Industrial Wild West Part 6 - Extras & Final Pictures

Nearly there now.

The ramps are still outstanding. A simple bit of construction and bare wood paint job as the other pieces. I had thought about taking the foot off one of the sections to bridge a river I have (keeping the bridge surface level) but decided it was more flexible as it came. If I really want to I can snip away in the future.

The whole kit comes with various extra bits'n'bobs but the only ones that I made up were the crates. I glued one of the lids askew to remind use that they are crates not old Terrahawks Cubes.

All done, so here is a hastily arranged set (with not ground sheet!) to show coverage, etc. I embarrassingly don't have a painted cowboy yet, hence the unwelcome colonial intervention.

The entire industrial zone isn't finished yet. I still have a sawmill to construct and some workers tents to craft, but this is the Troll Trader set. I have to say it was great fun to do.

Industrial Wild West Part 5 - Water Wheel System

Time to give my water works some attention (I'm not getting an younger!)

The main challenge with the water wheel is the painting. All sides are visible, but not very accessible once built, so it was a double sides paint job before construction, using the same bare wood technique as the mine entrances.

Once painted the construction could begin. Pretty straight forward as long as you notice the there are 2 different sizes of parts to form the internals of the wheel. The joining of the two halves is a bit of a fiddle with so many tabs looks to be housed, but manageable.

The finished construction.

Now the waterway that feeds the wheel has always looks a bit flat and 2-D for me so I thought I'd build up the sides to stop the water running out. Out came the lolly sticks and coffee stirrers.

Strangely the water section of the piece is laser cur all the way through with only 4 small tabs to hold it on. I don't think it is maens to come off at all (no instructions remember) so I added a couple of stirrers to the underside to cover the gap. It also adds to the constructed look to the piece which is good.

Coffee stirrers to the flat and lolly sticks to hold the water in. I didn't run the "planks" as a single piece down the length to give a more constructed feel again. The small joining board halfway down the side is really only cosmetic, but helps with the strength. The whole thing was then painted as the wheel above.

All this extra work had made the already narrow based scenery more top heavy, so I glued it to a wider piece of plastic. nice and steady now.

For the water I mixed a little blue paint with PVA and gave it a couple of coats. Before anyone starts to make a fuss, water is blue, OK. Ask any small child!;)

15mm Skirmish Box - New Board

Over the summer I've been working on constructing a new custom board for the Skirmish Box. The one you see on the other articles is very nice but I was wanting to add in the future extensions (such as wilderness sections) which wouldn't match up with the existing textures.

So I've used Dave Graffam's Cobbled Streets Kit to construct a new tile set and been stitching it together with GIMP (which is a learning curve in itself at times!). This kit has mud, gravel and grass layers that can be used for wilder areas as well and with a bit of practice the tiles can be combined.

After several town layout designs and lots of pixel gazing the final design is done. It should fit better with the number of buildings I'll be putting on the map. The previous one is lovely but seems to have slightly too many roads for the building population. The gravel section at the bottom to the map is to allow a link in with a future planned forest\wilderness map.

My test print of the board had a couple of print issues (the printer I used didn't seem to like the card surface much) but I've made it up anyway to get the design in use and tested before taking it further.

Additionally I've been working on the scenery sheets to maximize the print efficiency. I now have two buildings and some walls on one sheet of A4 card. The whole thing is another testament to the flexibility of Dave Graffam's photoshop file format option. I've settled on using two distinct texture layers for each house design and I think 6 houses with the the walls is just about right.

Zomtober 2014

With numerous projects crawling along on the paint table the last thing I need is another distraction.

It's a shame then that I'm joining Brummie's call for participants in Zomtober 2014. Basically it's a painting challenge. Paint at least one Zombie or Survivor and post a picture on your blog by the end of every Sunday in October.

I've a ton of oft-glanced at unpainted undead waiting to go. Best go and look them out.

Feel free to join in (or even monitor everyone's figures) at:
http://brummieswargamingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/zomtober-2014.html