My Westphalians are finished, only waiting to be based; I've received my order of 1815 French Infantry from Schilling Zinnfiguren in Germany; and I've started a terrain project using fabric from a pair of old jeans which I cut into strips for roads.
I'll post pictures of the Westphalians and the Schilling figures later in the week, but today I'll share with you my new method for road building.
Early on in this blog I made roads using kitchen sponges and putty, which look excellent but had the disadvantage of curling up when dried so they never lay flat. I solved that problem by gluing them to pieces of thin balsa wood, which worked, but left them thicker than I was intending. I was still left with the problem of having rigid road pieces which could only be used on hills if you didn't mind having ramps, which I do!
After a pair of favourite black jeans wore through around the crotch (Oo-er, Matron! What have I being rubbing against I hear you all ask; get your minds out of the gutter!), I decided to cut the jeans into straight strips and other shapes, like curves, cross-roads, intersections etc. After ironing the strips I initially thought I'd spray them using some left over cans from another terrain project, but that didn't seem to take too well on the denim.
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| Basic shapes |
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| First attempt with spray paint |
After that, I just slapped on some art acrylic directly on to the fabric and then added a little flock and railway ballast using PVA. The result is a semi-rigid, yet still flexible terrain piece which I think will work well with the rest of my terrain pieces, both bought and home-made!
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| Painted and railway ballast added with PVA |
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| Contour hugging finished product. |
Fantastic results. It all works really well.
ReplyDeleteNever thought of using denim! There's a pair of jeans that is destined to appear on a tabletop near here sometime soon...
ReplyDeleteWith kitchen sponges? I'll try it! The result seems very good...
ReplyDeleteNo, Phil! My first attempt used kitchen sponges, but these are made with denim fabric
DeleteOk, I read too fast! Thanks.
DeleteHello,
ReplyDeletea really nice idea to make the streets of the battlefield.
with friendship
Simmy
Ciao,
veramente una bella idea per fare le strade del campo di battaglia.
con amicizia
Simmy
Nice one, I've got something similar and it works great, it will greatly improve the look of any battlefield!
ReplyDeleteThese denim roads seems a great idea and allow to follow the slopes without problem!
ReplyDeleteRegards
Rafa
Genius! From figure hugging jeans to contour hugging terrain!
ReplyDeleteToo kind, sir, too kind! Although you'd really rather not see me in anything figure hugging these days. Might scare the horses, don't-you-know?
DeleteWhat a great idea!! They look excellent!, well done old boy!!
ReplyDeleteSimple, clever and I can only guess at what you might do in the future with underwear!
ReplyDelete;-)