Terrain: River Renovation Part 1

Another two weeks gone by and another post.  Over the past few game nights I have been working on renovating the river on our gaming table.  Over the years it's been getting a bit rough, the resin did not dry correctly last time and some paper got stuck to it.  After that I used some water based water effects to cover it and it was just an ugly brown sludge.  It's always been my least favorite part of the board, not the idea of having it, but the execution.  There's a shot of the original below.

I neglected to take any process shots of this, but the first thing I did was lay down a riverbed out of plaster.  Into that I pressed some different sized stones and some debris.  After that I textured it up a bit and added some paint.  I sprayed a clearcoat after I was done and let it dry for a good 2 weeks so it would not interact with the resin.  I wanted to be sure as sure this time.

I added a bit of debris, some wood, jerry can, spring, barrel, and some discoloration around the outlets.

I still have to add some effects and ripples to the top around all of the obstructions.  I am also going to have water running out of the outlets coming from the city side of the board.  Stay tuned, when it's all done I will make another post.

Scale: Focke-Wulf Ta 152 H1

Here is the kit I have been working on for the last 2-3 weeks.  It is a Dragon Models 1/48 Focke-Wulf Ta 152 H1 from I think 1988-89, making it as old or older than I am.  I've been trying to get back into Dust and have been playing my fair share of War Thunder on my computer.  So, I decided to get some actual Luftwaffe aircraft to add to my Axis army.  I stopped into Section 8 Hobbies here in Buffalo and picked up this Ta as well as a Me 262.  This kit was used, and so some of the parts were clipped from the sprue, other than that it was like new.  The only problem I had was some really old masking tape on the fuselage which was quite hard to remove.  The camo scheme and colors are not fully based on any historical squadron but rather what I thought would look nice on the model.

It was interesting to get back into scale modelling as opposed to wargames models.  Building this kit was much more of a challenge than I have faced recently, everything is much more precise.  That's not a bad thing, just a different experience.  With so many more subtle details cleanup is more demanding and so is the painting.  This model took a lot more time than any of those for my Imperial Guard or Dust forces, though it may be just a bit more rewarding too.

  The base represents the new styling I will use for my future Dust units,  I felt the total grass was less visually interesting that it could be and so made it a bit patchy with dirt beneath.  I haven't worked out what the rules for this model, but there are some similar weapons for other units.  Let me know what you think!  More after the break.