"Pelham, the money has arrived, the money has arrived!"

...well, actually, I should have said "THE AFGHAN BUILDINGS HAVE ARRIVED!" Just as I was headed out to work late this morning the mailman dropped off a large box. I opened it and was very happy to find 9 scratch-built buildings and 2 gardens, all courtesy of GAMER-X, also known to me as THE BLIND ARCHITECT (he is not actually blind). The buildings turned out quite nicely, especially if you know that Gamer-X has never built anything larger than a medieval siege tower before, at least that I know of, and that was putting together a model, not fabricating from scratch. And there are SEVERAL MORE GARDENS yet to come!

Here's a few pics:

KAREZ (man-made water-course) pics

As with the terrain boards themselves, I will post more pics of the construction process for these as soon as I get the chance. Actually, I should say "for this," since this is the only piece that exists at the moment and I need to finish several more before the big game...

A few more shots of Mundabad Ravine board

Some pics of the finished Mundabad Ravine board...

Since it was obviously the most difficult board to make, I decided to build the Mundabad Ravine first.

The top pic shows Foundry Afghan Regular Artillery being watched by some Eureka Indian & Arab Civilians and a Perry Crusades Muslim Civilian, and being blessed by a Perry Sudan Mahdist religious leader on horseback (being used here as an Afghan Mullah)

The second pic shows some Perry Sudan British infantry representing men of the 66th Regt. approaching Mundabad ravine from the South, as General Burrows' brigade did on the day. The white stucco building in the background stands in for the village of Mundabad. I hope to have several more modest, slightly smaller size buildings ready in time for the big game.

The finish of the board was achieved with a mix of some 5 colors. 3 main ones, used for the regular ground cover, plus 2 additional colors used only for the road and/or the base of the ravine itself. I'll get into much more detail on how this was done on other pages yet to come...

(I promise!)

The only thing remaining to be done to this board is potentially affixing some little Siflor tufts of prairie grass.

(more on that later as well.)

Chapter 5 (Cont'd): FURTHER TERRAIN-BOARD TESTS (pt.2 of 2)

Chapter 5: FURTHER TERRAIN-BOARD TESTS

Mod Podge didn't work for what I needed, which was adding some rough texture as well as a solid seal to the surface of the board. Dap and then WOOD PUTTY were much more effective. In the end I went with wood putty.

You can also see some of the earliest COLOR TESTS, trying to find the right BASE COAT for the boards and starting the search for the perfect -- and LIMITED -- mix of highlight/dry-brush colors...

Chapter 4 (Cont'd): FIRST TESTS ON 2'x2' FOAM SHORT-ENDS (pt.3 of 3)