As convention season is upon me – starting with TotalCon 37 this weekend – I wanted to make a quick post on some jungle bases I have sculpted for my new Maya scenario. I bought some inexpensive palm trees on Amazon – the one on the left was for cake decorating and the other on the right marketed for use on railroad dioramas. I had 30 trees in total – and they looked pretty shiny as one would expect of plastic. And shiny is not what I wanted.
The basic preparation of the trees involved removing mold lines (lots), washing them, and making a plan for their use. I needed some single trees for use on a beach (sandy bases) and some larger more muddy looking bases for the jungle around a Maya village. These are for the Battle of Centla Feudal PatrolTM games I’ll be running in upcoming conventions. In addition to removing the mold lines, I lightly sanded and filed the plastic which gave the bark a more friable look.
I then mounted the trees into poster tack on specimen jars and used three different washes on the foliage (all the paints and materials that I used are listed at the end of this post for those interested).
Next, I needed a more detailed plan – I wanted to make the bases such that the 30 trees were varied across all of the bases and spaced far enough apart for good gaming with miniatures. I decided to make one 5-tree base, one 4-tree base, two 3-tree bases, three 2-tree bases, and 5 single bases. The single ones would be beach bases and the others jungle bases.
For sculpting, I went with Apoxie Sculpt, a 2-piece resin that is very workable but hardens like a rock. I needed to have some support for the trees – otherwise they would have just drooped excessively while the Apoxie Sculpt cured and hardened overnight. To solve this, I removed the little tabs on the tree bottoms, and glued the trees to steel washers. I gave a few a little bend as well.
For the 2-tree and 3-tree bases, the washers were easy to sculpt around and provided support – and I added some popsicle stick supports connecting the washers that I encased with Apoxie Sculpt and sculpted over. For the two bigger bases, I made supporting bases out of several popsicle sticks, then glued the washers with the affixed trees to them. I sculpted over the bases. More or less, these actions provided structural support and allowed me to make the bases strong. I needed to make sure that I used a putty knife to lift them from time to time off of plastic plates and cutting mats else they would cure permanently to them.
After curing to tremendous rock-hardness, the next steps for them were to get painted and flocked. For the single-tree beach bases, I used chinchilla dust over PVA (thanks again TIM!) that I have used in the past. For the jungle bases, I used a texture paint, pigments, and different flocking materials.
After the texture paint dried, I played around and added multiple (3) pigments, and let them dry.
At this point, I wanted to add some tufts, debris, and low-lying foliage. I had some old 4-Ground leaves, and a Ziterdes “butterbur” laser-cut foliage that had been hanging around for years with no home. I mixed those with some tufts to create a hybrid jungle-looking plant. I learned butterbur is not native to the Americas, but with the tufts it looked fine.
I have also acquired some more bases from Dave Stone’s workshop that I will eventually work into the game. These are very nice and I will also flock them similarly to match mine. Unfortunately, the UK cyber attack delayed them getting here in Massachusetts until today so they won’t get done until later – not Dave’s fault!
I hope that this was interesting – certainly it was a diversion from my recent Ozz stuff. I’m still going to run Mesoamerican games – and will be adding Ozz games too. I certainly have room for both!
Thanks for taking a look – let me know what you think!
Miscellaneous details and references for those interested in that sort of thing:
For all of my previous posts on games, units, and other projects for my 16th Century Spanish Conquest supplement for Feudal Patrol™ – “Civilizations Collide” – please see this page.
PAINTS, INKS, GLAZES, SHADES, WASHES, PIGMENTS, FLOCKING, GLUES AND MORE THAT I USED ON THESE PALM TREES AND BASES:
- Scicalife Model Tree Coconut Palm Trees
- HUIANER Palm Tree Model Trees
- Coelia Greenshade (wash)
- Poster tack
- Biel-Tan Green (wash)
- Hexwraith Flame (as a wash)
- Vallejo Primer “German Dark Yellow”
- Army Painter “Speed Paint – Dark Wood”
- Citadel “Contrast Paint – Contrast Medium”
- Citadel “Contrast Paint – Mantis Warrior Green”
- Vallejo Mecha Varnish “Matte Varnish”
- 1.25″ Everbilt Fender Washers
- Gorilla Glue
- Elmer’s PVA Glue
- Popsicle Sticks
- Apoxie Sculpt
- Vallejo “Earth Texture Acrylics”
- All Living Things Dry Dust Bath (chinchilla dust)
- Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
- Vallejo “Dark Yellow Ochre” (pigment)
- Vallejo “Burnt Umber” (pigment)
- Vallejo “Faded Olive Green” (pigment)
- Vallejo “Green Earth” (pigment)
- 4-Ground TSW23 “Loose Foliage – Brown Leaves”
- 4-Ground TSW22 “Loose Foliage – Green Leaves”
- Ziterdes 79554 “Pestwurz (butterbur)” laser-cut foliage
- Army Painter “Jungle Tufts”
- Army Painter “Swamp Tufts”
Mark A. Morin 
The Jungle bases look great Mark, and clever use of the washers while the clay was drying, look forward to see how you tie the new bases in.
