2020 Summer of Scenery - Part 9: Desert ruins

"A lick of paint and it'll be like new..."

 I've got a number of "generic desert buildings" but something that often seems to crop up in adventure stories (and also quite a few modern military memoirs) is the ancient "desert fort".  Whether the decayed remnants of the old colonial rule or the crumbling remains of old tribal centres, they provide a good contrast to the better-kept inhabited towns.  I decided to build a few ruins with some Hirst Arts "ruined fieldstone" blocks.

Initial construction and base coat.

Burnt Umber base coat on the walls.

I've built 3 sections of ruins to start, 1 small, 1medium with an archway to add a little interest and a larger section which can provide reasonable cover to a vehicle.  I bought a bag of builders' sharp sand probably 15 years ago and it's still serving me well for terrain building.  It was sieved into 3 different grades: fine (mix of dust and very small grits), medium (approx 1.5-2mm granules) and coarse (3-5mm pieces).  Bases were cut from Foamex board.

I needed something stronger than PVA to fix everything to the Foamex, so the Hirst arts blocks were assembled using 151 "Hard as Nails" which is the sort of no-nails stuff you dispense from a sealant gun.  I've found this is particularly good for the fieldstone blocks where you can end up with gaps if you aren't careful.  Layers of the adhesive were also used to delineate the crumbled/robbed away sections of wall between the Hirst Arts blocks, with some of the coarser stones from the builders' sand used for texture.

I wanted a bit of contrast between the walls and the desert, but also colours to tie them together.  The desert is, appropriately enough, a Wilkinson's tester pot of "Safari Sand".  This turned out to be a poor idea as I shall expand upon later.  Walls were base coated with burnt umber craft acrylic, drybrushed heavily with a dark yellow, then finished off with the Safari Sand.

GZG Islamic Federation for scale.

This work was completed a year or two back but having used the scenery in a game, I decided that the ground colour is too pale and makes it feel out of place amongst the other desert buildings.  As my recent blog posts have shown, I've been trying to improve my scenery techniques so I decided to revisit the ruins and make some modifications.

The first thing to do was reshape the bases and bevel the edges. The bases were repainted using the same mix as my other desert bases, Wilko "Nutmeg Spice", "Coffee" patches and a heavy drybrush of "Desert Sand".  PVA was painted around the edges of the ruins to attach the coarser clumps of foam foliage, then green dyed tea-leaves generously sprinkled on and around to blend them into the bases.  Dilute PVA was dripped on to soak in and set everything in place, with a sprinkle of autumn grass here and there as the finishing touch.

Bases re-shaped.

Vegetation added.

GZG civilians for scale.

It's ended up slightly more overgrown than I originally intended but that's OK.  The vegetation also helped hide a couple of places where there were air bubbles in the plaster cast blocks.

SG15-IF05 - Islamic Federation Troops (helmets) kneeling & prone

My last few Islamic Federation figures - same colour scheme as the rest but with brown helmets to match their body armour/boots.  I decided on green visors, mainly because I hadn't given any of my other figures a green visor up to this point.

Here's a multi-angle shot giving a range of different views.  You can see that each trooper has a backpack and a number of little pouches.  The helmet has some sort of built in hood that covers the trooper's neck, perhaps to give protection from the sun?

Blackstone has asked me what I use for the bases.  I use builders' sand, sifted using a couple of old sieves of differing mesh sizes.  The figure's base is painted in slightly watered-down PVA, after which one or two larger bits from the sand (about 2-4mm) are positioned with a pair of tweezers.  I then sprinkle a few bits of the medium sand (about 1mm) and finish off with the finest sifting which is a mixture ranging from just under 1mm down to fine dust.  The spray undercoat helps stick the sand in place, and I usually give it a thinned coat of 50/50 PVA and dark brown paint to bind it all together.  A drybrush of light brown followed by green then grey finishes the base in a temperate  colour scheme.  The bases of my Islamic Federation troopers have been given almost the same treatment, but I've just used the finer sand.  The desert colour scheme is Inscribe acrylic flat desert sand.  When the figures received their shading wash, I applied it across the base too.  The base then received a quick drybrush of the base sand colour, then a final highlight of Vallejo bonewhite.  The edge of the base is painted Humbrol 29 matt dark earth.

SG15-IF06 - Islamic Federation in Keffiyeh, kneeling & prone

Today we have the matching pack to yesterday - more Islamic Federation in keffiyeh, but this time they're kneeling and prone.  I've gone with the same colour scheme.

With this pack you only get 2 poses, which is rather a shame.  If they are mixed in with the normal troops it won't be quite so noticeable, but it would have been nice to get a kneeling missile launcher and a prone SAW gunner to round things out.  I'm sure that it wouldn't be difficult to convert a couple of the prone figures into snipers using a pin vice and some thin brass rod, but that'll be a project for another day...

SG15-IF2 Islamic Federation Troopers in Keffiyeh

Some Islamic Federation troopers from GZG.

I've gone for a desert colour scheme of brown and sandy yellow.

A sepia wash gave some texture to the figures and they've got white keffiyeh to keep the sun off.

Weapons are black with a dark grey drybrush.

They are distinctly plump when compared to more recent GZG releases or CMG figures.  The Islamic Federation obviously feeds its troops very well.  Or maybe they just don't get enough exercise.

A nice range of poses - as an older GZG pack, it includes officer and support weapons as well as riflemen.

Japanese Corporate Trooper and Islamic Federation

 A couple of my more recent projects...

Islamic Federation trooper from the "kneeling and prone" set.  A dusty yellow/brown palette for a desert feel.

Japanese Corporate trooper.  I've aimed for a Samurai sort of colouring to match the style of the armour, a mix of medium brown, red-brown and dark brown.  My research wasn't very detailed though, so apologies to real Samurai reading this!!