Saturday 22 March 2014

Oporto Table Build - Days Five & Six

British troops landing in the town under fire, the battle for the seminary is in full swing atop the hill

So Day five of this project has seen the boards given a wash of watered down PVA to secure the ballast and then the black base coat was applied.


I decided to give the boards a full 24 hours to dry fully before commencing work on the primary top coats.


My intention is to do the rock work first followed by the ground colour, then fix the river sections and apply the flock as the last stage. The flock is the tricky bit as I want to try and achieve as close a match to my mat as possible but show a transition to the more broken ground as it nears the gorge.

Day 6:
Well from the response I've had to this post I thought I'd better get on with it and give everyone an update. So whilst spending today searching out more flocks to try and tie in with the mat, I've pressed on with the basic paint job and fixed the river.





I'm quite pleased with the floor tile effect and once the final bit of terrain work is done to the banks I think they will look quite good.


 
Just to give you an idea of the effect I am after, here are the boards back on the table with the boats on to illustrate what it should look like in time.




More updates later.

14 comments:

  1. Love the work on this.

    Have just read Muir's first volume on Wellington so will follow your work with interest.

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    1. Hi rct and welcome to the blog. Thank you.

      I've got Muir's book on my wish list, it looks a good one.

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  2. Just found your blog from the link on TMP great work on the Oporto board looking forward to seeing the game! I've got some catching up to do on your blog so far! :)

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    1. Hi Robert, welcome to the blog and thanks for your comment. You'll find there is a Peninsular War theme running at the moment and for the foreseeable as I get some of the Duke's battles out of my system. I have announced plans for other projects along the way and I like to throw in the odd comment about the hobby, review the odd rule set and share anything I have picked up that seems to work for me, so I hope you enjoy the journey.

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  3. Bloody awesome!
    Great work and very inspirational

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    1. Cheers Nigel glad you like it. I wanted to impress on viewers what a really audacious attack this battle was. To do that it was important to get the main feature, the river gorge, looking like the formidable barrier Soult thought it was. I hope this blog will do a small part of dispelling any thought of Wellesley, as he was at this battle, being a defensive general.
      No wonder the Portuguese troops hailed him as "Douro" after this battle whenever they saw him arrive on their front.

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  4. Terrific craftsmanship! How did you accomplish the water effect? It looks great.

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    1. Hi Jon and thank you. The water idea is simply floor tiles and is an idea that I have copied from Shed Wars, whose blog link is in my follow list. As you can see simple ideas are often the best.

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  5. Brilliant Jonathan!!! Very, very inspiring!!!

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    1. Hi Paul, thanks mate. Well once I saw your work on Napoleon and his team I had to go and release all that inspiration somewhere, so I'm now looking forward to your next project.

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  6. Excellent work, inspired and beautiful!

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    1. Cheers Phil, thank you. I just want to get it finished and get the toy soldiers out now.

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  7. The cliff face turned out beautifully! I love how bark mirrors the look of stratified rock.

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    1. Thanks Bill, you can't beat bark when it comes to modelling big slabs of rock

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