Diorama - Building the Base III

I received the materials I had ordered and it was back to the workroom to see what I could do with them. First up was the brick material from Monster Model and Laserworks. This is some wicked good stuff and it gives me the old rough brick look that I was looking for. While the package states that it is the American Brick pattern its actually a variant of the English Brick Pattern so while not common in London it will pass muster. I also received the stamps from Happy Seppuku. I picked up the brick pattern which turned out to be just a basic stretcher pattern and to regular for my purposes. A cobblestone stamp which I think is perfect and a brick accent stamp which I'm toying with right now. I'm not sure it will work. I also stopped at Hobby Lobby and picked up some Sculpy to use with the stamps rather than work with green stuff or Milliput this time.

Here are the results of the night's endeavors.

The brick sheeting and since there was a sale I picked up the arched brick hoping that it would work. Sadly it won't, may bfor another project.

A closeup of the brick sheeting, lovely stuff, its not actually colored like this though

Happy Seppuku stamps

Brick

Brick Accents

Cobblestone

Gluing on the brick sheeting

The base for the bottom of the alley, covered with a layer of Sculpy

After applying the cobblestone stamp

The applying the cobblestone to the street level base and making some stuff from the accent stamp

Brick applied to three sides. The corners will be hidden by a stone edging

All the main components in place. The soldier is standing higher in the window than I would like but it should be fine.

Another Night of Basing

Tried to pick up where I left off last night. I pulled out the dead wood pieces from the swamp accent stamp and the mortar bombs from the trench accent stamp. Not to bad. The green stuff definitely did a better job capturing detail. I mixed a bit more blue in with the yellow so that while the green stuff hardened it remained a bit flexible. I cut out the various roots with an x-acto knife and glued them to the mud and snow bases I did last night. 

I then used more milliput to try and blend them into the bases a bit better. Probably could have done a better job but once they are painted and some more basing materials added you shouldn't be able to see the transitions. I then used the left over milliput that I had mixed up and tried out the plank stamp on the bases I use for Calamity. This is really a nice stamp and left some terrific detail. Oh and Bert's Lip Beeswax really helps keeping things from sticking to your fingers and to the stamps!

I tried to hit the snow and mud bases with a wash to pull out the details but you still can't see it to well, its just not deep enough and really its not suppose to be terribly detailed just enough to add some dips and folds to the ground.

The milliput did a fair job of capturing the detail. The mortar bombs are going to need some extra work to make look good. I'm not really sure what the tin can thing is suppose to be. 

Here I pressed green stuff into the swamp accent mold. These came out really nice, the green stuff really captured the detail.

Starting to cut up the roots to place on the bases. Here the detail is being applied to a base from Secret Weapon Miniatures

Blending the detail in with milliput

One of the mud and snow bases with a wash to try and show off the detail.

Wash on one of the 50mm bases

Adding some detail to a mud and snow base

I think this is everything

Tried to capture some of the small crater detail with the leftover milliput

Really nice wood detail on the wood plank stamp

Basing with Stamps

I pointed out the Basius 2 Kickstarter in an earlier post this month. These look great but they don't deliver till early next year and I need something similar now to finish up my Marines. I was aware of Happy Seppuku from a Kickstarter they ran back in July of 2013 and one another that funded earlier this month. They use a hard latex as opposed to the resin used by Wargame Bakery. I decided to give them a try and I ordered their mud and snow stamp along with their scenic trench accent stamp. These are much smaller than Basius but are a bit more flexible so using them as press molds may actually work better. Time will tell.

So I gave it try tonight (yea, pretty much from the mailbox to the workbench). I did some 30 and 50mm lipped bases and a couple of pressings in the trench accent. I think the bases came out pretty good but after I ruined one of my "casts" I elected to let the other castings harden up a bit longer.

Here's what I achieved this evening:

Got my materials out. Milliput is my go to putty for stuff like this. Its easier to mix and work with than green stuff and its significantly cheaper! I get mine at Hobby Lobby. It won't hold as fine a detail as green stuff but for what I need that's fine.

Its hard to photograph the stamp, but this is the mud and snow stamp (or pad).

This is the wood plank one. This will be quite useful for my Calamity project

Covered up the slots with masking tape. The grey ones are resin bases from Secret Weapon Miniatures

Milliput mixed up and ready to go.

Applied a blob to the base, spread it out and then pushed it into the pad. Here are the results. Not bad I need to be neater on the application, these will need some clean up.

Tried a close up to try and show the pattern. Its hard to see in the yellow.

Maybe from the side you can see the detail better

A couple of 50mm bases

Here is a pressing from green stuff. I pulled this to soon and it stretched on me. But you can see the detail that the green stuff captured. Hopefully I'll be more patient with the next batch.