Thursday, August 13, 2009

Terrain: Eluding Morpheus or The River of Dreams.


In Montreal, we've had a week of hot and humid weather. A couple of nights I've woken up in the wee hours of the morning and was unable to return to blessed sleep. I was not comfortable with the thought of doing detailed work on my miniatures, nor did I want to read. I turned instead to a terrain piece that has been calling out for paint.

(Note: In the photo above notice the 3"-4" transition piece feeding into a 4" river section at the lower right hand corner of the image)


I had an Armorcast River. I started the river collection while I was still living in Halifax. I bought a 4" two piece package from Odyssey 2000, a store which I understand no longer exists. So there I was with 14 inches of straight river 4 inches wide. It was always in the back of my mind that I'd have to buy more.

Fast forward, the year is now 2007. I purchased at auction an 3" Armorcast Boxed River set. It was 4 feet long. It was still not long enough to stretch the length of my six foot gaming (dining room) table. I needed more!

By 2008 I acquired a 3''-4" River Transitions pack (2 pieces) that would allow me to run the two 4 inch river pieces into the 3 inch river boxed set and provide me with the needed filler to allow the river to cross the length of my table. Time to paint.

I followed the directions according to Armorcast. Earlier I cleaned the seams on the individual river sections and washed the pieces in warm soapy water. When properly dried I sprayed them with gray base coat (Canadian Tire Primer). Over three nights, for the loss of 5 hours sleep, I completed the majority of the work.

The paints I selected for the task were Raw Sinna (Series 1) for the river banks, and Cobalt Blue (Series 5) for the water. Both were imported by Omar DeSerres Inc. Once the riverbanks dried I inked the Raw Sinna with a Games Workshop Chestnut Ink. This was a KISS (Keep it Simple) principle job. I wasn't going to be bogged down painting different colours for all the possible rock variations.

The river is complete and ready to game with. It needs some more work. In addition to various areas of sand along the river sides, there is the plant life which needs to be touched up.

That's it for now. My next posting will be when I've completed painting my Arabian Spear men.

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