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Thanks Dave, they worked well at the convention. Now I just gotta finish my Winkie cavalry, reset my games for Cold Wars, and – oh yeah – finish the bases I got from you! (plus a blog post on the convention too).
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These look really nice, Mark! 🙂 A good balance between space to move figures but enough ground cover to make them look more cluttered! Reminds me that I need to do some similar bases myself!
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Cheers John, much appreciated.
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Those look excellent mate, don’t know if you found this but last time I made ip some scenic bases like this I thought I had loads of tree’s but once you start basing them up in threes and fours etc.. you go through them really quickly!
Cheers Roger.
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Yes, but with 30 I had enough as my limiting factor was the space on the gaming mat – so I did have more than enough (thankfully). Cheers, Mark
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Nice jungle bases, Mark! I love Apoxee Sculpt. I’ve used it as a gap filler for mini bases before. Easier to work with than Green Stuff and cheaper. Though Green Stuff is better when you need something more details. I think you might be able to use wax paper or at least Saran Wrap under the Apoxee sculpt so it doesn’t stick on the underside while curing.
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Nice tip Faust – have you used either option before?
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I know Saran Wrap works with wood glue, so I imagine it should work with Apoxee sculpt. Usually I put my Green Stuff in one of those disposable paper bowls to cure. It will stick a little, but not enough to tear the bowl or the sculpt. I imagine it’s some sort of plastic coating on the inside of those bowls that keeps liquid from disintegrating the paper, which also keeps the Green Stuff from sticking.
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Great work on these! I’m trying to up my scenery game and may have to attempt something like this!
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Thanks much TOT!
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Great work on those tress and bases Mark. Hope the convention goes well. 🙂
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Thanks Dave – it was a different project for sure. The convention went well and I ran 5 games – so now I need to cobble together some sort of post – though acting as a game master is not always conducive to taking photos.
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Excellent work on these trees. They look perfect for your Mayan miniatures. As TIM said, I hope the convention goes well too!
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Thanks Jeff!
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They look really good and terrain is something which makes such a difference but tends to be short changed a lot
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Thank you melllis1644 – I feel terrain is every bit as important, especially at a convention game – especially when people walking by say “wow”…
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Fantastic mate. I used the same tree for my pirate island project although you’re much more patient than I am when it comes to the tree prep.
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Thanks pal. I do remember yours and they were great. Not sure if I am patient, I am just very aware that many people will see my stuff live at conventions- and being me that fact drives me to another level that might be over the top. But I know, it’s only rock n roll, but I like it…
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Great work Mark. I agree with IRO fat more patient than I am. My aquarium plants have just been used straight from the shop!
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But Dave you paint and post daily!
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Ah yes but I don’t play golf!
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Right now, I have snow and cold outside so me neither!
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Maybe you mentioned it in another post, Mark, but how do you apply and fix the pigments? I haven’t used pigments much yet, but i like the idea and the way i could fade/obscure colors with more color.
These bases look fantastic, btw. I’ll be refrenecing them when I get around to building jungle terrain for my WFB Lizardmen.
-Harry
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Thanks Harry. You can apply pigments in several ways. What I like to do is to use several pigments and blend them dry with either a paintbrush, or a soft makeup brush. Then typically I will apply the binder for the pigments, which depends on the surface. My go-to is Vallejo Thinnler applied with the capillary method- in which you let one drop at a time fall onto the pigments. I use a small syringe to apply one drop at a time onto the applied pigments. The capillary action will fix them. At that point, I just let them dry. If you go on, YouTube, there is a video for Vallejo pigments, which does a nice job of showing all the different ways that they can be applied and fixed.
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Thanks Mark!
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