tabletop terrain – Mark A. Morin

Jungle Bases from Wargames Terrain Workshop

As you saw in my Sculpting Jungle Bases for the Maya post, I have been putting together jungle terrain for the coastal area of the Yucatan. These are for my Feudal Patrol^TM game of the Battle of Centla using my Civilizations Collide supplement. To recap the battle history:

The scenario involves a beach area with a jungle nearby and a Maya city. The Conquistadors start on the beach and try to move inland. You can see a description of the game in my recent TotalCon 37 recap post. Below is a set up of the battle – note the seven printed green card stock areas at the juncture between the jungle and the beach near the ends of the jungle paths. These areas I described as being easy to cross (no movement penalty) but providing a degree of concealment and cover – basically a scrub-type area.

I used these card stock pieces in lieu of the 7 scatter terrain jungle bases that I ordered from our blogger friend Dave Stone of Wargames Terrain Workshop in the UK back at the turn of the year. I even sized my card stock pieces to match the ones that I ordered from Dave.

Dave built them post-haste – and sent them to me via the Royal Mail on January 11th – so we both thought I’d get them in time to prepare for the February 23rd TotalCon37 convention. Unfortunately, a combination of a cyber attack on the Royal Mail and labor strikes in the UK combined and conspired to keep them from arriving at my home until Wednesday February 22nd – one day before the convention. As I wanted to detail them for the game, and I did not have enough time to give them the justice I wanted with less than a day’s preparation, I decided to work on them after TotalCon 37 so that they’d be ready for Cold Wars. I want to say that Dave was great in following up with me and this situation was definitely not his fault. The seven bases that I bought were as follows:

2 of the Scatter Scenery – Jungle Base (large), Dimensions: 11.25″ Length x 5.9″ Width x 0.2″ Depth; (metric) 285mm L x 150mm W x 5mm D
2 of the Scatter Scenery – Jungle Base (Medium), Dimensions: 7.9″ Length x 6.3″ Width x 0.2″ Depth; (metric) 200mm L x 160mm W x 5mm D
3 of the Scatter Scenery – Jungle Base (Small), Dimensions: 6.5″ Length x 5.33″ Width x 0.2″ Depth; (metric) 165mm L x 135mm W x 5mm D

I started them on February 27th and worked on them alongside some Winkie cavalry (that I will post about next). All of the 7 bases came unpainted with a very generous supply of different plastic foliage on sprues – which allowed me to customize them. The bases themselves were resin with multiple small conical prongs with which to attach the plants. Dave recommended attaching them with green stuff – but I went with Apoxie Sculpt as I had some mixed already for a box handle I needed to repair.

The first steps were to wash the resin and the foliage so that paints and washes would adhere properly.

Washing the plastic foliage and the bases.

Two of the washed resin bases showing the prongs, right before priming – on the right!

I primed the bases green-brown and let them dry overnight. I list all the paints and other materials at the end of the blog for those interested in that type of information.

Five of the seven bases primed and drying.

Then, I then mocked out where I would apply the foliage with 1.25″ washers. When I was happy, I applied the foliage with Apoxie Sculpt to 5 of the bases and let that cure overnight. Why five and not seven? Well, as I said, I was also working on Winkie cavalry, and two of the primed bases were hiding under a paper towel and I missed them.

Small base with foliage affixed with Apoxie Sculpt.

The 5 non-missing bases with the foliage attached as above – plus the extra prongs have been removed down to the base level.

The next day, the Apoxie Sculpt had cured, I did a quick inventory and I was concerned that I did not buy enough bases! After finding the hidden two, I decided that I did not have the luxury of time to wait another day to wait for Apoxie Sculpt to cure on these last two – so I went with hot glue – which worked great and instantly. I then painted over the Apoxie Sculpt and glue with a couple of green craft paints. Next, I applied three successive green hobby washes to the foliage, and let that dry. Then I cut off the remaining prongs, and applied brown texture paint over the places where the prongs had been removed.

The 7 bases are shown here after I added the brown texture paint over the removed prong locations. These are shown over the card stock stand-ins I used at TotalCon 37 – so size-wise I was pretty close. Note that the washes on the foliage have lessened the plastic look significantly.

At this point I moved on to adding multiple pigments (like 7!). My goal was to blend the edges to look as if they bordered a beach, with a more jungle-like ground surface towards the centers of the bases. I added the 7 pigments, and fixed them with Vallejo thinner and let them dry.

I was not satisfied with the first go with the pigments. I felt that the blends could be better – especially the transition from the beach areas inward. I also was not happy with the beach-bordering areas themselves. With that, I gave it a second attempt to address the shortcomings. That did address the issues – and then I added some scatter leaves and some laser cut low lying Gamers Grass plants that I bought from Things from the Basement at TotalCon – plus some Shadow’s Edge Miniatures jungle tufts.

