Festung Europa Models

I thought I would take the opportunity to share a few pictures of the work of Mark and his model making skills, because he is helping in the redesign of some of the wargames terrain, particularly the village, road and river systems. The work shown here is part of his 1/72nd D-Day display. Clearly I'm not expecting the same level of detail at 1/300th....but I'm sure that won't stop him trying...I know that Mark and John undertake bespoke work and you can contact them at john-festung-europa@hotmail.com




Created with flickr slideshow.

On the boards again....

I finally found some time and a weather window to try some new combinations of colours for the new terrain boards. I selected three base colours....

and then painted a series of combinations of greens (B&Q's Woodland Fern 1,2,3) in a variety of techniques, to try and get what I considered the best finish on the boards. However, none of the combinations seemed to work completely to my satisfaction. In the end I decided on the Dark Truffle (middle board above), and a combination of the Woodland Greens to achieve what I think, is a very good finish. I also used the other two browns to build up the colour on the hills.

So this is how the new boards should look (the brighter green board is the first colour scheme I used and I have included this as a comparison). Once I have some of the new town, road and river sections, I will put together a small section of terrain so you can get some idea of the new look...

Also I am finally planning to run a test game in August and that will include new Terrain pictures, as well as the newly based units (which aim to blend in with this terrain).



  

Back on the boards again

Well I have found some time to have another dash at the terrain boards. Using the brown poster paint method (courtesy of Brendan) to colour the gloop, but I may just move to glooping the hills soon and sanding the rest of the board. I had a look at using marine boards but its a cost issue for the scale I need, so I am drying these 24" boards on 18" polystyrene tiles to hopefully reduce any slight curling in the tiles as they dry. I will keep you posted.....

Same recipe for gloop as before, but with brown poster paint and water added

and as if by magic....its brown not white...

 



I do have some new tester pots to try new base colours for the boards. B&Q's Forest Fern #1,#2 &#3. Now all I need is the sunshine to return. Still I am listening to Test Match Special while glooping the boards so life is not too bad!!

Time flies when you're having.....

After a flurry of blog posts, I have been very busy in the world of work over the last six weeks and that combined with the poor weather has curtailed my attempts to re-paint boards etc. I had also planned to run a game scenario at the Exeter Wargames Show, but that has been sidelined and re-scheduled for July in 'the Shed'. On the plus side I have got a new printer.....Now this might not sound much but for those of you who have ever seen Uncle Tony talking to 'Hal', trying to convince previous marks of printer to disgorge documents at a Mega-game event, this is a small step forward.....

The new HAL

I will be back on task soon...I have been painting btw, but for 28mm Napoleonic. I'm tempted to post a pic of two later of my new happy little Italian Velites of the Guard.

Velites of the Italian Guard - Chassuer btn.

In the background is the Grenadier btn which is in the very early stages of production.

When both btns and a handful of skirmishers are painted, I will finish the basing...

Of course, I have a bucketload of WW2 stuff to do to...ignore the giant duck btw....