Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Shipwreck- WIP



Ive been pretty remiss in posting "work in progress" shots and since most of my hobby time these days involves things like this, I should probably step it up or be in fear that people think I dont actually do these myself. Here my skirmish board, called "Shipwreck" its a 3 x 3 Skirmish board that if comes according to plan will be the center piece of my Adepticon Legend of the High Seas event next year and will surely see use for a variety of games as fits.



The idea of the board is a rocky beach at low tide, where a wreck has been pushed to shore and broken on the rocks. The surface of this board will be 80% or so water or in this case clear resin. Thin layer of resin will tinted and poured over a painted sandy bottom. There's also a nice section of beach rolling up to a cliff that ends with crumbling lighthouse with water cresting up on the rocks below.



The cliff here is a combination of Foam, plaster rock from molds from Woodland Scenics and of course the lighthouse is from Hirst. Although I already built the majority of the ruin its getting scrapped in favor of a round one. I ordered the 4" round tower mold because I looked at it, it just seemed more and more appropriate. So expect a round crumbling tower in the end instead of square one. The Coral rocks are aquarium pieces that where on closeout from the local Pet Smart and I eyed them while there getting some Cat food and snag them both for $6 each.




I put some figures out here for the sense of scale..as you can see while not a full 4 x 4 the board is quite large with plenty of room for 40-50 model skirmish if need be. The predominate feature here is of course the two piece Shipwreck from Ziterdes in Germany. I have been eyeing this for awhile but buying from the EU was cost prohibitive. Luckily I found someone here in the US on ebay selling alot of Ziterdes stuff at a significant discount...with the product already being here the shipping cost was nominal, So I essentially got both parts for the price of the large section shipped from the EU. Good Deal..that's what made this board happen.




Envirotex Lite is the clear resin of choice..several notable modelers I know used this for their displays at Adepticon this year..and after my last disaster with pourable water, I needed a product that dried rock hard and would not get damaged from play. This seems to fit the bill perfectly but since everything on this board is going to be permanently fixed and painted BEFORE I pour the resin numerous test pouring must be done to ensure it doesnt get screwed up because if not the whole board would be ruined after all the work was essentially done, which would be disastrous. If you notice the water is only going to be 1/8 to 1/4" deep the trim pieces when fixed and chalked on the inside seam will be what holds the resin in place as it dries.

Expect to this get painted this month as the board and its accompanying scenario will be making and appearance in our Legends of the High Seas Campaign that is ongoing with its next meet coming up June 24th , its extremely doubtful that water will be done by then as I going to do as many mock up pours on smaller pieces as I need to make sure its right...so until then expect a few followup updates and even some games played on it before the final reveal of the finished product.

9 comments:

Domus said...

John - this is looking awesome and I can't wait to see it. I've used envirotex before and some tips --- 1) you can mix a bit of paint in (teeny tiny bit) for opacity or a bit of wash in for 'tint'. A little goes a LONG way.

2) Pour in small layers.

3) Have a long handled lighter handy (or small blowtorch if you have it) for popping bubbles.

Good luck!

Cheers,
Domus

Tim Kulinski said...

John,

Dude, I want to play on this board! I am glad that you are planning on having this at Adepticon next year, so I will get a chance to play on it.

Anonymous said...

I'm looking forward to following this. Here's hoping everything goes well!

Raf said...

That board is amazing! Awesome work, can't wait to see more. Very inspiring blog =)

Bill Lim said...

John,
Looking forward to your envirotex experiences. This looks like it will be a great board.

Anonymous said...

Looking good! Are the rocks cast, or something you got from outdoors?

Scottswargaming said...

Looks good John, I'll be intrigued to see how the water-effect stuff goes on. I like the ship wreck piece idea, I may look to scratch build something similar, once I complete current projects...

CK aka Kronos said...

Great idea!!! This already looks so awesome and it's not even finished! I'm eager to see the progress! :)

Colonel O'Truth said...

Very, very nice!

Can't wait to see the final thing! And I'm very curious to see how the resin turns out.

 

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