Terrain: Building a wooden Fort for my FIW toysoldiers - WIP

Manufacturer:   Selfmade

Scale:   1:30 (suitable for 60mm toysoldiers)

Hi,

as I have posted about a finished test section of a wooden fortification about two or three weeks ago I decided to get into this project completely. This will take some time. But after having posted some pictures of this project within the Facebook-Group concerning JohnJenkins figures I got a lot of positive reactions. https://www.facebook.com/groups/333462707235698

So - let´s do it.

As this is WIP there will be several posts about this project. I want to do this in a kind of a tutorial how I made the single sections.

Within this post I will show you a bit of the techniques an tools I am gonna use.

Hope you enjoy it.

Cheers

Mike

First of all I got my styrofoam into shape. The height of the platforms is going to be 9cm with a 0,5cm boardwalk on top. For the corner sections I made a template from cardboard. This will help me to reproduce more corner sections if I would like to expand the fort.

Further I got me some other "test" sections to see if the project would work.

You can see the already painted test section that I had posted a few weeks ago. The unfinished log cabin had been constructed some months ago and within this project I want to finish it aswell.

Next step was to cut another plate of styrofoam into stripes 1x1cm each by using my Proxxon foam cutter.

Now it is time to get the rectangular stripe into a rounded shape.

You have to use the right kind of foam here. There are some types of foam that are not as easy to get into shape by pressing it with your fingers. Believe me - this will get you sore muscles within your fingers.

So I found me a better way. Rolling the stripes is also stressful but not as hard as pressing the stripes with your fingers.

That´s a good result to continue.

A already prepared section. 9,5cm in height, 6cm deep and 20cm in length.

Now cut the rounded stripe to 20cm length...

...and glue it on to the bottom of the wall section,...

...use some pins to fix it,...

...and sink the pins completely into the foam. Later they will look like nails fixing wooden logs.

The section fully planked with logs.

Here comes the next step:  grap a modelling scalpel that´s not too sharp...

...and begin lightly to carve some structure into the foam...

...so that it looks like this. A nice irregular structure looking like the bark of a tree.

Now take another rounded stripe of foam and get the top into shape by using a cutter knife.

Place at least two logs at the ends of the section like this and again fix them with some "nails".

These logs also have to be structured.

Now the other side of the section is planked with vertical logs, that also have been structured and fixed with "nails" by using pins.

Now I used real nails. I had to search for very short nails because for the next step the normal pins would have been too long.

On the inner side of the section I placed two stripes of foam of about 1cm x 0,3cm.
This time I fixed it with the short nails to avoid that the spike would pull out on the other side of the single logs.

So this section is done. And this took me about three hours to do.

Does it fit to the rectangular corner section? I think so. :)

Now I concentrated on the corner section that should representate a kind of Vauban style. First of all I created an entrance into a hidden storage room. 

Then I carved the structure of the walkway into the top of the section.

The result after about one hour.

Again a lot of pins had been used to give the impression of nails.

I also started to plank the second straight section just to look if every log is in its right place after putting the modular sections together.

In my opinion this is a pretty good result.

This also seems to fit pretty well.

My efforts for this first WIP.

What are your thoughts about this?

Toysoldiers - Roger´s Rangers from the ranges of ConteCollectibles

Manufacturer:   ConteCollectibles

Scale:   1:30 (60mm)

Hi again,

today´s post is about the beautiful figures from the "Roger´s Rangers" range of ConteCollectibles. 

These figures look really good. Unfortunately the website of ConteCollectibles does not show the whole range.

The style is a little bit different to the early ranges of JohnJenkinsDesign but in my opinion they could also be  mixed.

Cheers 

Mike

Another models from ConteCollectibles that are already within my collection. Only the guy with the keg is JohnJenkinsDesign for comparison of both manufacturers.

Tyrolean Rebellion - A suitable house for the gaming table

Manufacturer:   Chickens Tabletop Crafting

Scale:   28mm

Hi,

yesterday we went to the "RheinMain-Multiversum" in Nidderau near Frankfurt - a small but fine Tabletop Convention. We like travelling to events like the "Tactica" in Hamburg and will even visit the "Warfae" in Farnborough next month but we also enjoy the smaller events as they are not overloaded and overcrowded so there is enough time and also space to look closer at the gaming tables and also to join some games. And another effect is that it is much easier to meet friends from other regions within a non-hectic atmosphere.

https://rmm.tabletop-rheinmain.de/

I was happy to meet one of my favorite model crafters in person there. Thomas Hahn (aka "Chicken") is a brilliant crafter of models made from styrofoam. You should visit his youtube channel. There is a lot of interesting content there. His videos are always a great inspiration for me.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chickens+tabletop+crafting

I already have some of his models within my collection of wargaming terrain. "Chicken" had his own stall at the convention with lots of interesting models and I was lucky to find a house that can be used perfectly for my project concerning the Tyrolean Rebellion.

Here are some photos of this house.

Cheers

Mike

Another beautiful house made by "Chicken" I already had within my collection.

Toysoldiers - New tribesmen for my Hurons and a first try of displaying the "Battle of Monongahela"

Manufacturer:   JohnJenkinsDesign

Scale:   60mm (1:30)

Hi again,

this week I got some new figures increasing my tribesmen of Hurons of my FrenchIndianWar collection of toysoldiers.

The plan is to be able to display the "Battle on the Monongahela" some day. But there are "some" more sets missing to complete this range. So it will take me some more months or even years to complete the range of this conflict. The cabinet I have in mind for displaying the range is about 90cm bright and about 70cm deep. So there will be enough space for a huge diorama.

I started to try out some arrangements of the figures I already have of this range. As you can see there are a lot of trees missing, also bushes and even the terrain. This arrangement was just for getting a feeling how the display could look like and won´t be the last attempt. 

But - it was fun to do this. And that´s what it should do. Having fun and enjoying the hobby. :)

Cheers

Mike

The four new figures included into the "display".