I am now all but
finished on the Brecourt board with just some minor experiments and finishing
touches to go. Today I will describe how I created the hedges, hedgerows and
trees for the model.
Hedges
I already had the
hedge lines defined on the model - I’d laid out a line of cork board early in
the build. I began the hedge build with brown walnut scouring pads. Each pad
was 6mm deep so I cut strips about 3mm
wide. Each strip was then shaped roughly with scissors to make the height
variable.
 |
| No matter how I tried each of these strips ended up looking like waves on the sea |
I then pipetted
liquid glue onto them until fully absorbed and flocked with Woodland Scenics Weeds (dark green) fine
turf.
Once dry I applied
PVA to the base and glued them onto the hedge lines on the model. Gaps were
left for gates and I made sure to place lower sections opposite the gun
emplacements. Smaller bits were cut and inserted where there were gaps.
To create a somewhat
wilder hedge look I tore strips off the Woodland Scenics foliage range and
using scenic cement and a brush applied it to the strips, gluing tops and sides.
I varied the colours but used more dark green than mid green with light green applied only sparingly.
By the vegetable patch I only placed and glued the foliage on
the top and other side as I figured the small holder would trim the hedge on
his side.
To create a proper
hedgerow though I then took a selection of bush and longer grass products from a range of manufacturers and
cut them into thinner strips and pieces and glued and pushed them into the
bottom of the hedges.
Fence
A small section of
the border of the vegetable patch seems to have had a wire fence. I used cut
down toothpicks as posts and some barb wire from army painter to create the
fence and then glued some bushes through or across it.
Trees
I decided to try an
experiment with this model and to try using sea foam moss for my trees. I think
the moss is frequently used by railway modellers and diorama builders but I had
never used it before. I’ll insert a warning here to those who are thinking of
using the sea foam on their wargaming tables that I have found it to be very
realistic but quite fragile. My board is designed to see only a small number of
battles, to be carefully transported and for the action to take place generally
away from the trees. Be very careful using on your war games tables!
I started with
Plastidip spray. This spray, camo brown, coloured the sea foam and helped
strengthen it, making the smaller sprigs more resistant to knocks and breaks. I
didn’t bother cutting the foam before spraying - but I would recommend doing so
if you are using this for bigger trees as the sprigs easily glue together.
I cut the sprigs
into a variety of sizes - I needed some trees about 6cm tall ranging down to
1cm.
I then dipped the
sprigs into scenic cement or watered down PVA just covering the upper parts of
my tree. I mixed dark and mid green coarse turf, about 2/3rds dark, and the
pushed the sprigs into it or dropped the turf onto it. A quick shake to remove
the excess, the odd touch up and then clamped in a peg to dry.
I repeated this a
number of times sometimes varying the turf mix and on some of the trees
applying another layer of glue and sprinkling mid green fine turf on it.
I used a modellers
pick or bradawl to make a hole into the hedges and the gently inserted the stem
of my sprig trees into the hole. Scenic cement helped secure it in place and
often I used the glue to fix the foliage of trees to another tree for greater stability.
The trees are much
stronger than the base sea foam and are fairly robust but I doubt they would
last a long time if used on my normal wargaming tables. They look pretty good
and are absolutely worth the effort that it took to create them.
Next time I’ll look
at the troops that I’ll be using for the refight.
Hopefully it won’t
be long before the lockdowns end, until then stay safe!
Charles the Modeller
