North African Buildings from Cork Floor Tiles

Hi all,

Here's a progress report on my latest terrain project. As I'm a massive fan of...

a) all things Matakishi (especially his cork buildings) and
b) cheap wargames terrain

...I decided to have a go at making some North African buildings from cork floor tiles.

Materials required:
1 x pack of 5mm cork floor tiles (contents 7 tiles)
1 x sheet of 3mm MDF
2 x lengths of balsa
1 x handful of popsicle sticks

Total cost: Approximately AU$20 or however many shekels that translates to ;-)

Equipment required:
PVA glue, pen, knives, pins, cutting mat and steel rules.

Time required:
Roughly 10 hours spaced over a week. 3/4 of that time was spent on the fort, at least some of which was just thinking / measuring / holding while glue dried.

Here's the result. A small settlement of four adobe houses, a mosque and a hill fort for use in colonial games for 28mm miniatures. Remember to click for bigger versions.

Hill Fort
The footprint is just over 30cm square, the tower is 20cm tall and the walls are about 13cm high on the outside. I tried to keep it as small as possible without looking silly. I want to be able to fit 20 miniatures inside comfortably.

I'm going to add a trap door to the tower for access to the top from inside, plus a ladder to the lower battlements. I'll also knock up "open", "closed" and "broken" sets of interchangeable gates for different circumstances.

Adobe houses (x4)
With the exception of the longer house these are approximately 12cm square. I have some offcuts left so I may add a few odd walls and maybe a side room or two on some to add variety.

Mosque
The mosque is roughly 20cm square and still needs a dome. Not sure what I'll use for that - probably a polystyrene sphere cut in half or some sort of plastic bowl.

I plan to give all the buildings a blast of white primer, base coat in a dirty off-white and then dry brush in several lighter shades. I'll also pick out the timber details, etc.

Comments and questions welcome.

Cheers,
Millsy

"At the Paint Pots of Madness" or "A Fig Too Far"

In the face of gentle encouragement from Millsy and Nugget (such encouragement taking the form of japes, wind-ups, and jocular jibes at my masculinity, parentage, and inability to complete a painting task within a specified timeframe), I set myself a task for the weekend. I publicly undertook to paint 40 Gnoblars for my Ogre Army.

What the hell was I thinking?

I'd been delaying the inevitable, I'd done the building, basing, and undercoating, but I had gotten no further than painting the skin of these little monsters. They sat in their box, taunting me with their incomplete status, their gargoyle grins mocking me, their undercoated bodies showing the flat, dead-black tone of the truly accursed miniature - the project which knows no end!

I began Sunday morning around 10am. Six hours later, a gibbering human wreck was found at the kitchen bench, tearfully begging his wife to count the small goblinoids again, just to be sure that there were actually 40 completed.

Batch painting 40 figs is not a task for the faint-hearted, especially if you've only ever painted 20 at a time before. I'd certainly never attempted it on this scale. I'm not a Stakhanovite like Millsy. Gnoblars are much smaller than 28mm humans as well, meaning a lot of close-in work would be needed.

I forged ahead, setting up something of a production line for the little green men, forgetting breakfast and lunch, and refusing any nourishment other than black coffee. In retrospect, this may have been a mistake, and would go some way to explain my frazzled nerves when it was all over. That and forgetting to block in a key area and having to go back several figures to ensure completion... it happened more often than I would like to admit, so the production line was not as well-coordinated as would have liked.

For better or worse, here's the result;

That's the speed hump/distraction/meat shield of the Ogre Army, and at two points per figure, I'd better have 20 more completed before too long. Not just yet, is all I ask!

It's big figs for me again for the foreseeable. There's a Maneater to assemble, and the core units like Bulls and Ironguts could use some bulking up. And it might be nice to have some ranged capability beyond the Gnoblars' barrage of rock, bottles, and small animals, so the Leadbelchers could fill the vacant Special slot.

Just not for another couple of weeks, I beg you...

HOTT Project Update III

More progress to report which is always a pleasure to do. I've finished everything I have available now so I'm waiting on the post before continuing. Here's the first 20AP completed. Remember to click for larger images...

Necromancer (Wizard - 4AP)

Ghosts (Hordes 4 x 1AP)

Skeletons (Spears 4 x 2AP)

Skeletons (Blades / General 2AP, Blades 2AP)

I've somehow (typically!) bought far more than I need. As I said the rest is in the post and includes a Vampire (Hero), Skeletons (Archers x 4), Bats / Skeletal Vultures (Fliers x 2), Spiders (Beasts x 2) and a Devil (why did I buy that???) so in the end I'm going to have 40AP+. Hmmm....

The project will be on hold now for a while which is probably a good thing. ;-)

Cheers,
Millsy

HOTT Project Update II

More progress made tonight on my current project - speed painting Undead for Hordes of the Things.

Tonight has seen the Ghosts (Hordes) finished off with a couple of rounds of dry brushing and the Necromancer (Wizard) completed too. Apologies for the image quality. These are a bit flash burnt, mainly due to tiredness and not setting up decent lighting. Remember to click for larger versions...

All that remains of my original 20AP is two bases of Skeletons (Blades and General / Blades). I picked up enough bits to make 4 bases of Skeleton Archers (Shooters) today on eBay. I'm also digging about for some more bits to make some more Skeletons (Blades) and also some Fliers. No sign of my Spiders (Beasts) as yet but hopefully they will arrive soon too.

I'm pretty happy with how this is progressing. Fast enough to justify the speed label but still of a high enough quality that I'll be happy with them over time. Til next time...

Cheers,
Millsy

HOTT Undead Project Update

It seems the speed painting thing is working for me! I've just about finished the four bases of Skeleton Spears I talked about in my first post. All that remains is a little highlighting and dry brushing. I'm not sure what colour scheme I want for the bases yet - some sort of brown or perhaps a black / dry brushed in grey. Comments, suggestions etc. gratefully accepted...

I'm also about a third done with the remaining Skeletons and the Necromancer. The Zombie Horde and I experienced some "creative differences of opinion". They thought the they were detailed enough to warrant an extensive paint job and I didn't. Consequently they're now base coated and inked in a variety of blues, greys and greens in preparation for lighter and lighter shades of dry brushes until they are reinvented as a Ghost Horde.

Stay tuned...

Cheers,
Millsy