Monday 11 July 2016

Jung Pirates board completed

Hi all,

I've pretty much finished my pirates board, the last things I needed to do was I guess the scariest in that they had the most potential to go wrong and that was the flocking and the most scary of all the water!

I tackled the water first thinking that if I buggered it up I wouldn't waste all my flock. To that end I had to think how I was going to achieve the right effect. I had already looked up how to paint the estuary bed, which you can see in my last post here, so now needed to cover it some how. I already had a little Woodlands Scenic water from my WW2 canal board, but it was only about half a bottle and that would only provide a thin layer, certainly not enough for a proper effect - still chucked it on though....

But should I go get more at £17 a pop or try to find a credible cheaper option? Rolling up my sleeves I mustered up my best web-fu (which isn't that impressive), however I did hit the jackpot with Luke's Affordable Painting Service - remember him from my last board posting? He not only helped me save money on my ink washes for the board by showing me how to make my own for less than a pound (half a jam jar of black wash and I only used about 20p worth of rinse aid and four drops of black paint...) but he showcased a cheap two part epoxy resin that is great for water effects.  this is the link to his FB page here and his Youtube for this effect here


Each pack comes from Poundland and yes it costs just £1 however I needed 13 packs to cover my board, still it's £4 cheaper and to be fair the stuff dries in 10 minutes and completely hardens in 16 hours regardless of how thick the pour, meaning my drying time is significantly reduced by several days (each scenics layer takes over 24 hours to dry and I would need about 4!) the only down side is you have to work fast if like me you mix lots of it at the same time. I recommend using one pack at a time if you want to get a smooth pour, however you could end up with little steps or gaps all over where the seams between pours are.  For me I didn't want smooth as my water was tidal, this epoxy was just perfect for creating waves and eddies. The only criticism of the epoxy is that it is still a bit tacky even a few days later so i might have to sort this later with a thin layer of PVA.

a good look at the way the epoxy is waved


the water beds

After the resin/epoxy pour it was time to build the bridge that joins the two markets and add the wooden jetties that I had prepared earlier, bringing us to this...


That just left the flocking, for the that I needed quite a bit and I was worried that I didn't have enough of my Army Painter Steppes Static Grass, which I usually use. I also wanted to lighten a rather brown board up so I mixed the static grass with a dark green flock from Woodland Scenics which I've had for ages but never used as it's too bright on its own. And I ended up with this.....


and after I've added all the details i've been working on.

coiled rope objectives (made out of wool)

Lady Oka and bodyguard sample the delights at Cupid Burgers

the flea market

a water kami playing in the harbour

water Yokai cavort in the estuary


Kintaru fishes off the banks


arial view
Richard Fairbrass's original board which inspired the layout and was given da Gobbo twist!
My thanks go to Richard Fairbrass, whose layout on his own board helped me incorporate the scenario objectives into my own.  Thanks to Luke's Affordable Paint Service for saving me a boatload (groan) of dosh, I wish i'd found your page before I inked my Temple board, which would have saved me a ton of cash! And big thanks to Joe from Zabadak's ZombieWorld for the inspiration in the first place, as soon as I saw those awesome pirate ships of his I wanted to do a board, i just lacked the ambition to make a big ship for the board (which was the original idea), sorry Joe but baby steps - next time though....

I shall just leave you with a quick video showing the board in more detail. This time I've narrated a little bit to accompany the video, I can only apologise for the sound of my voice which is a little rough - no I'm not ill, I really do sound this bad normally! Be thankful the original video was 4 minutes but Blogger could not update such a big amount of data and it took days to upload and then didn't work! so this is the abridged version.




Hope you enjoy
dGG



44 comments:

  1. not sure if the video link is working or not, my apologies if not

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  2. Fantastic. gotta love Luke's tips and Poundland epoxy. Video works

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    1. then i apologise again, this time for inflicting my dulcet tones on the world, there's a reason i'm not a voice over artist....

      Luke is great, the guy has saved me loads of money all ready!

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  3. Replies
    1. thanks HW, i'm really pleased with outcome

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  4. Absolute tremendous and yet another great tip from Luke - the build that keeps on giving!

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  5. This is really good! Great board !

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  6. This is really good! Great board !

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  7. That is really impressive, Andy. You continue to amaze me with your craft-work and painting.

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    1. Thanks dude, I must admit to being very pleased with the way it has come out

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  8. My favourite board to date; your water effect and the transition from stream to 'sea' is superb.
    Theres so much going on in such a small area and I think I've spent far to much time looking at this over and over again.
    Your video works just fine btw (but those purple awnings ...arghh)

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    1. Thanks Joe, I appreciate your kind words and can only apologise for the purple awnings.... ;-)

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  9. Replies
    1. Thanks Yeti, considering your own excellent work I'm blushing.

