest.

I estimate that this little lot has taken around 10 hours to put together and cost in the region of £50  (excludes the £30 spent on Pegasus palms before I realised China sourced product would be a better bet)– Total number trees c80, covering almost a square metre of terrain.

The trees themselves will no doubt feature in Pirate games in the West Indies. Complement my Jungle terrain and will of course be used in any future desert setting.

Until next time

Tales of Shedwood - Inside the Town Walls

So over the last few nights I have been steadily painting the walls of Nottingham – three Games Workshop Fortresses ! Total cost about £70 on ebay.

This equates to 12 towers (more on this in a second), two gatehouses (more on this as well). And nine wall sections.

Having painted (not sprayed) an acrylic black primer, I have just drybrushed on two tones of greyon the walls and one of the towers. Hopefully will finish this off tomorrow. I am going to trial one piece with an ink wash and then give this a final lighter coat.

I also need to paint all the doors and tower trapdoors !

 

I had three gatehouses but only needed two for the walls. The third is being cut up to create the bastion (with round towers) for the Towns castle. More on this soon.

Why the update? Well all my buildings have now arrived ! A mix of Conflix, EM4 & PMC.

My son and I have recently being playing Skyrim on the xbox and when he first saw the city I thought it looked like the Cities in the game – Solitude and Whiterun. For thise of you with an Xbox but have never played Skyrim do so – its an awesome game.

I mentioned that a few more buildings had been bought. I finally managed to secure the Conflix Merchants house on ebay for a tenner and it is a fine addition. A couple more of these standard houses wont go amiss.

In addition I have bought a total of seven 28mm buildings from PMC. These are quite frankly brilliant. Not only do they work really well in my city they will also look great as a village on the outskirts of Shedwood Forest.

Should state that all these buildings have lift off roofs, they appear durable and are really well painted.

As far as the base is concerned I am now leaning towarsds a cloth sheet suitably muddied and flocked.

I am only beginning to realise how massive this project is...the city and terrain is relatively straightforward from here but to populate the town with citizens, carts and livestock will prove to be a herculean task. Not to mention expensive. On top of that I have to build the barons, sheriff and KLings forcers along with Robin Hood and his Merry men. Sourcing this lot may be fun, but painting them could be painful...

Some Piccies

Until next time

Tales of Shedwood - Fortified Priory added

Another quick update from the Tales of Shedwood Forest. Having recently been invited to take part in another Robin Hood game I am beginning to get very excited about how my own project might develop. Rather unusually this particular project has started with the terrain build and not the figures however saying that I have purchased some of the lead & plastic I need but it’s going to take time to get this stuff painted.

Frequent visits to ebay are showing a dearth of suitable cheap figures so I will almost certainly have to pay full whack for ranges from Fireforge, Crusader, Curteys, Foundry, Blacktree Design and a few others. Enough of the moaning and onto the serious stuff.

First up I have almost finished the renovation of the fortified priory. This was built many years ago and ended up in a horrible grey enamel. A new paint job, new roofs, some doors (salvaged from the GW castle sets I have been acquiring) have all lead to a rather impressive building. I have some monks on the painting table so the priory will have a few residents in place soon.

Setting the Medieval Standard

Last night I was fortunate to be invited around to game in my local vicinity. The game was hosted by Jim Bibbly a prolific modeller and painter who graces the pages on the KLead Adventure Forum. Also in attendandance were Mamalute & Dr De'ath of the same forum.

I should state that these guys know how to paint and have set the bar for my own tales of Shedwood - none of what you see next came from my fair hand -

The following are a few photos I captured but a full AAR can be found at

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=54382.0

Do check out the AAR - its very funny...

cheers

Eric

Tales of Shedwood - Nottingham Castle

Another parcel arrived today from ebay. A Kiddies plastic castle manufactured by Superplay. For the princely sum of £15 inc postage I receved a barely used castle set. Of particular interest are the four round towers and the Castle Mansion.

However keen to get the new toy out of the box I headed down to the shed.....

I give you the start/work in progress of Nottingham Castle

 

From a scale perspective it works with 28mm and provides a whole host of options.

The figures in the tower are 28mm GW Bretonniam archers painted many moons ago

 

The only negative with this purchase are the reverse side of the castle walls. These are ‘not filled’ and the walkways are just simple plastic wooden effect boards. One option might be to take these walls (fill in the reverse side with filler and mount them back to back on foam blocks. I reckon the set has enough walls to create a four foot run done in this way.

 

At the moment I am debating whether the round towers would work better as a suitable barbican gate house for the keep.

Alternatively I might build a better gate for the town - so again the round towers could be used here. The Games work shop gate is set in a wall section but I reckon this could be cut out and used in the conversion. Alternatively These might form the framework of the castle keep with some big modifications done to the walls.

A final shot of Nottingham castle overlooking the city

If I am lucky I might get to slap some paint on this weekend ....

Comments welcome....

Tales from Shedwood Forest (part2)

Just a quick update on the Tales of Shedwood Forest

First up the first of my figures arrived this morning. A box of the Fireforge mounted sergeants and a box of men at arms. These will form the core of my Sheriff of Nottinghams garrison.

This will be first time I have worked with plastic figures in a number of years so fingers crossed that they will come out alright.

The foot soldiers (i believe there are 48 of them) will be split 2/3rds spears and 1/3 crossbows.

Next up is a small town statue that I think fits the part really well. I have used one of the tombs from the Ainsty Castings cemetery as a pedestal and the Stag came from Foundry. Given that these animals were property of the crown in the time of Robin Hood I think it works quite well.

Finally, I finished stripping down the fortified priory I built many tears ago. This was constructed out of hardboard and cork. Its now been given a new base coat of acrylic black (it was previously painted in enamel grey !), the ground has been retreated with sand and grit, and I have put new wooden decks ion the tower roofs and battlements. It still need to do the roofs but haven’t decided whether these will be tiled or planked.

Having blown my budget on various buildings, castles, and other paraphenalia in the past few months the rest of the figures are going to have to wait for the moment. I do however have my eyes on some of the ranges from Black Tree, Crusader, Fire Forge and a couple of others.

Thanks for the interest

Eric

The Tales of Shedwood Forest - the beginning

So with Pirates almost complete I have now turned my attention to a new genre.

The Tales of Sherwood Forest.

With ample trees and rivers already built I could turn my attention to the focal point of this game. The City and Castle of Nottingham.

As befits a walled medieval city I needed sufficient walls and gates. So a quick scour on various boards I settled on the Games Workshop plastic fortress as my starting point. Some bids later on ebay secured two of these beauties.

What you can see in the photo are the walls and towers all assembled with one layout for the city. At present they only have the black acrylic primer so still need to be finished off with grey drybrushing.

Inside the city I needed buildings. Fortunately the Conflix buildings are perfect BUT I needed more. Again reviews across the website revealed that some folks were raving about the 28mm buildings from PMC.

A few of these were purchased (there goes my budget for the year) and I am getting there. I just need to source some more Wilkinson’s vinyl tiles to fill in the towns roads and courtyards. These will be ‘dirtied up’ as they look just a little bit too clean.

In addition to all these buildings I decided that my walled monastery would come out to play but it was in dire need of a repaint. The photo here shows the monastery with its first coat of black.

Finally I will need Nottingham castle to grace the town. This has been bought but will be shown in a later post....