Wednesday 24 January 2018

Cheap wargaming stone walls

Over the weekend I started to make up some walls as an experiment. I was not too sure on how they would turn out as I was planning on using a painting technique to give the impression of stones. They are constructed from some 3mm MDF, so are cheap at less than $2 which is always a good thing.
3mm MDF marked out for some bridges and walls
Once cut out, two wall pieces were stuck together to give the wall necessary thickness. After being stuck to their stands they were covered with kitchen paper towels with watered down PVA glue to fix the paper in place.

Once dry I added a few bits of balsa wood on top to break up the straight lines. On a couple of lengths of walls I cut out some of the wall to indicate broken areas (done before they were covered with paper towel).

The lengths of wall were first pained in a light grey, then given a heavy wash of dark grey. The texture of the  paper towel helps to break up the colours.
A second wash of mid-brown was applied to give a little more depth of colour
Using an old paint brush the wells are dabbed with blobs of light grey, making sure not to get a regular pattern. Then with a watered down sand colour a few of the stones (dabs) are highlighted to add a bit of variation.

Finally the stands are then painted green and flocked.

The finished wall lengths on the tabletop.
Gates are just MDF, just a single width not the two lengths stuck together.
The sandy colour highlights on some of the dabs is a bit more obvious in this photo.
Some 30mm figures for scale
The finished terrain looks quite passable as stone walls on the tabletop and are robust as war-gaming terrain. The paper towel and extra bits of balsa help to soften and breakup the straightness of the walls when first cut out. I was a bit uncertain as to whether they would turn out ok when I was halfway dabbing on the stones, but like magic it all came together at the end.

10 comments:

  1. Great work, they are very effective. Do you have any tips on making wooden fences?

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    1. Thank you kindly. I did make some AWI or ACW wooden fences for my 15mm armies back in July 2016. They used a painted effect rather than modelling rails. https://gridbasedwargaming.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/awi-terrain-fences.html

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    2. Thanks Peter, I'll give those a try.

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  2. You really do mange to get a sense of depth from your painting style, similar to your tower you built last year.

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    1. Getting variation colour whenever possible seems to the trick. Thanks.

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  3. Those are fantastic, Peter. Like Norm, I'm really impressed how you create a sense of depth with the painting. I need to make some stone walls, so I will probably rip off this idea.

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