I was pretty happy with the final products seen below.

The seven bases completed. Note the added low-lying plants and tufts.

Close up of a medium base with a conquistador halberdier and an “underdressed” Maya novice for scale. For the Maya’s sake, let’s hope there are very few thorns.

I can see using these bases for many other games – and I believe that they work well with my jungle bases with the palm trees. As to now storing and transporting them – I modified a 32-liter Really Useful Box with hot glue and posterboard/foam board into a three-level “apartment” Jungle Box. The bottom level is lined with adhesive magnetic sheets (my jungle bases with the palm trees have steel washers embedded underneath). The jungle paths also fit in here rolled up with the trees being upright. The next two levels fit the seven bases described here – four on one, and three on another. Both levels are made of posterboard and are resting on posterboard pieces that I hot-glued to the walls of the box. I did need to make the level that is immediately above the trees into three pieces so that I could get it by the supports of the top level (which is in one piece). No levels will crush any foliage (thankfully). Voila – a Jungle Box ready for Cold Wars transport!

The top level – rests on one solid piece of foam board.

Side view of the Jungle Box showing the three levels.

I hope this was useful to those of you considering similar projects. I do highly recommend Dave Stone’s stuff – I also previously shared his Aztec Style Serpent Statues that have been very popular at my games. Check him out!

My next post will be coming (hopefully) somewhat quickly as I need to finish preparations and packing up for Cold Wars. It will show my Winkie Zilk-riding cavalry – stay tuned! For my fellow bloggers, I’m trying to keep up with you, and know that I always read your posts and try to give you feedback. This month is, however, nuts, so I might be a bit tardy, mea culpa. As always, much thanks for taking a look – and 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 JUNGLE BASES:

2 of the Scatter Scenery – Jungle Base (large), Dimensions: 11.25″ Length x 5.9″ Width x 0.2″ Depth; (metric) 285mm L x 150mm W x 5mm D
2 of the Scatter Scenery – Jungle Base (Medium), Dimensions: 7.9″ Length x 6.3″ Width x 0.2″ Depth; (metric) 200mm L x 160mm W x 5mm D
3 of the Scatter Scenery – Jungle Base (Small), Dimensions: 6.5″ Length x 5.33″ Width x 0.2″ Depth; (metric) 165mm L x 135mm W x 5mm D
Vallejo Primer “German Green Brown”
Apoxie Sculpt
Hot Glue
Americana “Apple Green Satin”
Americana “Hauser Light Green”
Coelia Greenshade (wash)
Poster tack
Biel-Tan Green (wash)
Hexwraith Flame (as a wash)
Vallejo “Earth Texture Acrylics”
Vallejo “Desert Dust” (pigment)
Vallejo “Light Yellow Ochre” (pigment)
Vallejo “Dark Yellow Ochre” (pigment)
Vallejo “Natural Umber” (pigment)
Vallejo “Burnt Umber” (pigment)
Vallejo “Faded Olive Green” (pigment)
Vallejo “Green Earth” (pigment)
Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
Shadow’s Edge Miniatures “12mm Jungle Tufts”
Gamers Grass “Laser cut plants – Elephant’s Ear”
Gamers Grass “Laser cut plants – Black Magic Taro”
Elmer’s PVA Glue
4-Ground TSW23 “Loose Foliage – Brown Leaves”
4-Ground TSW22 “Loose Foliage – Green Leaves”

Sculpting Jungle Bases for the Maya

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 Patrol^TM 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.

After cleaning up bad mold lines – wash time…

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).

Mounted for applying washes to the plastic foliage to make them look more realistic.

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.

The plan – with a shot of my game map as a planning guide.

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.

Bases curing – a couple of jungle paths are in front. These I got from Buck Surdu and I muddied them up with a couple of inks.

Early flocking drying – pigments still wet.

Close up of beach bases with chinchilla dust and glue drying.

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.

The completed bases – showing the debris and low-lying plants.

A close up shot of the base with a Maya warrior for scale comparison.

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”

Aztec Temple Rehab

Sounds like a good concept for a reality show doesn’t it? Circa 1520 or so…

Actually, it’s my latest attempt at adding another structure to my Aztec terrain/buildings for games of Feudal Patrol™ in Mesoamerica (using my Civilizations Collide supplement). There have been a good number of buildings from me lately (which is why I did my contest). There is also a link at the end of this post on all of my project terrain and miniature builds for it.

And this particular post is dedicated to Ryan MacRae and Chris Rett. Why?

