Lunch Break Hobby Time, Part V

Nearly five years ago, I made a few wargaming hills while I was working on a (unfortunately abandoned) Peninsular War force. I recently modified them by adding a few sections of – wait for it – Italian seasoning to add a few interesting patches.

This in turn inspired me to use up the remaining insulation foam I’ve had sitting around since 2015. With a trusty little steak knife, I carved out a few more hills over my last several lunch breaks. The next steps are where I’m stuck: trying to remember what exactly I did last time (this is why I write things down now). Thankfully I did a post about them so that helps quite a bit. It’s also starting to come back to me as well...which is quite nice.

Lunch Break Hobby Time, Part IV

As you might've seen in my last post, I was going to try gluing part of a dryer sheet to add texture to my A-frame tents. I tried it and was most unhappy with the results.

Even with white Contrast paint, I think it looks awful. The texture is much too large for that scale and makes it look too weird. That base is also way too big (but it's what I had on hand).

So, I've pulled the dryer sheet off and will be starting from the beginning again. Ben from Weasel Miniatures suggested that I try Kleenex (instead of a paper towel) and watered down PVA glue so I'm going to give that a try. 

Cutting up the Kleenex was a bit therapeutic, to be honest. But since this is going to be a bit of a messy endeavor, I'm going to wait until one of my days off to tackle it when I have the time to spare.

While it's frustrating that my initial idea didn't work out, it was worth a shot. I'm learning from my failure here and learning from it. I feel like that's a good lesson for life in general. 

Lunch Break Hobby Time, Part III

While taking out the trash last week, two bits of packaging for our new exercise bike fell out. I instantly had an idea to make A-frame tents out of them. I've been using a lot of my break time to work on them and I think the project is coming along nicely. 

I measured 2 inches and made the appropriate marks. 

The dimensions aren't perfect, but I figure they're good enough for my purposes. Plus I think I'll mount them onto individual bases so that should help with the height a bit.

For the tent flaps, I traced the outline onto some thin bits of cardboard that came with our cats' food. 

Voila! I'll probably cut some flaps open to give it a more realistic effect but we'll see what happens. 

Now, there are two methods I'm thinking of trying from here for texture. One involves a dryer sheet, and the other a paper towel and heavily watered down PVA glue.

The One Colour Challenge

As discussed in my previous post, I signed up for the One Colour Challenge on Instagram. I was assigned green, and so armed with an assortment of shades I went to work! 

I finished after about two days’ worth of work, and had fun! But not going to lie: I’m so tired of working with Moot Green for the time being. It also gets everywhere. 

An old Space Marine was chosen for the task. To create a bit more visual interest, I decided to put him on top of a supply box. I like to think he’s defending the last shipment of toilet paper in the sector. Everything else is essentially my normal jungle base but with bits of dried parsley sprinkled on to represent more foliage. I might end up using that on my normal bases after this. I kinda like the effect. 

Without further ado, here are the paints used:

• Moot Green (Games Workshop)
• Yellow Green (Vallejo)
• Military Green (Vallejo)
• Black Green (Vallejo)
• Green Grey (Vallejo)
• Russian Green (Vallejo)
• Biel-Tan Green (Games Workshop)
• Athonian Camoshade (Games Workshop)
• Nuln Oil (Games Workshop...and yes, it was allowed)

I was glad to do this challenge. It helped pass the time and stretched my creative muscles. I can’t wait to see what the others have done for their entries!

Lunch Break Hobby Time, Part II

A few days ago I signed up for the One Colour Challenge on Instagram. It’s being put on by @the_warhammer_lass and participants are assigned one color to paint a miniature of their choice. You can use any shade of that color (green in my case). Bases can be whatever we want. The challenge itself will be from March 28 to April 4, which the finished models being displayed on Instagram. There are no prizes, winners, or losers. This is just a fun challenge to get us all through these weird times.

So I assembled my paints yesterday and dug through my boxes to find an appropriate model: a Space Marine from the Assault on Black Reach Battle for Vedros set. 

So far he’s been given three very thin coats of Games Workshop Moot Green. Once dry, he’ll be given a wash of Games Workshop Biel-Tan Green and then I’ll block in some of the darker greens elsewhere. Still not entirely sure what I’m going to do with him, but I’m definitely enjoying this challenge! 

Lunch Break Hobby Time, Part I

My team and I were approved for situational telework in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, I’ll be working from home for the foreseeable future and will have a lot of time to get a lot of training and planning out of the way. But this also means that I’ll have plenty lunch breaks in the coming weeks to work on minis. 

So as a result, I’m starting a semi-regular feature called Lunch Break Hobby Time!

I only had about five minutes today (had to take care of some other chores around the house first), but I was able to quickly spray some barbed bracken for some jungle bases. I’ll have some more time tomorrow and I intend to glue them onto the bases I prepared with texture paints after I was off work. Stay tuned!

Now I just need to contend with an oh-so-helpful friend....