4/2--Hookie from work, and the corner is done!

That's a nice base - I don't care  who you are !

The armoured car looks totally at home---it's brilliant!

Adam, your wish is my comand, I only have 2 things that will fit on this base at this point, the BA-20 and the C7P, well, sort of.

Shots, daylight, mark 1:

And this fits a little bit better:

I have realized that I have to learn how to photograph on a base, much different than siomply photographing a model.

There you have it,

Bill

That looks excellent Bill-=-Let's see it with something parked on it!

that base looks great!

~~Looks great to me Bill!~!  I hope you are happy with it.

You really made the most of that little corner.

It looks better than I'd even hoped man, when looking at the raw casting--Stand  Proud!\

AND KEEP GOING!   You are Rolling now~!!!

THanks Adam, that means a lot coming from you.

Here's what I ended up with, after mixing some shades of static grass and turf to add some yellow to the green, and a mylar baloon's worth of static:

And some contrast shots with a real lawn

I may play with it a bot more, but I Think this is 99% done.

THanks for the help and the interest,

Bill

That's a nice base - I don't care  who you are !

Don't know if it has been mentioned previously, but I have been impressed with this material available from Michaels. Remove the bottom layer, then touch up with some airbrush or dry brush to add variety to the color and it comes out looking great and seems perfect for 1/35 scale. There are some other reviews of it on line too if you Google "Pot Toppers."

Thanks, Adam, I'm already playing with ideas for a more elaborate, non prefabbed base.  I value your input on this.  I was not in love with the roof tile color of the sidewalk tiles.  THey are too small to b

e conrete, so I thinought I could get away with the red, but I covered it up tine some deck tan and then some heavy washes, I like the look better now.

I did some more painting and drybrushing last night, and I hit the tree ring with Mig's track brown pigment to cover that nasty bright orange red undercoat.  I think I ma ready for grass:

And I think this little figure base is about done except for some pigment dusting:

Thanks for looking,

Bill

That's starting to look awsome my friend! Especially here:

That's nice. If it was me..I'd keep going with progressively lighter drybrushing-- for more contrast and end up with a lighter color over-all. The grime between stones looks good! You might consider some lighter dust on top--maybe to accent areas? (Try it on a small area 1st)

Coming right along!

I painted up this base with Vallejo colors, a mix of greys for the road coblestones, and some brown for the sidewalk tiles.  I also found a root yesterday while working in the yard, and made a tree trunk.  I drybrushed with a combination of oils and Vallejo acrylics until it looked "right," but the later washes took some of that away.

I did two applications of a heavy oil wash of mig wash brown and some black oil paint.  THere is a spot visible in the photos that seems to not want to take the wash, but it just looks like an irregularity in the road, so I may leave it.

I used model railroad ballast amd mig pigments mixed in to darken the "brown" ballast, then glued it in place.  Today, I hope to add some grass.

Photos so far:

Daylight shots of drybrushed road but not yet oil washed:

 Empty curb, Someboday already found a good parking spot!

And now some current shots of the dirt in place, after oil washes:

 Some detail shots:

Thanks for looking!

Bill

The opening creidts to Mon Oncle have some great views of  Parisian streets. Possibly some good reference material for your build.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Qqm9XgG8Tg

Well, my chimpesque friend

Narayan there is the master of the coble& curbstone--I might listen to him---& visit his link

www.http://public.fotki.com/nkhandekar  all good stuff there

as for having a generic base around...I guess thats useful. I have one that sorta fits that

The cobbled street was leftover from a Mini-Art ruins I used for "In Russian Hands"...The iron fence spares from 2 Mini-Art kits....nothing glues down..I just use this base for playin around--don't really think much of it(Although I did go to alot of trouble to perfect that plain black frame around it to it's odd size.

Hey gimme a ring--we'll hash out your base some  

Bill a really effective way to make a tree stump is to go outside and chose a branch the right diameter and cut it to size.

That's what I did here:

I do think you could do better than the fountain...maybe one of those Parisian bollards (the round stands with a little roof on it covered in posters) with the posters all over them.

Or how about this urinal...that would give any one with a full bladder a good reason to stop and drain the dragon

Make sure you post it as you build. Works in progress are as interesting as the finished thing.

Hi Adam,

Not sure.  I bought that fountain at a show, and just put it there as maybe a focal point.

As it comes, the base appears to be the edge of a slightly dilapidated park.  It buts up against two cobblestone streets with different stone configurations, and has a slightly torn up sidewalk at the corner.