Well, this temple piece has a somewhat unclear past. It was given to me by Ryan MacRae and Christopher Rett. It was left over from their back room cleanout at the Great Stories store in Uxbridge, MA. Ryan said it was maybe originally found in his dad’s garage? Was it a souvenir? A kit project? A piece for a terrarium or even an aquarium? Who knows. All I saw in it was potential as a reasonable secondary temple-type building for Tenochtitlan. It was in two unconnected pieces, had a few cracks, and seemed to be somewhat ceramic. Obviously, I needed to have it match my other pieces. I was not thrilled with the stairs and their alignment, and it was mostly (but not totally) symmetrical. Though I believe something is either symmetrical or its not right? The top would not stay on the top if bumped. Anyways, I thought I could try to make something more useful out of it gaming-wise.

The first thing I did was to drill and install 1/8″ neodymium magnets to secure the top.

I thought it needed a base, and I did have an spare piece of Revell plywood that I cut to size up to the piece – as symmetrically as possible.

I debated about whether to use balsa or plywood, and went with the latter

I then sanded the edges of the plywood and the bottom of the piece, and attached the two with wood glue. As you can see, I found a way to compress the two while the glue set!

I then decided to use black Milliput to construct the stairs. Why black? It was what was available! I don’t have a lot of experience with it, and I chose it due to being cheaper than green stuff. I did not expect to get great sculpted details on the stairs – I just wanted something that would be aesthetically ok on the tabletop. I did consider using square wood dowels, but the work involved in sizing them seemed disproportionate to the needs of this project. I also would make the steps wider and more visible – but still they would not useable by a figure on a base.

I traced out the stairs – note I made them wider as the original piece’s slots for stairs was both irregular and not quite centered.

As for the sculpting – it was a bit more difficult than I had imagined beforehand. I tried to use the existing lines on the piece as guidelines, and was successful for the most part. It’s not Michelangelo, that’s for sure. I actually was a little disappointed at this point, but I pressed on thinking the rest of the rehab may go better, and let the Milliput cure.

The dusting process was similar to my previous efforts with MDF – that being painting the model with a PVA/water slurry and dusting with a salt shaker containing the dust. I did add (temporarily) extra neodymium magnets so as to prevent the dust from blocking the installed ones.

All dusted up – note the extra magnets as masking.

I then moved on to painting it. I dry brushed it and then painted it in the same color schemes as my MDF.

The piece after first dry brushing and base coating.

I then used Army Painter “Light Tone” on it and let it dry. Once dry, I added more highlights.

After adding the tone but before the final highlighting.

To get a feel for the model, here are some eye candy shots.

Some Eagle and Jaguar Warriors and a Warrior Priest by the piece.

I learned a bit during the processes of this project. I’m on the fence on Milliput as an architectural sculpting agent – it was not easy to sculpt into the stairs and I did face a challenge with regards to the Milliput’s “slump” (a term used to describe how wet concrete settles and does not hold a shape). Though, the extreme slope of the stairs (as is found with the actual ones) made gravity NOT my friend in this aspect. Maybe green stuff or Apoxie Sculpt would have been easier but more expensive. I am unsure. I think my approach in the end worked out ok, and the painting helped I think – and you, dear reader, can let me know your assessments.

My biggest goal was for this piece to be a good add to my little mini Tenochtitlan tabletop. The next two pics are good comparisons. I think it succeeded. Not my finest work, but it is acceptable.

The piece seen next to all of my Aztec terrain (with some WIP Conquistador War Wagons in the back – more on them in a future post).

I think now my terrain just needs pavement and some causeways – I already have a working concept (below) and I will be making the surrounding lake swampy with some neat floating flora. More on this when I’m done with that!

My tabletop urban Aztec battlefield concept. There will be textured pavement and causeways on this MDF – and this will also be a future post! For rural areas, I have the other buildings.

The pavement is in WIP. I used MDF with sculpted DAS clay (including a Green stuff Aztec roller in judicious spots). It needs to set and get matte varnished, but I’m excited on the potential. I also need to build the causeways.

So that’s it for now – hope you enjoyed this post – let me know your thoughts – good, bad, or otherwise – in the comments section. Thanks for looking!

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 THIS MODEL

Wood Glue
Plastic Plates
1/8″ neodymium magnets
Gorilla Glue
Revell Birch plywood (1/4″ x 6″ x 12″)
Paper clip wire
Black Milliput
All Living Things Dry Dust Bath (chinchilla dust)
Vallejo “Flow Improver”
Vallejo “Airbrush Thinner”
Vallejo Model Air “Sand (Ivory)”
Vallejo Model Color “Dark Sand”
FolkArt “Yellow Ochre”
Vallejo Model Color “Black”
Vallejo Model Color “Red”
Army Painter “Light Tone” (wash)

	Dave Stone on Cold Wars 2023 – from my…
	Mark A. Morin on Cold Wars 2023 – from my…
	Mark A. Morin on Cold Wars 2023 – from my…
	Dave Stone on Cold Wars 2023 – from my…
	theimperfectmodeller on Cold Wars 2023 – from my…