This week's annual leave has enabled me to catch up with a lot of stuff, not all of it hobby-related. One thing I managed to advance was my portfolio of desirable properties. Firstly I worked on a generic Dark Ages camp using Renedra's excellent saxon tents. I'd painted the tents and campfire previously and have rebased them on a silver cake board (I use these quite a lot for scenery - cheap and robust. Being silvered they don't warp and you can get quite messy with them in terms of ground-gunk and paint, filler etc. plus they come in a variety of sizes). I am currently working up the groundwork so this picture is very much work in progress:
I am also working on another Renedra project - the Ramshackle Barn, which is a lovely kit. Long way to go yet, but the basics are in place, plus a trough and pump from Hovels and an old haystack courtesy of ebay:
Those of you who frequent the Paint Table Saturday community may have seen my completed Norman Keep. This is a Sarissa Precision laser-cut MDF kit. I have made a few MDF buildings and now have an established routine for painting them:
1) Build with PVA glue.
2) Spray with primer colour to suit the main building. This may need two or three light coats.
3) Spray with acrylic matt sealer to give a good surface for painting detail.
4) Paint details with usual paints (in my case Vallejo/GW etc. acrylics).
5) Another coat of acrylic sealant.
6) Light spray coat of anti-shine if required.
I like MDF buildings that have a bit of character, or are of a type that cannot be sourced elsewhere, but they are by no means a simple, or cheaper, alternative to resin, apart from the postage costs.
A few years ago I picked up an out-of-production Grand Manner medieval forge from ebay. As is the way of things, I've only just got round to doing anything with it! Resin always paints up well, thanks to the amount of detail the resin provides - a great opportunity for washes and drybrushing that would be wasted on MDF buildings. It originally had a mail hauberk hanging on the wall (which sort of limited its use for post-Norman games) so I modified that. It also had a badly moulded anvil on an integral tree trunk which I cut off. I then added some white metal accessories (worktable, anvil and water tub, again from Hovels) to fill up the space a bit. All that's left to do is a little bit of groundwork - tufts, and a small bush or two. It certainly illustrates what I said earlier about buildings needing character - this item wouldn't be as good-looking in MDF. It's a shame Grand Manner discontinued it, as it's a lovely little building and useful for anything up to the 18th century with a small amount of work.
Hopefully all these will be finalised today as it's a good day for spray-varnishing, then it's back to the figures!
Until next time.............
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