Well, Spring & Trough - A 28mm Terrain Article
Written by Tony Harwood Tuesday, 07 February 2012 08:00
Architecture of Valon
Modelling Materclass: A 28mm Scale Building
"Well, Spring & Trough"
In producing these Masterclasses I have hopefully passed on some useful tips and inspiration to budding terrain builders. For me the benefit has been two-fold; first I am increasing my stock of Flintloque terrain and secondly I am able to build a wide variety of different themed models.
Some time ago I decided to build a water trough and hand pump model, see here and here.
When I was researching different colour schemes I came across a couple of images that showed a French water pump and natural water spring. The photos showed a small stone built house with a granite trough to the front and a water pump to the side. I decided that this was the model I wanted to build for this Masterclass.
As usual I started with a simple sketch.
The basic structure is a couple of pieces of Blue Foam glued together and onto which I have first sliced layers and then ‘opened up’ the joins with a sharpened pencil.
The rear I modelled an opening for a simple wooden door.
The trough is attached to the main building with uPVA glue and reinforced with a couple of steel pins pushed through at an angle.
The original structure has a carved stone water feed or spout that brings the spring water flowing into the large granite trough. This I built from strips of plastic card, glued with superglue and then carved and sanded to shape. It was glued to the Blue foam with superglue.
To give the model some strength I attached it first to a piece of pizza-base foam onto which I had carved some random paving slabs. This was then superglued to a 3mm thick piece of plastic card (the sort that is used as For Sale signs). I tend to cut the plastic card into a rough oval and then chamfer the sides with a snap-off bladed knife before sanding the edges smooth.
The groundwork has been built up with DAS modelling clay, which I apply over a thin layer of uPVA glue.
My next project was to build the old-fashioned water pump. I started with a piece of 3mm plastic card onto which I had both carved and impressed wood grain. This will be the mounting for the metal pump and once finished was attached to the side of the building with superglue.
The pump is built up from various pieces of sprue, plastic tube, a knitting needle and some scraps of plastic card. The operating lever is a straight piece of plastic card which I have gently curved with my fingers to give the traditional bow-shape. All construction was carried out with superglue.
On the other side of the building I added some resin and white metal castings; a barrel, a basket of fruit and a bowl of what I think is bread. Each of these additions will add interest when it comes to painting, these were superglued down and the groundwork built up with DAS.
You should also be able to see that I have cut back the base, taking about 10mm off all around. I felt that the base was a little too large for this small piece of terrain. In addition I have ‘defined’ some of the stones and paving slabs with Milliput.
The door to the rear was built from plastic card suitably distressed and glued with superglue.
The roof went through various designs until I decided upon a small four-sided ‘pagoda’ style which was first built from cardboard and then built up with Milliput.
The roof tiles are small rectangles of artist’s paper glued with uPVA glue and superglue.
The flashing is strips of foil saved from some expensive bottle of wine and the decorative spike is a section of cocktail stick mounted onto a small wooden bead. Once again I have used Milliput to fill any gaps and strengthen the edges. There are also four small protruding beams (one to each corner) that were built from 5mm thick plastic card and textured with a scalpel and a Dremel.
Finally the base was textured with sieved stones, coarse sand and fine sand sprinkled over uPVA glue. My preferred technique is to paint the base with watered-down uPVA glue, then sprinkle some small stones over the glue. Next I sprinkle some coarse sand and finally I add some fine sand. By building up the texture like this, I find I can be more selective on how much I apply.
For the painting I was tempted to try yet another technique. I first painted the entire model with a cheap cream coloured acrylic paint. Ensuring that I covered the model as best as I could.
Next I added some Snakebite Leather to individual stones with a fine-pointed detail brush.
Then Deep Red mixed with Brown.
Then three different greys.
I washed the whole model with a watered-down Dark Brown acrylic paint that helped to ‘blend’ the stonework together.
Once fully dry I drybrushed all of the stone work with greys, browns and even pure white acrylic paint.
The Groundwork was painted Snakebite Leather and the cornerstones painted with a Snakebite Leather/Badmoon Yellow mix. I was trying to get a honeyed or Cotswold stone effect.
Painting continued with a drybrush of Snakebite and Skull White to the groundwork, some highlighting on the corner stones and a dark brown covering on the underside of the overhanging tiled roof. I also painted the water in the through Black – a basecoat for future layers of blue.
In the original illustration the water pump was painted a pale blue. I choose to paint the model in Green, starting with a dark green and highlighting up to a colour called Apple Green. The tiled roof was painted grey (but with some added Blue and green to add variety). Once dry the roof was drybrushed with grey.
The painting progressed with some more detail painting – highlighting individual stones on the building and the base, as well as painting the roof decoration. The water surface was painted with Midnight Blue, then Enchanted Blue to give an effect of depth.
Finally the whole model was varnished with Galleria matt varnish, the water highlighted with Klear (Future in the US) and the base was both flocked with railway scatter material and a couple of static grass tufts.
This photo show the finished well with a converted Flintloque figure for scale.
And finally an image of all three wells/troughs.
Coming Soon
"Witchlands Hovel" - Tony creates another building for you, a wooden hovel, suitable for any wargames table.
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