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  10. Dude...speechless, just speechless. Well, not really. This is totally awesome! I was impressed before, but now I'm whatever the next word is up from impressed. And nice to see that 'Cupid Burgers' are going down well. Please feel free to repaint the base so that it better matches your terrian, as it now looks a little out of place. As for your cook, the Japanese word for butcher is 'Nikuya', which does sound like a character name...?

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    1. Thanks Jez, much appreciated dude. I must admit, skill wise, I really threw everything I had at it, so was really pleased with the way it come out. Cupid Burgers is a great fit and goes well with the market theme but was wondering whether you would be amenable to a rebasing - lol.

      Great name dude, let's add it to 'Kokoro no niku' which means 'heart meat'!

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  11. I am DROOLING! (no more words need be said.)

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    1. Thanks Clint I'm flattered by your praise

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  12. All bow to the lord and master of terrain making! Awesome, just awesome!

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  13. It looks extremly well ; willing to start pirates and now even more.
    Super great job !

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    1. Thank you Mathieu, I appreciate your kind words and for taking the time to comment. :-)

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  14. That`s just incredible. I`m rather speechless, as I can`t find enough superlatives to express my desire to play on this board.. no more even, I want to BE there walking amongst it, its so lifelike and desirable.

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    1. Thank you Hil, you would of course be most welcome in da Grotto to play on the board, I'm hoping to game on it this Thursday do you think you'll make it to Kent by then?

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    2. me too, me too.. how about it Hil, shall we both descend upon him at once!

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    3. Actually, I will be over in the UK in two weeks actually. Where about`s are you Andy? I will be visiting parents in Felixstowe for a three weeks, so will have lots of spare time on my hands.

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    4. I'm in the most southeastern part of Kent, it's a town called Ramsgate. From Felixstowe if you looked directly south its across the water! Sadly there is no boat service (which would be quicker) but by car it's about two and half to three hours travel x

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    5. hmm, that's actually doable. If my parents don't treat me like I`m still 14, and they trust me with their car for a day, I might drive over and say hi, see your collection first hand and maybe play a few games... but warn the wife I`m coming first lol.

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    6. You'd be very welcome :-) I work shifts so give me a bit of a heads up if you manage to get your car privileges (teehee x) and I can let you know if/when I'm free. Look forward to (possibly) meeting you

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    7. Watch out, she`s infectious fun to hang out with, and will keep you enthralled with tales of gaming for hours (but she`s a good listener too lol). I hope you guys do manage to meet up, I know you`d both have a blast.

      I can`t make it over as its too much hassle finding people to look after the animals and stuff for so long, and besides, its nice for her to spend some qual` alone time with her elderly parents.

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    8. I'm sure she will be, I hope we manage to sort something out!

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  15. Okay.. who are you and what have you done with Andy? This just ups the stakes even higher than normal. Normal is like WAY high. But this lifts the bar to a standard I`ve not seen before.

    .. you sure you`re Andy?

    hehe I love it.

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    1. I don't think anyone else would mimic my rusty old voice Tarot ;-)

      I'm very pleased with the way it came out, as for a change it came out almost exactly how I pictured it in my head! This is most unusual for me but I'm glad it did. It does however leave me in a bit of a quandary as to how to maintain the standard and the answer is I can't, my next few posts will be quite pedestrian in comparison (actually tomorrow's is quite good too but...)

      blogging has encouraged me to "up my game" in every aspect of our awesome hobby thanks to the inspiration I gather from my fellow bloggers and the kind, encouraging words from the commenters here so I hope to continue with good quality projects, exhausting as they are (and this one has left me drained, in a good way) but I'm sure you'll understand if some of the posts are not quite up to THIS standard :-)

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    2. This guy's boards are the standard I'm aiming for

      http://sarcophagi.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Bushido%20Terrain

      If I do half as well, I will be a very happy wargamer indeed :-)

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    3. Gosh, yes that's VESY good isn't it. Hmmmm, but do you know what: I actually think you can match it. Okay its immensely impressive, but I believe if you undertook a massive game board project like that, you could do just as nicely. It`s all about making a nice baseboard, and having lots of amazing smaller projects to sit on top.. like this guy does. Its AMAZING yes, but so is yours. I think the correct reply here is THAT guys work is incredible, just like yours is too.

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    4. That's vesy kind Tar' xx

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  16. vesy good is the Irish version of what very good would mean in English.

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  17. *thinks to self* Wonders what Andy`s rusty old voice sounds like.

    What tar` says.

    You might surprise yourself if you tried a big BIG project like sarcophagi`s work. Yes his work looks stunningly fine and massive praise to him for it. Yet I believe you are capable of delivering similar. However as you rightly say, its very tiring and can totally drain you: sometimes though, this can be in a positive (mentally stimulating) thing.

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    1. Oh yes it's definitely mentally stimulating as you have to problem solve the finer detail. I do enjoy putting these projects together but I feel a bit "hobbied out" and flat afterward until the creative juices kick back in... ;-)

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  18. As Pa Larkin would say:

    " Perfec` "

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