Trees and things

Having printed a few minis successfully, I decided I wanted to tackle some terrain. After glancing through the “Terrain Essentials” by Mel Bose (I was a backer), I was inspired by some of his great ideas for simple basing.

First off, Printer and settings:

Anycubic Photon Zero

Resin:                                    Anycubic Skin Water Washable

Layer Height:                     0.04mm

Layer Exposure:                9.5 Seconds

Base Layers:                       6

Base Exposure:                 47 seconds

Base Lift Height:               8mm

Lift Height:                          6mm

The models were pretty large, and, with such a small base plate, I had to scale the models down slightly – typically between 75% and 85%. At this level they were a good size and fit most games. I will print a couple at 100% or , possibly, larger as scatter for Endor terrain.

I used CDs/DVDs as the bases and added some cork floor tiling to add some undulations. Once the glue had dried, I used some wall filler (spackle I think its called in the US), to smooth off the edges of the cork and add some texture. I let this dry a little (so it moved around a little less), then used a wet finger to try and get rid of the rough surfaces.

And that’s where I am right now. Next up I hope to get these painted.

After letting the filler dry, I sprayed the whole lot with Grey car primer.

I then tried using some kids poster paints to give a simple, brown base coat.

This did not end well as you can see above – the poster paints, although quite thick and heavy, have so little pigment that the coverage was shocking!

So, I cracked out the airbrush and hit the whole lot with German Camo Medium Brown (Vallejo Flames of War range #826).

This was then washed with Sepia and / or Agrax Earthshade depending on the tree.

The Birch was drybrushed with a 50/50 mix of Warcolours (WC) White and Vallejo (V) Ivory. The rest were given a light drybrush of German Camo Beige (V #821). followed by a really light drybrush of the 50/50 white/ivory mix.

Knowing that, generally in the northern hemisphere, trees tend to have a green, mossy north-facing side – I thought I would give one side a green drybrush(Luftwaffe Camo Green (V #823). I then washed this with Nuln oil (GW), and reapplied the drybrush. Overall I’m not overly impressed with this, so I might try another way before I finish.

For the bases, I coated the whole thing with watered-down PVA, and sprinkled various shades of flock/static grass. I sparingly use the woodland flock in a circle around a couple of the trees.

I added some lichen, clump foliage and flower tufts around the trees. The whole base was misted in watered-down PVA before a satin lacquer was applied.

There are still some finishing touches to go – so I’ll have another entry before I close this project. But so far, they don’t look too bad.

So, I decided that the “moss” didn’t look right.

In the interest of making this look better, I spread a thin layer of PVA over the tree trunks that I had painted green and sprinkled some “summer” green flock. This is a very bright green, but I had a plan!

So, once the PVA had dried, I thinned some GW Devlan Mud (yep – I still have a little left!). I used this as it’s a little darker than Agrax. I had to be careful not to move the flock around, as the water re-activates the PVA. this is not ideal, but using PVA was my choice here!

Once this had been allowed to dry thoroughly, I gave the whole lot a coat of satin lacquer (for protection). Once this was dry I hit them with Dullcoat to take the sheen off.

Overall I think the moss effect looks far better with the flock. I just have to hope these can take being handled for gaming!

Comments and critiques always welcome.