Old West Buildings

These laser-cut buildings are from Battle Flag, and I received them as part of the Blackwater Gulch Kickstarter campaign. The kits are well designed and manufactured, and the assembly was very straight forward. I “stained” the exterior of the Sheriff’s Office with thinned Vallejo Acrylics, and the shake shingles are a model railroading paper product from Wild West Scale Model Builders. The gallows were dry brushed with tans and grays, and the scale rope was included to tie the hangman’s noose (note: unless you’re an avid fly fisherman, I don’t recommend tying a scale noose as I did). The outhouses are S-scale kits also from WWSMB.

Cultists

Here are my cultists for Strange Aeons, etc. They’re from Artizan except for the high priest which is from Vesper-on. It’s a bit taller than the Artizan figs, however his features are proportional so I feel he works well.

Palm Tree Stands/Oasis

Based loosely on a tutorial that I received from a friend (I would give credit to the original author, however it came from a restricted forum that I do not belong to) I scratch built these palm trees, stands and oasis.

The trees were made using brown pipe cleaners and brown floral tape for the trunks, and the fronds are from a plastic faux plant from the craft store. Basically I folded the pipe cleaner in half, inserted the fronds in the loop created by the fold, and then twisted the pipe cleaner down it’s length to hold them in place. Then I wrapped the trunks with brown floral tape, from the bottom up, to create texture. I dry brushed the trunks with some light tan, and then mounted a magnet on the bottom of the trunks. I magnetized the trees to facilitate storage.

I cut out the bases from scrap MDF and fashioned the “humps” from Sculpey. The rocks were made from Sculpey that was pressed into Woodland Scenics rock molds. The clay shapes were baked and then glued to the bases, then the bases were coated with beach sand. At this point I drilled holes to mount the magnets where the trees would stand. The bases were primed and dry brushed with various colors, then flock, broken trunks, and fallen fronds were added. The snake and lizard were sculpted from clay, and my son picked the paint colors for them.

The oasis was created in the same fashion. The base below the water was painted with gradients of ochre, and the water was created using several pours of Woodland Scenics Realistic Water tinted with blue and green artist’s inks.

Street Lamps

I finished off my street lamps that I received from Grand Manner (years ago) when I ordered my Carentan buildings. I mounted them on wooden discs from the craft store that I covered with the same faux leather that I use for my cobblestone gaming mat.

Objective Markers – Part Deux

After my experience with making objective markers as give-aways for a tournament, I decided to make some for my own use. Most of the pieces came out of the parts bin, with the field desk begin from eBob Miniatures and the tarp over the fuel drum being fashioned from Kleenex and diluted white glue.