One Day Build: Command and Colors City Hexes

5 inch hex "city" marker for 6mm Command and Colors

One Day Build:Aspern and Esslin-ish

Well, its convention season again, which means that one of my gamer friends comes to me with a " hey- can you help me make this- like before the con?!" Request.  Don't tell them this, but I actually enjoy these challenges, both as an exciting break to what I'm doing, and that I get to help them out.

On my end I challenge myself on how quick I can flip the request. This was basically a one day build, ala Adam Savage. This particular project was to create a series of hex squares that have a "city" in them to represent Asperg and Essling  for a 6mm Napoleonic Command and Colors game.

The Challenge: 
Create 9  5 inch hexes with representative buildings which can accommodate command and colors stands on the hex.


 The Build: 
 I already have a cache of "stage flat" style buildings from a project that I worked on with Jay Wiley of Wiley Games    which I used as a starting point for making the buildings. I then scaled them down to a 6mm-ish size and made templates on how they would fit and slot into the bases. This worked out to one main longer center piece and two shorter side wings.  Once I had that all figured out, I made some quick variations and then got to cutting.

Not optimally layed out, but remember- one day build!

Buildings are Birch ply, with MDF hex bases.

28mm White walker for scale!

Assembly and Painting:

I pre-painted the MDF with a couple of Rattle cans mixing a Krylon moss green and Army painted Desert sand (?)  to get a bit of variation.  This saved a lot of time especially drying time if I had painted them with brushed on paint.

The buildings are slotted so assembly was just glue in place. Before I did that though I looked on line at some cool period buildings, or models other folks had made, and then went to work getting a paint theme down.  As I would not have time to paint them all, I wanted to create an easy to follow set up that would hopefully read well on the table.   Here are the paints and inks I used.

The color swatch was for my friend to take. I ended up also giving him some ink as I had a spare bottle.

Painting these is very quick and easy. The first step was to pick an angle from which the sun was coming and stick with that. I chose kind of an 11 oclock as the angle. First I painted down the roof colors, then went in with Agrax Earthshade and added shadows across the buildings and on the roofs (once dried) . Next grey was mixed  in the with some blue grey (AV dark sea blue) to create "slate" colors, or to add a stone color to some walls or buildings. the light tan/ unbleached titanium (actually called Menon White Highlight, a P3 color) was used to add highlights to the buildings on edges, cover up some sins from over paint, and added into the roof colors to bring out a bit of dimension.

All told, a set of buildings took about 15 minutes. For fun I added some green to one of the buildings.

A more painted in scene. This was the first set.

A half done version, needing highlights.

Another angle, showing off my Elite Hussars

And yes they stack for storage! 

 This project took me about 6 hours from start to hand off. I only painted 2 of the 9 sets, so figure had I had time to do them all it would have been another couple of hours to maybe complete them. Okay,  call it 3 hours because you know I'd keep fiddling on them, and I didn't do anything to the backs!

I am keen on seeing how they turn out on the battlefield, and look forward to pics from Pacificon!

Cheers!

Warmaster: Marshal’s batons WIP

I am always looking for ways to create a more immersive and aesthetic setting when I run games. In a couple of weeks I’m running a Warmaster Napoleonics battle, and while making some gun sticks for the cannon, I decided to make some measuring sticks as well. Marshal’s batons – kind of a no brainer! I had made a couple previously out of wooden 18” rulers, so kind of have the technique down.

A shot of the wood (basswood), cut to 30cm, with the basic baton paint job; the “caps” are made of matt board and glued on.

Here you can see the flip side with the baton painted in 10cm increments for measuring. I used my back saw to score the sections for easier reading/ painting of the edges. My original plan was to paint just the center section red, but there was some splash over of the flips sides color on the sticks, so I painted/primed them in grey. I will most likely paint over that with white. Note, the caps do not extend past the stick.


I know they don’t look like much yet, but I wanted to share the process. Next step is the detail bits of stars, fleur de lis, laurels, etc, and the end caps. I am currently on the fence to do them in metal (shiny gold) or NMM gold.

Horse Flesh

I have started work on my French dragoons, or their mounts anyways. Using the old school Oil wipe method taught to me by Terry Matheny ( who was in turn taught I believe by P. Gilder), I was able to bring these beasties from unflashed metal to this stage in under three hours. After they dry I'll paint in the harness, socks, color, manes, etc using acrylics. the end effect is pretty sweet. In the mean time, I'm starting in on the riders.