Desertification Pt.2

Desertification Pt.2

Work continues.  It's been a rough week as it looks like the pub may have double booked the room.  Trying to work out what is happening on that.

But worse case, we still need terrain for early January so can't really give up yet!

So, I got busy with the Jigsaw and cut up 36 MDF irregular shapes (with a 45° chamfer).  A fairly easy few hours work.

Slightly more tedious was cutting the astroturf from the last post.  I cut up about half the sheet, filling an ice cream container with "tufts".  That was the best part of an evening.

I then spent two evenings tiding up the cuts of the tufts and hot-gluing them onto the markers (as well as badly blistering a finger...).  That gives us this:

Miles and miles of shrubs.

Some mild concealment.  There's a 25pdr, PzIIIL and 14 of those bloody Italian 47mm guns in the photo...

A fair bit of cover!  It's about two or three markers per table alone.  I need to retrieve the old scrub markers from the club and refurbish them to add a further ten markers. 

The next stage will be to add sand and then paint.  I did consider just painting with masonry paint but the texture is perhaps a little too fine.  Sand will add some good texture for the drybrush stage.  I'll also add some green/brown "stilfor" grass tufts for variety.

Not one to waste material, I noticed that some of the MDF offcuts from making the shrub markers were of use for the "palm tree" markers.  My plan was to mount two or three trees to a base that would then sit on a larger "area marker" as seems to be the fashion these days.  I had some circular markers left from the Eastern Front hay-bails project but the offcuts were a slightly more interesting shape.
The trees have a "pin" on the bottom so I found a suitable drill bit and used the dremel to make a few holes on the base.  I then dabbed on some hot glue and slotted the trees in place, cutting off the excess length of pin.  Again, it needs sand, some paint and a drybrush, plus a few tufts of stilfor.

Some shade.  You can see the pin through the drilled hole on the right.

That used up the offcuts pretty quickly!  Still a lot more to make of those but I'm now out of hardboard/MDF!  A re-order is on the cards but I need to know if I have a tournie to terrain up first!

Finally, I stuck the telegraph poles, more hot glue, to tongue depressors.  I did consider sticking them to washers or pennies but this works for putting them snugly alongside a road or rail marker.

A lot of bandwidth...

Again, a bit of sand, paint and stilfor grass is in order to finish.  But that will, assuming the markers get spaced with a gap, give over 50" of telegraph line!  No real game effect, just adds character.

Now, just to see what Monday brings for the future of the tournament...

UPDATE:
Found the rest of the old haystack bases.  Whilst not chamfered and more circular in nature, they are still worth using up!

More bases using some surplus circular bases I made previously.

Newer base on the right.  Slightly easier on the eye but needs must!