Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 16 January 2017

The Cursed House (and palms)

Front view - ground floor
I have made some progress to my "Cursed House" build (otherwise known as Stoetzel's Federal House) this week with the usual loss of a wall or similar occurrence. Work this week was however mainly held up by a bout of sneezing, coughing and bring up phlegm, as I developed a very heavy cold, all of which was not conducive to modelling, or my keyboard. Thankfully several packets of Lem-sips and hours of rest and I'm all but recovered.
Oblique rear view
First floor outside walls with internal prints
It should be fairly obvious that I've fitted the internal ground floor walls despite the model's best attempts to thwart me Why a single internal wall should be divided into three parts (the one from the front door to the back door) is divided into three .parts, escapes me - its' not as if it's too large for an A4 sheet, being only about 9" long!.
I also managed to cut and glue the internal wall prints to the external first floor walls (second floor if you're American) even managing to miss cutting out a pain of windows, before being laid low.
Left original, right 'worked on'
Succumbing to my current lurgy and not wishing to press my luck any further with the "cursed house" build it wasn't until Sunday I looked around for something else to do - something I couldn't easily f*ck up with a sneeze !
I decided to have a quick experimental trial at my palms.
Firstly let me say that palm trunks come in every shade of brown, grey and sandy-cream colours imaginable.
Secondly I now have a fairly large number of trees to 'spruce up' (no tree- pun intended) so whatever I do has to be quick!
Again, original on the left - not so effective as the previous one imo

Forgetting that as these are fairly soft plastic and should probably be washed in some luke-warm
soapy water I gave the leaves (fronds ?) a quick wash with Tamiya clear Green; the trunks were washed in some dark brown ink I've had for about twenty years and finally a bit of milky-coffee-coloured dry-brushing. IMO for the minute or so that it took I thought it was quite effective for a trial run.



Bottle palm - very happy with this
Imo, another success
Its a monster sized tree
 So the results are a bit varied with a few variations to the colours, brown greys or whatever, then I'm sure they'll look good en-masse. I'll also add a few yellowing leaves with some yellow ochre or similar washes. In the meantime here's a picture of one of my largest and most expensive tree at about 7" tall (175mm).
Also a late arrival to the jungle terrain were more plastic bits for my 'jungle', they're described as "flowering plants" om ebay and came form the same source as all my flora, namely "Model railway collectibles" -
They come in packs of either fifty or a hundred plants and either all of one colour or in five colours  (like my own)
I'm still awaiting three more packs to arrive - bamboo and two types of "grass" (in reality green bushes) 
It's hard to know what to do to 'improve' the looks of these flowering  plants, so maybe they'll be left as is (always my preferred option)




"Flowing plants"
The problems of not having a working laptop continue and  the proper space to use my desktop (I'm currently typing at 90 degree to my computer screen with my own shadow over the keyboard)  continue unabated but on the good news front I have the first of a half dozen or so shelves now erected in my wargames room, It's in the door alcove  and is now occupied by my Playmobil coliseum  of some 30"+ diameter. It's the first  step to clearing my table off and setting it up for a game!

That's it then for this week thanks for visiting and as always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

24 comments:

  1. Looking good Joe, that's a great building and you just gotta love those trees!

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    1. Rather than great I'm more inclined to think it grates!
      I do love the trees though.

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  2. The Palms do look so much better. So good I may have to do the same as you and give mine and Ink wash! That's more work for me you rotter!

    the building looks good as well and totally in your style. yes you do have a distinctive style.

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    1. Thanks Clint, I did originally wonder how I'd get through the 2-300 trees I've acquired and I'm happy enough with the quick once-over I've given them so far.
      I've always thought I did have a 'style' when making buildings, I call it "slap-dash"and "that'll-do"!

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    1. Thank you Michal, I hope it'll be better when I finally decide on how to base it all.

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  4. The trees look great Joe as does the building. Glad to hear you're feeling better buddy

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    1. Thanks dGG, hace a look at my replies above to see how I really think about this building, but the trees are another matter.

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  5. I really like the textures of the Cursed House Joe, very spooky. The palms are also transformed, nicely done Sir.

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    1. Thanks you Micahel, I thought the textures too dark, but spooky works! For a quick job, I happy enough with the palms too.

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  6. The palms came out really good. Cursed house is shaping up.

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    1. Thanks LS, (nice to hear from you btw), it is shaping up , but for what!

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  7. That's two of us clearing away our work rooms in a bid to get at table space to play games. My plastic trees/plants (aquarium variety in my case) are dotted around 'storage piles' in two bedrooms, however. Hmm, my wargames 'stuff' seems to migrate quite a bit around our house. Whoops!

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    1. Haha, I truly know the 'spreading hobby stuff' symptoms, but aas mine is now restricted to piling it up in my games room and a very small area of my sitting room, due to the roaming rampages of a a toddler!

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  8. Hmm, I should probably have done something like that with my own palm trees, but they're all built up and based now. Perhaps I'll experiment on the next batch, whenever that might be :-) .

    Oh, nice building, btw. Are we going to see it in a battle report some time?

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    1. I do think the very little effort I put into my palms was well worth it as an experiment and it'll only take a little more to make them that bit better imo.
      If this build is ever finished and my table is ver cleared then I do hope to use it in a game or tow this year.

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  9. You are persistent, Zab. And finicky too! And it comes out just beautiful and functional. (:o)>

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    1. I've held the belive that nearly everything is fixable (with enough glue or in real life gaffa tape -duct tape to you in the US) and I don't like to be beaten.)

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  10. Lovely work with the building and it will be a nice looking piece of scenery when finished.I love your palmtrees, a real nice find indeed.

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    1. Thanks Ptr, if it ever gets finished it'll not be my favourite piece. (It nearly got thrown out twicce this week) I have to say I'm quite excited now about the palms.

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  11. Palm trees trees look great with the fast job on them, from a distance the building looks like it's coming along well, just try not to start using it when it's 80%done and say I'll finish it but never do its what I seem to do with scenery!
    Best Iain

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    1. Even with just the quick once-over the palns improved well imo.
      The building will be lucky to see the light of day even if it is finished and almost certainly won't if if it isn't - I'd have to be really desparate,

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