Perfic Panels - Anyone using them?

There is a company I found showing at Historicon in 2007 called Precision Products (http://www.appliedimaginationinc.com/), that manufactures vacuum formed polystyrene sheets of terrain - I have been working on their rivers in one of my projects - and embossed sheet for model building. Things like brick and flagstone and such for the exterior of models.

They also manufacture something similar to foamcore, but with a thin styrene exterior rather than the more common (dare I say 'traditional'?) paper exterior sandwiching the foam.

Has anyone used this material? It sounds rather more sturdy than regular foamcore, what with being more water-resistant, and the fact that I tend to use water-based glues and paints makes this a definite plus.

Anyone have practical experience of the stuff? Leave a comment if you do!

Christmas Goodies

I received some goodies from my lovely wife of fifteen years for Christmas that are definitely hobby terrain related. Thought I'd share.

The first was a little kids' toy band saw. Well, I don't think its a ctually a band saw, but a table mounted jigsaw. Either way, its small, plastic, lightweight and not suitable for any kind of serious woodworking. It is good, I am hoping, for cutting thin sheets of balsa, basswood, and birch plywood, as I use a lot of that. It may even do some thin MDF, I hope. It won't cut anything much more than 1/4" thick, though. She found it at Michael's Craft Store. Actually, I noticed it an pointed it out to here and she went back later and got it.

I also got more reindeer moss/lichen in natural greens and browns. Always useful.

Finally, she got me this netting. It is fairly large weave, and I think originally designed for beach decor sort of stuff. Not for real fishing work, I am sure. But here's what sprang to my mind: camouflage netting for overheads. That, or anti-pterosaur netting.

In the VSF game I play around with, aerial ships have existed on Mars for millennia, and could drop bombs. So it makes sense to have developed aerial camouflage, yes?

And on Venus, pterosauroids are a terror of the air. Again, a settlement might easily develop some sort of netting to keep the pteros away from the livestock/children. Sensible idea?

Analysis Paralysis in Gaming (Rant)

So I mentioned this same phenomenon on my other blgo dedicated to Victorian Science Fiction gaming, but I think it is such a general thought and problem in the wargaming hobby that it deserved a mention here as well.

My blog-buddy Eli and I have been discussing how we sometimes get bogged down with indecision about exactly how we want some portion of a project to look. Neither of us is overly concerned in most senses for accuracy (we were discussing a VSF project, after all, and imaginary nations at that!), but just getting the right look. Developing the vision of the project, I guess you could say.

And then he mentioned the phrase "analysis paralysis." I've never heard it before, but its a common enough phenomenon. I don't know if the term is used in other venues/industries or what have you, but it fits.

The problem is that you spend so much time planning and re-planning and so on, trying to get something to a perfect vision of what you want, that you never actually do anything. This leads to the infamous Great Lead Pile most of us wargamers have laying about the house that our wives would prefer we just do something useful with, like melt it down for radiation shielding for the Big One. Or something like that.

And that lead pile is discouraging to many of us (at least to me, and so I assume to others) as well. So that further compounds our lack of production.

So what's the solution to this double-edged sword? I wish I knew. All I know is I have a ton of projects just sitting there, wiating for me to do soemthing with them.

Eli suggested this: just work on something that catches your fancy at that moment. Then at least you get some progress made. Even if its just painting the hats on the 87th Light Aero-fusiliers Regiment the lime green you always wanted them, its progress. Then shift to something else if you have no further inspiration for the 87th Light Aero-fusiliers. Eventually, you'll come back to them, and in the meantime, something else will approach completion.

So far, its the best answer I have heard. What do you think?

Or is all of this a load of horse dung and I should just man up and get back to the terrain building saltmines?

Primitive Huts

Okay, these huts are just becoming available, although they have been discussed on The Miniatures Page (TMP) for over a year.

The sculptor (whose name I can't recall off the top of my head, but who goes by the TMP handle of Cacique Caribe, or CC) finished them, oh, November of 2007 I think. Then he shopped around for someone to handle the casting and marketing and such for him, as he didn't really want to do all of that himself, but there was a lot of interest in the models.

Enter Alex Bates in Alaska, of the new Forge of Ice company. They get a deal worked out, and now, they are in production.

First, a group shot. There are four different designs:

Now a close up of one:

I have nothing to do with the paint jobs (nice work, though, especially the snow) which were done I believe by a Mr Robert Phipps of the United Kingdom, a customer of Forge of Ice and friend of Alex's. I hope no one minds me swiping the photos, but I'll remove if you want me to!

I pinched this tidbit regarding the snow effect from TMP (http://theminiaturespage.com/)

"Regarding the snow effect, Rob [Phipp] says:

I Just use a bit of PVA wood glue on the bits I wanted covered in snow, then used a white flock, then another coat of PVA and then Bicarbonate of Soda for the snow effect. You get a nice brilliant crisp white from it.You don't have to use a white flock underneath but it stops any colour from the tent from showing through if your PVA is too thin.
And that's how he does it!

-Alex"

The reviews have been most complimentary, for both sculpting and quality of the production castings. You can reach Alex through his blog, and here's a link with more info and pictures of the tents. http://forum54.oli.us/index.php?topic=5205.15

Rivers, Part 2

So, this is a basic multi-part "how I did it" for the rivers. I have a few pictures to go with, as well, though they are of different pieces.

Just to re-cap, I am using the styrene sheet rivers from a company called Precision Products [www.appliedimaginationinc.com]. The sheets are 16"square, 0.025" thick, with vacuum-formed terrain impressed into the sheets. The stream is about 1" (2.5 cm) across, with banks of about equal width.

