Terrain Build Update - Modular Sloped Hills, Finished

Carrying off from my last post I had a very pleasant weekend bringing this next stage of my 28mm terrain collection to a conclusion with the finishing off of my set of modular sloped hills.

Terrain Build Update - Modular Sloped Hills Part One

For those interested in how I put these together I have picked up from the first post and show the stages with a brief description of what each stage entails.

So once having everything sealed down with plaster and masking tape, the next stage was to add the first coat of scatter using a 50:50 mix of PVA and water painted on and then applying different grades of grit, ranging from the very fine 'Chinchilla Dust' a a very fine sand available in pet shops to a slightly more granular ballast available in most builders merchants.

Because these slopes will in the main have stuff put on them I kept the more gritty scatter located in the indentations I made to the polystyrene and then covered the bulk of the surface in the fine sand.

This first scatter cover is important as it not only provides the first layer of sealing and protection but also provides a layer of groundwork which provides texture for the paint.

Next stage is, once the scatter has had a good amount of time to thoroughly dry, to seal the whole thing with a mixture of equal parts chocolate brown house paint (the acrylic stuff that washes out with water), water and PVA.

When applying the watered down paint/PVA mix be careful not to go over areas already covered in the mixture, as water reactivates the original PVA causing your ground texture to be liable to move and form a sludge, hence giving the original layer a good amount of time to dry out and not re-touching areas already painted.

Next morning it was on with the highlight colour of golden brown acrylic craft paint simply wet-brushed over all that lovely texture to complete the look of the ground work.

This stage will really make those strategically placed areas of extra larger pieces of ballast really pop and contrast the areas of broken ground showing through the turf.

Soon after the wet-brush we can then paint on another 50:50 PVA wash to allow us to get on with applying the scatter, which in this case is Javis turf colours; which come in three shades consisting of dark green for putting around my broken ground, light green, generously randomly scattered over the exposed slopes, followed with a top scatter over the whole slope of medium green to finish.

Again this stage needs to be given ample time for drying and properly fixing the scatter before finishing the work with a final spray of  1:8 PVA/water which will lock down the scatter and cause the colours to leech into one another and give a more nuanced overall colour to the slopes.

The slopes now show of their gentle curves that will allow my figures to traverse them easily and the scatter right down to the edges soften their look on table whilst the areas of broken ground add a bit more realism to the look.

The final proof of the pudding is to get them on table with other terrain items to see how they look.

This initial work has now created a good base for my terrain collection and now means I can easily create games here in my room with my permanent table and now with a new slightly smaller cloth from Tiny Wargames take part of my collection to club to put on games there as well.

Obviously this is very much the first basic stages that creates a start point and over the next eighteen months or so I can add to this with other important terrain items that will gradually give a better look which alongside a growing figure collection will enable the creation of more interesting games.

So there we are, the first modular hills completed and now its on to the next piece of terrain, but I will keep that up my sleeve for the time being and focus next on getting the next unit of Sarmatian cataphracts put together, plus a post looking at historic Taunton.