They had some rudimentary mats at the train store, not like that one you linked, these were like green sandpaper, no 3d effect at all.  Instead, I got some woodland scenics static grass in a couple colors, and some other stuff, "weeds" and some burnt grass/yellow "turf." I think I will put down a lawn on some scrap and see what I can come up with. 

The grate is an iron tree grate, no help there, I was thinking about making a stump of milliput/dowel to depict a tree that somebody “harvested” for firewood last winter.

I thought about the fountain at the corner, as a reason the vehicle would stop there.  Again, this is only my second base, and like the first, it will be relatively generic, at least for now, to hold smaller vehicles.  The fountain can go anywhere, even on another base, or a homemade base, it’s a generic western Europe fountain for a smaller village.

I painted the edge Nato black last night, and plan to do the road as one section dark (panzerish as a base) grey, one reddish, and the sidewalk a much lighter concrete colored area?  The curbstones will be still a different color.

This is all open to suggestion at this point.

You guys are the experts, I'm just a chimp with rudimentary stone tools.  Thanks for weighing in. 

Bill

Hi Bill~

An  alternative that might be simpler than building the lawn are these grass "carpets" from Model Scene

Available HERE   I don't know where in the States carries them yet--lots of different ones, very realistic looking, cut to fit and its done---or airbrush some color variation.

Hey-- Narayan might be right about the fountain--not  sure I get the whole idea

---the grass goes under the fountain, right? 

What's the round area? A tree planter?

What's the plan?

Stay in touch or I send the boys             

How about gravel instead of grass? A lot of European gardens have a gravel paths, formations etc, and it would show off that beautiful grate around the base of the tree nicely.

As an aside, I don't really like the fountain in that location so much, but that's my personal point of view.

Citadelgrad87

Von Ryan, I should have commented, taht looks nice, and is what I am looking to do.  Is that just "static grass" from Woodland Scenics, and if so, what size( is it even sized?) and what shade or shades?

THanks all

Bill 

I could be wrong but it seems they use some kind of gun to "charge" the grass and make it stand up. I did model RR for a while but never got that far into-I only used the ground foam stuff that may not n\be detail enough for your scale.

hey Citadelgrad. well i got mine from a show years ago. bought 3 of them it's called NOCH steugrass. HAHA bottles don't say much looks like all colors brown yellow dark green light green anyway after it drys i paint it to the color i need. hope this helps.

Clay 

Von Ryan, I should have commented, taht looks nice, and is what I am looking to do.  Is that just "static grass" from Woodland Scenics, and if so, what size( is it even sized?) and what shade or shades?

THanks all

Bill 

Gunners mate

If you do try the static grass or turf,  get a balloon, blow it up and use the static elec. to get the grass to stand up.  Put down the glue, sprinkle the grass then rub the balloon and hold it close to the grass.    Good luck.

I wouldn't recomend the astro turf grass but the model railroad loose kind. Add some of the ground up 1/87 scale shrubs for a un-kept look and mix up the color for a realistic look. Stripes in lawns last quite a while so you could hint that was done the last time it was mowed as well. What you see is the lawn blades bent at different angles from mowing in different directions. Shade areas grow faster than ones in direct sun, so corners and the north side will appear longer.  Also remember that everything is lighter in scale, choose lighter shades for your lawn.

If you do try the static grass or turf,  get a balloon, blow it up and use the static elec. to get the grass to stand up.  Put down the glue, sprinkle the grass then rub the balloon and hold it close to the grass.    Good luck.

HeavyArty

You can look in the train section of your hobby shop for rolls of grass too.  They are basically scale astroturf and look as uniform as a golf green if that is what you are looking for. 

Thanks, guys.  I guess what I am looking for is a semi manicured, not really a putting green, more like a lawn that hasn't been mowed in a month or two.  I am just not sure whether to use stratic grass, "turf," and if turf, coarse or fine?  Or a combo?

I was going to just buy a couple of each, but there are so many options, I wanted to get some guidance.  

You can look in the train section of your hobby shop for rolls of grass too.  They are basically scale astroturf and look as uniform as a golf green if that is what you are looking for. 

35th scale static grass should work...

Citadelgrad87

Citadelgrad87

Citadelgrad87

this is my static grass work. i have a roll of grass i'll try and fined the name of it and a pic and post it. but it dose look like it's been manicured to the nine's sorry old saying.

Clay