Materials and tools: wood putty, styrene rivers, kitchen shears, hobby knife, 1/16" thick plywood, glue, felt, a few heavy books

1. Cut out the river piece. I cut mine all the way to the edge of the banks, but you could leave a small lip or flange of plastic around it. I used kitchen shears to cut them out.


2. Wash the piece in warm water with some dish detergent, just to make sure there's no mold release on it.


3. Mix the wood putty. I used to have Durham's, which I actually prefer, but the DAP brand stuff works as well. You want to mix water with the powder until it gets like a really thick milkshake consistency.


4. Fill the underside of the river piece with the wood putty and let it dry overnight.



5. Next day, trace the shape of the river out onto some thin plywood or MDF. I use 1/16 inch birch plywood (about 1.5mm), that is supposed to be for R/C airplanes or something.


6. Cut the shape out. A bandsaw with a fine-tooth blade would be perfect for this, but I don't have one, so I use my hand jigsaw (sometimes called a fret saw or jeweler's saw, I think). Sand the rough edges.


7. Glue the river piece to the base. I use Allene's Tacky Glue usually, but I have also used superglue (liquid, not gel) with good results.
   
8. Clamp or weight down the piece and leave two+ hours (PVA) or twenty-ish minutes (superglue). I have tried lots of ways to weigh it down, and I am still least happy with this step of the process. Best so far has been a layer of felt or something, then a few large heavy books on top. It still leaves a few gaps at the edges, though.


9. Spray with flat white paint. I tried black paint on one piece. It doesn't work for me. Let dry (duh!).

At this point, you should have a piece of nicely detailed river, with the hollows filled and attached to a base for a nice, weighty, durable piece of terrain.

Next post, I'll discuss painting and filling the stream with water effect.

Fields, Part 1

I have a way to make plowed fields for your troops to fight across that is just great, in my not-so-humble opinion. Its not my own idea, unfortunately, and many of you may already know how to do it, but for those of you who do not:

• Its flexible and sturdy.
• It can be about any size you reasonably could want.
• Its dead easy and quick to do.
• Materials are cheap and pretty easy to find.

What more could you ask? Oh, you want to know how to do it? Okay.

1. Buy some dark brown spray paint. I used Krylon, but you can use any of them. Gloss or flat, doesn't matter much. (Gloss looks more like a wet field, I think).


2. Buy a ridged polyfiber doormat with rubber backing, with ridges about 1/4 inch wide and 1/8 inch deep. I got mine at Target, 2' x 3', for about $3.99.


3. Using heavy scissors (I used kitchen shears), cut the mat into desired shape and size. I made small rectangles with rounded corners, approximately 4" x 6".


4. Spray the mat. Let it dry.

You are now done. If you want to make it a bit snazzier, drybrush or lightly spray a slightly lighter shade of brown over the original dark brown.

There you have it: quick and easy fields. To see the results:

http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t225/jwomack94/Wargames%20Terrain/DSC04611.jpg

In Fields, Part 2, I'll discuss how I am making a planted field.

"A date that will live in infamy..."

The attack on Pearl Harbor (if I have my time zones right) began almost exactly 67 years ago.

All I can say to those Allied soldiers, sailors and marines who gave their lives in World War II, and those who fought and came home, is this:

THANK YOU!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled gaming blog.

New Feature - No Big deal, but...

I added a counter to the blog. I am always curious to know how much traffic my sites are getting, because I don't see a lot of point in spinning sutff off into the void we call the internet if no one is looking at it.

So, you have been weighed, measured and counted. Or something like that.

Oh, and I promise I will take some pictures of the river sections I have been working on to post this weekend. They are not finished, but you can see a little bit more of how it goes.

Later.

Pot Toppers

There has been a lot of discussion about using 'pot toppers' for terrain projects.

I first clued into them through a Yahoo terrain makers group.

Then, Tas mentioned them on his excellent VSF blog, Yours in a White Wine Sauce! [ http://pauljamesog.blogspot.com ]

So, I felt it only right that I should mention them here. I have yet to obtain any of them, although there is a Michael's craft store not a mile from my home. It is definitely in the project queue to try out, though, as it looks like it can be used to fantastic effect. To wit, check out this page: http://ardleybridge.fotopic.net/c1501517.html

If any of you have used pot toppers, please let us know your experience with them. How easy were they to work with, were you pleased with the results, what adhesive did you use - any comments would be great!

About the poll...

I usually run polls for a long time. I like to get plenty of responses to pretend its a decent sample size of the target audience.

So this one runs until one minute to midnight on New Year's Eve. I stopped it at a minute till so that the diehard geeks (you know, like me!) could step away from the Internet and go kiss their significant other at midnight. Call me a romantic.

So, let me know what you think. My vote is already cast.

Its December. Let's talk snow.

Okay, so I practically never see the stuff down here in Houston. I grew up in Dallas, and we usually got ice, not snow, pretty much every year.

I have visited the white cold stuff on a few occassions, and even spent some time figuring out how to go down a mountain covered with the crap while balanced precariously on two thin strips of wood. Why anyone would do this for fun, I don't know, but to each their own, I suppose.

The real point of this post, though, is to ask for comments on how to model snow on the gaming table.

Naturally, a large heavy white cloth could do for an entire table. But for features, how do you put snow on them? Let's assume the project is a cluster of large rocks, covered with snow, and a snowy base around them. The rocks are easy - carved and painted foam, attached to a base of either MDF or plywood, depending on what you use for snow. Trying for something kinda like this:



But what do you use? Soap flakes? Powdered sugar (ants in no time)? I bought some snow effect stuff that is designed to be used on those seasonal displays, but I haven't tried it out yet and have no idea how long it will last, etc.

So, guys and dolls, what do you recommend?