We watch the lightning, crack over the *very cheaply made* cane fields and often think that this is Australia!

...kudos to anyone who gets the song reference in the title! ;)

Anyway, this post is a very quick one again about some area terrain I made today.  If you have seen my posts in the 6mm Facebook pages, then this info will be nothing new - but for anyone else, keep on reading!

So being an Aussie on our coastline, a lot of the area up North has Sugar Cane fields... so I was hoping to make a rendition of those as area terrain for some of my battles.  My first attempt was to paint the paint brush bristles in an old brush a deep green, cover them in PVC glue, let dry, then cut and glue to a base.

It... well... it looks better as Elephant Grass/a slosh-pit of greenery haha! Still useful but definitely not the effect I wanted - and much too much work for the result.

Left and above are my original attempt at long grass... "Kind of" works, but I feel I'd be better suited putting some water effects around the base and making it into a swamp!

So I went to my local Bunnings store and found the perfect solution... a Coir floormat on the cheap, and a tin of green paint. Five minutes of brushing on return home, and the results match the best examples I have seen online where they make each canestalk seperately!

These coir floor mats would make great cornfields (green on the bottom with a flecking of yellow over the top ends) burnt cane using a black/grey paint, or wheat with a dash of brown thrown over them...

A much, MUCH better version.  Some earth coloration to the sides of the matt and it will pretty much sort itself out!

You could even do the elephant grass through painting the whole lot a darker green hue than mine.

Eventually I will cut out segments to act as fields, maybe even dig a few patches out and place some paintbrush bristles in there with a wrecked aircraft... maybe a downed helo perhaps???

Knowing the terrain... pretty sure I'm starting to learn it's name...

Hi all!
 

Well yes, I am here still alive and kicking here!  Time hasn't been wasted (well, not much...) and progression on the forces for my future armies is well underway!

So you may (rightfully) ask what the heck I have been up to?  I, dear reader, have been busy building the foundations for a great battle!  The base from which greatness can arise!
...
...
I've been building terrain :)

My first, completed model has been a lovely piece from JR Minis 6mm range - I am not sure if this particular model is still in production, but I believe I acquired this one through Noble Knight Minis (link attached).  This model was sold as an Oil Refinery - but to my eye it appeared more like the basis for an oil burning power plant - the three hoppers with the copper/brass tops looked, to my eye - like some giant set of batteries.  I can imagine (and indeed will attach) some string painted black/ silver/ copper and leading from the copper points to a nearby set of power lines... a pair of the larger power pylons from either GamesCraft Miniatures or maybe some Brigade Models Shapeways designs.

For everything in Eulanus, I want it to look like it is past it's glory days... but that there still lies 'something' within it where if someone actually took some time to fix it, the building really could go again.  Everything has to have that "at least a decade of minimal support, but never entirely abandoned" feel... kind of looking like this...



The Power Plant:
"If they tell us they are going to the power plant, we give grieve for them before they go... so many of the boys, they go there to fight for it, to fight for the power, they never come home.  You see the one who controls the plant, he controls the mine... and the one who controls the mine, he makes the rules" - Old man of Ijobo village, a slum located a short distance from the old Ikanawa Industries Power Plant.

Aerial recon of the Ikanawa Industries Power Plant


The other major project I am building is a mine system, the actual terrain piece is not even half complete yet, but the actual mine entrance is.  This was a kitbash and was made from some leftover scraps of household items, materials included:

Main hill - Foam material covered in "no more gaps" sealant with a slight mix of sand in it... fun fact... the no more gaps... it cracks when it hardens so you need a few coats - go figure eh? :)

The mine 'building' - An internal holding tray from a large pack of Gillette razor blades.  No major changes except to scrape off some brand markings, the areas covered by some upturned FOW small bases.

Air vents - 15mm scale small air vents from Ground Zero Games
Generator on top - A 15mm scale generator from a radar dish pack by Ground Zero Games
Roller Door - plastic card and plastic rods filed and glued into place as needed.

