“A snake in the bocage” - 1/35 vignette

[Muchmirth]

Hi all,

This build will be a nice simple, straightforward base/vignette for a jagdpanzer iv l48 which I’m building. Title was taken from something a us tanker said in a book by Peter Caddick Adams, snow and steel. He said his time in Normandy was spent fearing the big game but every once in a while an viper would slither across the terrain and nip at your ankles (referring to the stugs and jagdpanzers low profile).

  So I started with some insulation foam  measuring 29cm x 30cm. I marked out the rough plan in marker and glued it to some old chip board of the same dimensions. The board gives it strength and weight and stops any warping; 

Then used a hand saw, Stanley blade, surform and chisel to carve out the below, basic road with banks and fields with furrows (furrows are the wrong way around as wanted the tank to go against the grain and so moved them the other way later):

I then coated it with my famous homemade mud solution, it’s family recipe that’s been handed down the generations! Top secret and will be carried with me until the day I die. ( nothing revolutionary here just quick dry polyfiller, paint, gesso, sand, grit and mud from the garden) it does the job and will be painted further later on:

 

As you can see I’ve laid out a plan for this which will involve three types of fence: stone, barb and wooden: just to add a little variety also because I don’t want to entirely cover up the tank which will be in the middle.

   Below is the unglued 0.5mm oak veneer I bought to use on the sides. Theirs a bit of a trend for this at the moment (thanks to uncle nightshift in part). A lot of modellers paint it black to make the sides plain but I like the wood grain so have painted it with boiled linseed oil and a thin wash of burnt Siena oil paint to brighter, protect and bring out the grain further. 

I’ll cut this to side levels and stick on with wood glue. Then it’ll be a matter of shoring it up with the ground level.
   Anyway, that’s all for now.

Paul. 

[voozet]

21 minutes ago, Muchmirth said:

Below is the unglued 0.5mm oak veneer I bought to use on the sides.

An interesting idea and a new one for me, because I rather avoid watching tutorials made by pros, so as not to get frustrated. Now I know how to use the supplies I bought years ago, when I thought it was a nice material for making wooden plats, doors and fences. It was'nt 😉

[Cadman]

Following with due attention and interest ... 😀

Cheers

[Muchmirth]

On 26/05/2023 at 16:04, voozet said:

An interesting idea and a new one for me, because I rather avoid watching tutorials made by pros, so as not to get frustrated. Now I know how to use the supplies I bought years ago, when I thought it was a nice material for making wooden plats, doors and fences. It was'nt 😉

Funny you should say that because I was hoping to make doors and boxes etc … but now I know that it’ll save me the bother. 

[Muchmirth]

Hi all.

  So the ground work is progressing some: veneer is cut to to the contours of the base and stuck on with wood glue. I made the tank track from milliput rolled out into long strips and impressed spare track into it (my mud solution does not impart tank tracks very well).  

 

I’ve painted the ground with oil paints to darken the crevices, dry brushing of acrylic lighter colours to the raised parts and a range of mud and dust pigments dotted about. The result below: 

I then attached the home made decal titles to the front veneer panel:

I used the laser printer at work (naughty!) to print them off. These were a total pig to attach I messed it up four times and I scraped off the middle line here to start yet once more. They are super thin and curl even if you look at them sideways!! So in the end I barely damped them with ice water and used a piece of rubber to help move them off the baking paper onto the matt vanished wood veneer (😩this did work better but still not exactly perfect)!. I’ll re do the middle line once my patience resumes and hit it all up with some gentle application of micro sol. Then seal on with Matt varnish again.
  I’ve added in the fences below:

The gate and fence posts are made with balsa and coffee stirrers which were distressed with a scalpel, course sand pad and wire brush. The broken stone wall is a mix of broken up wine bottle cork and blocks cut from XPs. I stuck it all together with polyfiller coloured with a bit of black paint, to make it grey. 
  

I’ve spray painted the barb wire grey (which I got from yan models) ready to rust up with oil paints before stringing across the front fence.
   I’ll paint the fence posts and fence panels and gate next. Then I’ll work on the trees and vegetation. So next up date I hope you’ll get to see some of this and the static grass applied. 

