DBA Dry terrain

Completing the necessary Arable terrain items for large scale battles, I moved on to the next terrain project on my list, Dry. According to the rules, DRY consists of 1-2 Rocky or Scrub as mandatory features with .Dunes, Difficult Hills, Oasis and BUA as optional.

Using various painting techniques, I covered two big battle sized boards and cut twenty pieces of varying shapes and sizes from my stock of floor covering. Painting these in the same style, I would embellish these to represent rocky, scrub or dunes. To ensure all items were consistent, I did this project in three steps.

Step 1, a base coat of earth colour was applied to board and all terrain features.

Step 2, a second colour was daubed on to give a mottled effect. This was followed with some highlighting.

Step 3, the finishing touches; adding dried grass sparingly to bring a consistency to the whole. At this step, I modeled a variety of outcroppings to place on the features marked rocky. Scrub features had smaller patches of dried grass. I made an attempt to make loose scrub items to place on the feature, but this was not successful.

The dry river bed and low hills were re-done in the same fashion. Although not on the DBA list of terrain items, these will serve for our historical battles also those using the DBA-HX system.

BUA

This was repainted to conform with the collection and given some highlighting.

Photo before touch up.

Oasis

I have a large collection of tropical terrain features and during the years some items have come apart. The loose palm trees and brush I would re-use for my planned oasis.

I purchases a glue-gun for this purpose, but must confess I had never used one. This going to be a trial-by-error experience. Aside from the cord being too short, the whole experience went well. After the first attempt I noted the amount of time needed to solidify was relatively short, so I advanced a few steps and did a number of palm trees at a time. I them added the foliage hugging the ground. All items were firmly fixed and faster than if I used epoxy glue. I look forward to doing my Tropical items next. 

Added 5-01-2013

Dunes

This marks the final item to complete the collection of Dry terrain. Google sand, dunes, aerial photography and you will find a wealth of interesting sand formations. I wanted a two dimensional representation of dunes to avoid my line of miniatures crossing over dunes looking like drunken sailors on a weekend shore-leave.  

On a sheet of paper, I painted my first attempts and knew I was moving in the right direction. Next step, I layered fine sand over the piece to be covered and played with the ripple effect made by wind. This was what I had imagined the final product to look like.

The problem here, I could not coat the entire piece with thinned glue as over time the sand would flake and fall off leaving bald spots. The flooring material or base is flexible, so I decided to draw through the sand lines marking only the high points of the dunes. Covering only the lines with sand would still leave 50% exposed. This space would be painted darker as a depression. The final step of painting and highlighting was completed today.

The finished collection would be sufficient to cover a 4 x 6 foot table. Now my Africans, Ottomans and Moghul Indians will have sufficient “Home” terrain to fight over. Photos of the collection will be posted tomorrow.

Cheers,