MexRev scenery

[Nick]

Looking good so far. i can't wait to see your final table for MexRev. It's going to be awesome!

Nick

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

The foam is styrofoam PIR insulation board by Kingspan or Greenguard and others. It is available in sheets and is the same stuff terrain boards are usually made from. It can be cut, hot cut, sawn, scribed and sanded and it comes in various specs with different colours. I have a variety of green and harder blue offcuts I use that are 25 or 30mm thick. It should be available from a variety of DIY building supply outlets. This is a pale mint green version of the pink stuff commonly seen on popular foam modelling sites. If you want your socks blown off by the modelling talent in foam out there check out the Foam Modelling Workshop on facebook.
One tip - save all your offcuts except the thin shavings. They can be useful in other projects and a little goes a long way, particularly in 15mm!
This 25mm scale fortress seen at Salute in 2010 is made from it and it took about 6 months of lunchtimes and strange looks from work colleagues...

[Colonel Kilgore]

Wow - that is impressive, Neil. Presumably that Salute model is in 28mm "scale"?

Simon

[martin goddard]

That castle is very nice indeed. Love it!
The colour is really good too.


martin

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

I always wanted to model a castle in the round and when I got a windfall of several sheets of styrofoam I went a little mad. 'Sahyun' is loosely based on my favourite bits of Indian and Crusader castles and grew as I designed it. It was originally made for my extensive 25mm Fantasy collections. I opted for the sandy stone colour since I was sick of grey. It is in 14 sections which makes up into a footprint 3 feet x 4 feet with a donjon 18" high.
Don't get me started on my other 'magnum opi' the Rammas Echor - 12 feet of walls, bastions towers and a gateway (which packs into 12 copy boxes), and the 'Bridge of Osgiliath' at over 2 feet long. Alas, my modelling fervour far outstrips my ability to use them on a table at home... hence my reversion to the one true scale for epic and megalomaniacal projects - 15mm!

[Smiley Miley 66]

Thanks for that.
I always keep 'All my Offcuts" within reason, whatever project or material I use. I have several boxes of things taking up space ! Lol
Miles

[Anatoli]

What a castle !!

Really impressive... Superb work !

[Bravo Six]

Neil, just saw this mine piece over at LAF. Incredible work!

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

Yep, its slowly getting there... a ways to go yet though... who'd have thought modelling rocks would be so hard?!!

[Bravo Six]

Well you've certainly got it down to a fine art. My experience is limited to using bark nuggets from the garden shop to represent rocks in my terrain. Cutting pink foam to represent what you've done effectively, seems a daunting task.

-Todd

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

That's funny, Todd, since I find working with bark harder and the styrofoam far easier.
A trick with the foam is that if you part-cut the foam you can tear the rest of the way which makes for interesting textured surfaces. I know others use a scoring method like making pork crackling to add cracks and fissures to the rock. That's a knack I haven't mastered...

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

Just some random stone scree and a light set dressing of metal scraps and corrugated tin and my abandoned mine is good to go...

[Colonel Kilgore]

Very nice, Neil!

Will you also be polishing the tops of the rails to indicate recent usage?

Simon

[Smoking gun]

Neil,
Lovely work, the rails look just right for an abandoned mine.

Best wishes,
Martin Buck

[sukhe_bator (Neil)]

I really want to recreate the abandoned look, so the rails will remain rusty and there will be weeds and grass scattered around ( I have some larger tufts on order since my existing stock is too small and not scruffy looking enough). There will be an empty rusted tipper wagon (not this full one which is a proxy). The wagon will require poly cement gluing so I am hoping for a decent weekend to I can do it outside on the patio...