Eventually, this will have a small rail ending, and a place for rail cars to sit where tipper trucks can then tip the material into them... The trucks themselves will be the ones to drive into the mine to pick up the ore, and I will have one of the excavators and a dozer outside getting maintenance at a shed... remember, this is a third-world mining operation, nothing too crazy here when it comes to automation - or overall safety for that matter ;) 


The Ground Zero Games 15mm accessories are from my sci-fi gear, but have turned out to be great little additions to the mix.  The power generator units in particular look great mixed in as larger, more powerful units at this scale.  Just goes to show how any scale can fit if you find the right use!

The Mine *still in production phase*: The Ko Idet mine *Kudos if you know where the name may have originated from!* was the first mine in Eulanus to show the promise of untold riches.  Unlike the other minerals in the area, the usual assortment of alloys and precious metals... it was only Ko Idet and a few rare others that showed signs of the materials called rare-earth elements.  Worth more than gold to the manufacturing industries of a resource-hungry world, it would be these finds in mines such as this which would eventually see Eulanus become a hotbed of violence even greater than what it had already experienced.







With time and patience, I'll continue to build up... and soon the first cities shall be made and from there, hopefully I'll be able to begin the area terrain and finally - the armies!

But first, they all need to get there... and to do that, you need transport aircraft...

6mm, where we begin - Part 2: Know the terrain.

So we've now got the lands of Eulanus - the poor, downtrodden lands that, in my eye, will probably become one of the major battle grounds in the area...

In which case, we're going to need to start adding things for people to fight over, right?

So starts my terrain building for Eulanus.  In my eye, Eulanus is a mixture of African and Australian bushland - with a fair mix of more desert and savannah type terrain towards the interior, and a coast that allows for more tropical features, and is the area where a majority of actual societal development occurred.

The example in the real world I am thinking of is my home state of Queensland, where a majority of people live within a hundred kilometres of the coast, and most industry exists there.  However, the majority of the state is scrubland, with varying levels of drought throughout the inland.

So you go from these kind of areas:
  

 

 

To, eventually, something like this...

 

 

One of the key things I want is the red, iron-rich soil like you find in Australian outbacks and African regions.  That will be a distinguishing feature of most of my units conducting this fight in Africa.


As such, to get this blend, I am using the following:

Basecoat with a balck acrylic paint - I don't have a fixed brand, just whatever artist's paint you want.  I usually go with a 'wetter' one so it doesn't dry out as fast in the tube.

Original coat, earth brown - Vallejo

Drybrush - combination blend (i.e "whatever looks good to me") of Vallejo Cavalry Brown and either a small dose of Iraqi Sand or an Earthen brown colour. 

Mix it up, then apply in layers until you have it looking "red" enough for you.  In reality, the 'red' dirt is more of an orange, but that does look kind of ridiculous in 6mm.

Nonetheless, here are some 90% completed terrain pieces!  They just need some basic flock to look a little more like the African savannah example.

As for the bases, I use 1mm plastic card as the base material, cut to shape and then with edges filed smooth.  From there, I build up around the miniature buildings with a combination paste made of builder's putty, PVA glue and a dash of model sand to provide grit.  

As this mixture seals, it WILL retract and crack in key points, likely quite considerably.  Once the initial coat dries and hardens, re-seal with the builder's putty by itself to smooth out the edges and fill cracks... just as it is meant to do job wise.

The first is going to be a regular occurrence, a dwelling that can mix it with either Afghanistan or Africa.  Eventually, this one will have a few "medicinal plants" growing within this small compound's walls :)  This compound is made from two seperate Gamecraft Miniatures 6mm Resin buildings. 

The second example is a prime example of the kind of dwellings I will have over a lot of my African-style boards... small shacks, huts and shanties that are the cramped hovels of the much, much less fortunate.  They have seen numerous horrors already, so the horror of war is probably just another day at the office for most!  This example comes from JR Minis 1:285 range.

So that is what I am up to, terrain, terrain and more terrain!