Flora

Not much done this last week, not because of the lack of enthusiasm (for a change), but because I've been ill, culminating in a day in bed - hence no blog post on my regular Monday blog-post.
So, as they say "here's some I did earlier" (or words to that effect)
At the commencement of work on my new toy pirate ships I spied a use for the overly-large treasure chests.
The photograph on the right shows one of the end products, whilst the one below shows the original chest.

Rather than opting for a concrete style high-street type of base I decided that a wooden one would give a greater range of use in both contemporary and historic settings.
The 'flowers' came from one of my evil-bay purchases from China.(plastic flowering plants) and are very cheap.

My latest purchase from China (again via Evil-bay) were two 'mats' of 'grass'. They're smaller versions of some I already have, but worse for that.
The piccy on the right shows one of the two mats, partially 'pruned'.
There are 81 plants on the 9 x 9 grid, and they will give greater variety to my jungle terrain.
The pic belows shows the results of just one of these 'mats' stripped off.

There is a slight problem with these, though by no means insurmountable and in fact is a really easy fix.
The photograph on the right should illustrate the 'problem'. The 'bush' on the right shows the cup-like base (hard to hide imo) and my solution of cutting through the four supports.
I could just as easily have cut  through the stems leaving a smaller-stalked plant, but this gives me the option to glue four in place at once.and still allows for single stems to be placed
So where are these plants and the rest of my 'jungle' pieces being affixed ?
Well, my cheap-skate answer is pizza bases - they're cheap (they come free with a pizza!),  made of light-weight foam and easy to work with. I've been collecting these for several months, ever since I originally thought of their use.

Out of a single pizza base it's obvious that many different sizes and shapes of base can be cut.
Once roughly cut out I bevelled the edges down using a 9" file. There was little to no problem with this save the once I tried to file an inverted 'base'. It appeared to me that these foam bases are slightly different filing from the top or the bottom!

  Here's the majority of the bases I've done (I found a few more after taking the photograph) and hopefully the beveled edges can clearly seen. The 30cm ruler gives some idea (hopefully) of the intended coverage, which combined with the bases I've already done should be sufficient to cover an area of about 6 ft x 4ft.
These will be completed the same as previously, using filler and painted, though this time around I'll be doing each base bit by bit as putting all the foliage etc. in place to begin with amkes painting the central bits in the larger pieces more difficult.

 
This next week I'll be trying to work on my games room as my shelving ahs finally been completed and I'll be reclaiming a small bedroom I use for my desktop computer. I'm also envisaging buying a new lap-top, taking advantage of any Easter sales!

That's it then for this week and even if a day late I hope you've found something of interest.
As always, your comments are both welcomes and appreciated.