Think it will look quite good once the whole thing is done, just need to get time and inspiration to do so!

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So far I’ve done the two gentlemen who will take leadership roles (tentatively the Chair and Vice Chair), as well as a selection of various members. I was thinking junior members might be a good way to go, and of course the help, namely valets with shotguns.

The models are all from Ironclad Miniatures, the two bowler hatted gents at the rear are their characters Agent L and Agent H. The chap at the front with the hunting rifle is their Colonel Sebastian Moron, and the rest are the Victorian gentlemen pack. Mixed bag of models really, the agents are the cleanest sculpts and casts. A couple of the gents are lacking in the thumb department, but otherwise all good fun.

And here they are completed (how’s that for speed painting?)

More to come!

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The walls are made from 3mm foamed pvc that Antenociti’s sell. Bit thicker than I wanted but it’s all I had around. I’ve since ordered a big pile of the 2mm to save my wrists when cutting.

Then using a metal marking tool I scribed the bricks. Bloody hundreds of them, in a Flemish bond pattern. Which I really like the end result of, but bugger me it’s tedious to do and plays havoc with your hands.

Anywho here’s the first house, a small one designed to be an end terrace. Then there will be two more slightly narrower ones for mid terraces, and another like this but mirrored for the other end.

Just hope I can keep up the steam (arf) for the others.

The post Starting Out appeared first on BlokeCrafted.

This time I’m going for small tiles, 150mm (6inch) square to be preceise. It will mean larger buildings will need to be on multiple tiles, but I’m not planning any castles or anything. Just lots of terraced housing and the occasional civic building.

The tiles are all constructed from 1inch thick blue foam, cut with my shiney new hot wire cutter (ooh, ahh). I used white foam in Stadtheim and regretted it. And then the cobble pattern is embossed directly into the foam. But to save doing this by hand I came up with a pretty ingenious solution if I do say so myself. I’m not sure if it’s my creation, feels like it should have been done before, but I’ve been browsing hobby sites for over a decade so there’s no chance of remembering the source. If it was you, thanks, if it was me, you’re welcome

To make my tiles first I cut out a 50mm square piece of blue foam, and deeply carved onto it my rectangular cobbles, 10mm by 5mm in dimensions. I made sure the scribing was far deeper than usual. Then I boxed it in with foam card and poured on a thick layer of Herculite (very tough plaster).

When dried I had my custom stamp:

Then by means of a ridiculously precarious temporary jig, I sliced out a 5mm deep, 90mm wide trench for the road. I’ve just finished building a jig to do this in a more sensible way which I’ll show presently.

Then I lined the stamp up with the corner of the foam and pressed, hard. This is why I used herculite, it can withstand the pressure. I suspect plaster of paris would just crumble and break.

Finally I sliced out some 5mm by 3mm (ish) slivers to edge the road as kerbstone, then scored then at intervals.

And that’s the road. I’ve started the painting, a grey basecoat, thinned black wash, and then grey drybrush. Once I have them complete I’ll post them up.

Oh and here’s a plain tile, there’s be a few of these as well.

As you can see I didn’t do a great job lining the stamp up on this one, but it’s highlighted more because I used a pencil to scribe the joints. Once it was basecoated it felt a lot more coherent.

I’ve got four tiles being painted. I need 36 for a 3foot square table. So just 32 more to go. Oh and then the little matter of the buildings…

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