Month: November 2020

AB Figures British Infantry and new grass mat

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 5 Comments

I am so close to finishing up my British Infantry battalion it is not funny. The trouble is i keep finding more awesome figures to buy and paint. This platoon from my favourite AB figures was no exception. I think they are meant for the Far East by the equipment and the presence of a Thompson sub machine gun, but I have painted them up to join my Northumbrian Light Infantry in Normandy. Nothing much to add, they took me ages to paint as usual.

I was asked about the new grassy mat I have photographed them on. This was made using a faux fur blanket I found at Spotlight (an Australian craft store). The material is available at this link – i have no idea if the same stuff is available in other countries:

https://www.spotlightstores.com/sold-by-the-metre/plush-fashion-fur-150-cm-fabric/BP80506687

The trick is that this particular fabric has a fur length exactly the height of grass at 1/72 scale so you do not have to cut it or shave it or mess with it at all. You could easily shave roads and paths into it if you like, but i tend to place all my terrain on top, or hills can be anything placed underneath. Other fur fabrics are a pain as they are generally quite long and need a lot of cutting to get them to look like anything else except fake fur…..

Painting is simple. I just laid my 3m x 150cm fabric out on the lawn and sprayed it lightly with a lime green and bright yellow cheap spray like the below. $3.50 per can, and i probably used 2 green and one yellow. You could throw in some brown or beige or cream depending on the effect you want.

https://www.megasavers.com.au/australian-export-lime-green-250g-spray-paint

The trick is to take it slowly and spray lightly and repeatedly so you retain the texture of the fabric and do not get it swamped or claggy. When you are happy with the colour mix leave it to dry. If you get spray paint on the lawn dont worry it will go away next time you mow.

Greenstuff World Textured Rolling Pin

~ Colonel Mustard ~ 5 Comments

I have been struggling to make roads and town squares for a while using various different methods. Hand scribing cobble stones onto a thin layer of plaster on MDF looks great, but it is wildly time consuming. Textured card glued to MDF or wood also works, but looks a bit flat and a bit fake for my liking. The best method I have now settled on is a textured rolling pin from a company called Greenstuff World at www.greenstuffworld.com

They produce a big range of interesting things for the modeler. I picked up some of their textured rolling pins. I found the 28mm scale one of cobblestones which is about 25cm long works really well for 1/72 scale cobbled town squares and roads. The detail stands out better than the smaller roller means for 15mm scale. I decided that I wanted to just make larger cobbled squares and put them together to make a large town area. Then the buildings would stand on top of the town area and the cobbled roads would be formed in between the buildings. Using MDF i cut a roughly 25 x 25cm square and then rolled out DAS clay nice and thin to the same size with a bit of an overlap. You then carefully and firmly roll the textured rolling pin over the clay in one direction making an imprint. I left this to dry, glued it to the MDF and then trimmed the edges.

I gave it a base in a grey spray primer and then used some brown and black washes and a whole heap of dry brushing lighter shades of grey. Check them out. When I have made a few I will set up a town scene to show the effect.