All the best,

Paul.

[dnl42]

Wow, that's very impressive!

 

And you're not even done yet.

[Cadman]

Great job on the basic landscape.

Looking forward to the next stage ... 🤩

Cheers

[Crayons]

Coming along really well Paul.

[voozet]

On 10/06/2023 at 17:45, Muchmirth said:

 

The gate and fence posts are made with balsa and coffee stirrers which were distressed with a scalpel, course sand pad and wire brush.

If you use natural wood, you can try weathering with watercolor paints. It's fun. It looks much better than acrylic or oil weathering, but it takes much longer. Only the wood cannot be painted with acrylics or oils beforehand. You also need to glue carefully, because the surfaces covered with glue do not absorb stain and watercolor paint.

Some dark stain first, and then diluted watercolors. You have to do it gradually, which is why it's so time consuming.

 

[Muchmirth]

6 hours ago, voozet said:

If you use natural wood, you can try weathering with watercolor paints. It's fun. It looks much better than acrylic or oil weathering, but it takes much longer. Only the wood cannot be painted with acrylics or oils beforehand. You also need to glue carefully, because the surfaces covered with glue do not absorb stain and watercolor paint.

Some dark stain first, and then diluted watercolors. You have to do it gradually, which is why it's so time consuming.

 

Yeah I’m pretty keen on this idea. I’d seen on another site people using the water colour pencils to achieve a really nice look. Never used them before but would like to give a go next time. Is it straight up watercolours or the pencils you use?
Thanks

Paul

[voozet]

3 hours ago, Muchmirth said:

Is it straight up watercolours or the pencils you use?

 

I use watercolor pans (also called cakes) bought at an art store.

 

I also have pencils but I don't use them because the effect is worse in my opinion (the reason may be the poor quality of the pencils, because they are some cheap crap).

[Muchmirth]

Well no static grass applied yet but I have done some more figures:

I tend to go for super high contrast which is not to everyone’s taste: 

 

 

Also painted the stone and wooden elements: 

 

I got a new product, it will be really obvious what it is as I’ve used it everywhere!!! That’s the problem with new thing excitement!

Ak grime and slime enamels. 

I also got that elusive middle line of the titles sorted. As it was the last one it slid on in one take (I’m pleased and annoyed   in equal measure!):

Also I’m starting the trees and actual bocage:

This is three different density’s/coarseness of wire wool twisted into hedges and sprayed  brown with an aerosol (as don’t have an air brush). I did three types as wasn’t sure which would work best and as always with me… variety. I’ll use various leaf litter from hornby and green stuff world, also flock and ak leaves. More of the bocage will be made from coir from a hanging basket (just not pictured here yet).
  I’m adding an oak tree and silver birch and a couple blossom coloured  bushes… for my favourite… you guessed it… variety sake. 
 

The oak tree is the furthest left, it’s a twig with sea foam super glued on and milliput used to cover the joints and make it more proportional. It was spray painted with the same aerosol brown (Halfords camouflage brown) then brush painted with light greys and Iraqi sands. It’s not great but the foliage will cover a lot once done. I’ll make this a dark green.
   Then next in line is the dried Greek basil I’ve spray painted green and dip dyed in Vallejo olive green. I might use this for tank foliage and cut down for small shrubs.
   Then next to it is the birch. It’s a twig from a dried budlea plant in my garden. (Horrible invasive bugger)They dry with small naturally forming clump foliage. I’ve used Vallejo water foam (thick white paint) and black brown for the dark ring marks on the bark, this will be a light green foliage.

    The end, right hand side, one is just a clump of sprayed sea foam, I’m going to add some medium green foliage to it and see how it turns out in contrast to the dried Greek basil, back up if that one flops.
  Thats all for now. Thanks.
Paul

 

[Muchmirth]

Ok I kinda forgot I was doing a wip on this base! I carried on and meant to take photos of the base as I went but the rest came together very quickly and so...See the link below to the finished article:

 

 

Thanks all for looking in,

Paul