Return to the Cabbage Patch - A 28mm Terrain Article

Written by Tony Harwood Tuesday, 17 May 2011 10:00

The Flora of Valon

Modelling Materclass: A 28mm Scale Cabbage Patch

Part 2 - Painting the Cabbage Patch

With my last piece of terrain I designed and built a a small vegetable garden – or Cabbage Patch for use with Flintloque using scraps and recycled material. Hopefully to be used with my Sauerkraut Wars background, see my Blog for further details.

In the first article I went through all the steps of construction of the cabbage patch. In this second article I go through the steps of painting the finished model (including adding the all important cabbages). If you missed the first article it can be found here.

Painting

Once the textured paint had fully dried, I basecoated the whole model with Inscribe Acrylic Paints Bark Brown.  This is a new approach for me – painting everything dark brown first and then building up with ‘scrubbing’ rather than building up layers or drybrushing over a black undercoat.  I’ve been reading about this style (and discussing it) for some time.  It will be interesting to see how it differs from my earlier terrain pieces.

From the dark brown base, I have started the process of ‘scrubbing’ a lighter brown mid layer.  The term ‘scrubbing’ is the best term I can come up with to describe the painting process, using a stiff hogs hair brush I am scrubbing or rubbing the loaded brush into the terrain and unlike dry brushing, I am actually building the layers of paint.  I am using an action that is very similar to the process used when stencilling, not too much paint and using an upright prodding action with a stiff brush.

Subsequent layers are build up with Games Workshop Snakebite Leather and Snakebite Leather and Skull White mix.  The final effect is much like my usual painting technique.  In fact my final highlight was a drybrush of Snakebite and White!

The next part was painting the stone wall and once again I have used the scrubbing technique.  I started with a mix of craft paint Black and some Mid Grey, then a mid layer of Dark Grey and a final third layer of Mid Grey.  As with the soil – I used a final drybrush of very light Grey.

The Fence was a mix of Brown and Green, highlighted with Grey and the tree trunk and water barrel were painted in the same colours.

Detail painting was limited to the barrel rings, the metal fixtures on the trough and the pale areas of the shattered tree.  I addition I picked out some of the larger stones with Grey paint and highlighted them first with lighter Grey and finally with White.

The whole painting process took less than a day – and most of this time was spent waiting for the paint to dry!

Once the painting was finished, I varnished the whole structure with water based acrylic varnish, I find that this helps to prolong the life of the terrain as well as ‘matting’ everything down.

All of my Flintloque terrain pieces are finished in the same way – a coat of uPVA glue to the outside of the base and then dipped in dyed sawdust.  My gaming board is finished in the same sawdust and using this technique on all pieces helps to give a uniform finish and ‘look’ which is more pleasing when displayed on the gaming table.

Now – you may be asking yourself – why a cabbage patch?  The answer is simple – I had seen an earlier modelling article showing how small paper roses which are used to decorate cards could be used to model cabbages or flowers and I wanted to try the same idea on a Sauerkraut Wars themed terrain piece.  I bought some pale blue paper roses (£1.00 for 27) and painted them green, then highlighted them with a lighter green, not worrying too much if the blue showed through - as everyone knows – Cabbages are in fact Blue/Green when fully grown.  The paper roses – from now on referred to as cabbages were cut from the backing card and glued in rows with uPVA White Glue.  I have used all 27 roses – sorry cabbages and planted them in neat and organised rows.

Before calling it a day – I have added some static grass tufts and two clumps of wild mushrooms which were made from split peas, superglued to cut off cocktail sticks and painted in the traditional (if not very accurate) red cups with white spots.  Once the paint was dry the mushrooms were cut off and superglued in to place.  I had modelled nine, but I lost two when cutting them to size and the third one broke.  The lesson when modelling mushrooms is to always make more than you need.

One Cabbage Patch – Finished and ready to be used in my Sauerkraut Wars background.  It was fun to build – but hopefully it will show how easy it is to build your own terrain. I have tried to show a number of simple terrain modelling techniques, that can be used to produce simple but effective terrain. The total cost for this piece of terrain which measures 11inches x 8inches was less than £4.00, £1.00  of which was the cost of the paper roses!  It also allowed me to test out a new painting technique; one that I think has worked well.

In gaming terms the Cabbage Patch can be used as rough terrain, with hard cover (the walls) or light cover (the fence).  It can also be used as a game objective having both food and water featured.  Finally, it can be used as a garden area and when situated behind one of my model houses.

And that's it, a completed 28mm vegetable patch for use in your games of Flintloque. If you have any questions or queries don't hesitate to contact me through my Blog or Alternative Armies' Notable Members Yahoo group.

Coming Soon

Dwarf Lager - In his next modelling master class Tony walks us through the construction of a 28mm wooden storehouse.