Finished tree and a cottage

Following on from yesterday's post. I finally got the tree finished. I gave the whole model a quick dry brush of a grey followed by a cream to add a bit of depth to the branches. Once it was all dry I gave the upper branches a good covering of carpet adhesive (nice and strong bond) and simply added plenty of flock before shaking off the excess, I did a second coat to cover areas that I missed. The base was just my normal sand sealed with wood varnish with some static grass added. I even picked out a couple of stones. I'm very happy with the model and put an order in with Thom to print some more.

First coat of flock added

A finished tree

With thoughts on the upcoming Border Reiver show, I needed a few more cottages to replace the Dark age buildings I've been using. This first model is a plastic kit from Tabletop Workshop, it literally took a few minutes to put together. For painting it was a simple chocolate brown undercoat followed by a grey  then cream dry brush. The roof had a light yellow dry brush. The daub was picked out with a couple of coats of white with some weathering powder added to complete.

Alongside the tree for a height comparison

By my reckoning I probably only need 2 or 3 more cottages and will try and pick up the one from Perry miniatures after Christmas as I don't want them all looking the same.

More Carthaginians and future plans

It's taken me awhile but I finally got a couple of extra units done for my Carthaginians. Not my best work as I lost a bit of enthusiasm painting these up. I seem to lose impetus when it takes too long to get stuff done, these took nearly 3 weeks. The Balearic slingers are from Forged in Battle, one of the elephants is a 3d printed model from Mitch while the other is from Museum miniatures.

With the Border Reiver show moving from its September date to March next year, I've put the Punic War battle on hold as I will not have enough time to get everything done for a display game. So I've decided to go with The Baron's War. Most of the figures are already done as well as most of the buildings and fences etc. One thing I am short of is some trees. I probably only need a dozen or so, but the ones we have at the club are showing their age. So Thom has printed off a tree from a 'haunted woods' range. He can also resize them so they are not all uniform in height. He gave me a test model to try out before he prints anymore.

The basic model added to a mdf base

I set to work with some rubberised horsehair, attaching it to the branches to try and get a basic 'tree' shape. Once dried I gave the whole model a chocolate brown undercoat. Now I'll leave it to dry and continue tomorrow. I think I'll give the model a grey then cream dry-brush before adding the flock to the horsehair.

 So far so good. I should bet the model finished tomorrow and then start basing it.