Saturday 6 December 2014

Scratch Built and Commercial Terrain


I will start this post off with the rubberised roads that I received through the post from Early War Miniatures. I purchased these at the Warfare show last month but as they had completely sold out, they sent them on to me with free postage and an extra piece of road as a thank you.

I had seen these roads on some of Richard Clarke's (TFL) and the Perry's table layouts and have been meaning to buy them for a while. I like the idea of being able to run your roads up over hills, something you are unable to do with rigid roads, unless you actually build the road into the hill. 

I purchased my set of cobbled roads for £45 which came unpainted but they paint up really easy using water based paints. Highly recommended. www.earlywarminiatures.com
28mm vehicle for scale. They do roads for 15/20mm scale as well. I just need to blend the static grass on the edge of the roads to match my terrain.




   
Whilst at the Warfare Show, I treated myself to a ready made and painted 'Well and Wall' pack from www.adrianswalls.com Again these were all sold out at the show, so they were sent onto me with free postage. They come painted to a very high standard with three sections of wall, a well with realistic water effect and a wooden 'nodding donkey'. I did repaint the walls and add some static grass but that was only so it would match the colours of my own terrain. Highly recommended and excellent value.


My third purchase of the Warfare Show was the plastic Middle Eastern building from Perry Miniatures. I made a base for the building but didn't glue it down as it does not have a removable roof, so that you can place your figures inside. Again, a very nice kit. 

The rest of the buildings are what I have scratch built and I will be making a second batch of buildings, some roads, high walls and maybe a market to go with this collection.



  
When dry, I use tile grout, PVA glue and sand where needed.



  When dry, paint everything in dark brown paint.

 
 
 
I tried a new painting formula for these buildings using the following emulsion house paints from Wilko Home Store. They are tester pots that only cost £1 each but have about four times more paint than what you would get in your average pot of model paint, so ideal for doing your terrain. 
 
After the dark brown base coat, I use in the following order - Wilko - Nutmeg Spice, Retro Ochre, Sand, On Deck. 

For the wooden thatching on a couple of the buildings, I cut up some bristles from a broom head that I also bought from Wilko and PVA glued down onto the frame work. The glue was still wet when I took these pictures but when dry you wont be able to see the white glue.


   As mentioned in my last post, I plan to use these buildings not just for Modern Afghanistan but also for WW2 Desert and The North West Frontier.
 
 
And to finish off with the usual action shots.















 





 
The dome on the roof of the building was just one half of some plastic packaging from an old Christmas decoration and the table surface is an old dust sheet that I had.
 
I will try to get some more buildings done but it is freezing in the garage at the moment, even with the heater on.
Cheers,
Pat.
 

35 comments:

  1. Brilliant work as always. I have a request. Could you please consider putting on a tab for your terrain builds? Your work is inspirational but I have to go through everything to find the builds. That's not a bad thing, I just get lost in it all and end up spending too much time.

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  2. Hi AHunt, if you go down the top right hand side of the page and look under 'LABELS' you will find 21 posts under TERRAIN.
    Cheers,
    Pat.

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  3. Great looking terrain. The roads look really nice, the buildings painted up excellently

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  4. Terrific. Simply terrific. Great looking terrain!

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  5. Good looking stuff! And I like the dust effect you have done on the chopper. Huey. You know, the helicopter.

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  6. Just love those home-made buildings Pat, fantastic work!

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  7. Excellent as always Pat! Really love the scratch builds!

    Christopher

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  8. Lovely work Pat. Got to love scratch built terrain. Great idea.for the reed roofing. I've seen photos of that laid onto top of buildings in Iraq, so I will be unashamedly be 'borrowing' that method. :)

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  9. The scratch builds are fantastic Pat! Very very nice!

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  10. Brilliant scratch builds. I must get some rubber roads too. They look the biz.

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  11. Fantastic post Pat and great instructionals that helps plonkers like myself actually learn something. Will try out that broom technique this afternoon. Thanks.

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  12. Excellent looking buildings and that well is nice too.

    Frank
    http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com.au/

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  13. That's some kick arse terrain you've built yourself there. It's motivated me to get some of mine done.

    Cheers.

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  14. This is excellent Pat, roads, buildings and pictures are amazing...as always!

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  15. Lovely builds Pat ! I´m very impressed by your building talant!

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  16. Well impressive. Inspired me to construct a few more middle eastern buildings

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  17. Absolutely stunning! What great looking scratch built buildings.

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  18. Absolutely awesome work once again, Pat !
    Especially the scratch built parts look absolutely stunning.

    As for the roads:
    Which paint did you use to paint them? "Water based paint" means that usual acrylics work, doesn't it?

    Cheers
    Stefan

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    1. Thanks chaps.
      Stefan, I just used emulsion household paint which is water based and cheaper but you could use your model acrylic paints as also water based.

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    2. Thanks for your advice. For my terrain pieces I usually take cheap tinting paint as well but for the roads I though of airbrushing different shades...

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  19. Excellent looking results and useful information about the flexible roads.

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  20. Beautiful buildings! Both the construction and paintjob is of really well done. /Mattias

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  21. Absolutely outstanding building Pat. Man if you did commissions I would spend way too much on your collection.....great work

    Nathan

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  22. Really inspirational stuff. I think that whilst each individual piece is outstanding, it is when they are all together that a really immersive atmosphere is created. You can readily imagine the narrative that is being developed in those photos. Superb!
    And that head-on shot of the road going over the hill is a winner - heading over to their site after posting this!

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  23. Thanks again chaps for your kind words.

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  24. Fantastic...lots of great inspiration for my own desert boards

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  25. Outstanding & inspirational as always Pat :)

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  26. These building you DIYed look really amazing… great work as usual!

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  27. Hello...? Anyone here? Is there any chance that maybe I could get some heads up about the magical mixture that has been used to... well... texture those buildings, becouse the texture on those buildings just looks freaking amazing...and yes I'll take the showel, thank you:-)

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    1. Hi Damian,
      I have used Tile Grout which you can buy from the builders merchants ready mixed in tubs.
      Cheers,
      Pat.

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  28. Hey Pat. Thanks for such a quick answer, was it just Tile Grout or did you mix it with something like PVA?

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    1. I used just tile grout on these buildings. I have used tile grout and PVA mixed with water and applied a thin wash over MDF buildings and Laser cut wagons if I want to give them a little bit of texture without covering all the detail.

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  29. Also...as this seems a bit unclear for me (probably my poor English) Tile Grout is the stuff that comes in between the tiles (into the little gaps between them) or is it the stuff used to stick the tiles to the wall?

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    1. It is called tile grout adhesive that sticks the tiles to the walls but I think it is also used for the little gaps between also.

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