Great War Trench Table

The Great War should have been called the Absolutely Miserable War or the Horrible War. Regardless of adjectives used, it has inspired me to make a trench warfare table top.

It's based more on the German design than the French or British design. During internet research, it appeared that the poor saps digging the hole didn't always follow the pretty diagrams drawn behind desks, far behind enemy lines.

The pieces are somewhat modular so the number of trenches can be added to or deleted as I make more pieces. Right now it's 4' x 6' and the craters aren't complete. There are different size craters dug into the board and the lips were created using different techniques. Some lips are spackle, some are styrofoam crumbles and some were created with foam triangles glued around the crater. The latter will require the most building up for realism, unless the spackle doesn't stick to the board.

There's a front line trench, a support trench, two reserve trenches and some space for short range artillery emplacements.

I've also added a few slight terrain raises and depressions so it doesn't look like a bombed out parking lot.

Things I will be adding with pictures to follow will be:

Shoring/shielding

covered passages

sandbags

pill box

pallet flooring

possibly dug outs

barbed wire

latrine

Foam Factory Hot Wire Tools

I purchased a couple foam hot wire sculpting tools from the foam factory, and was pleased with them. They quickly melted through even blue foam.

I decided to make a Vauban style star fortress; here are some pictures of the progress so far.

After cutting the three layers and pinning them together, I primed with brush on chalk board paint hoping for a little texture. A little disappointing and it smelled poisonous.

I dry brushed with gray and brown. I don't know how to improve the dull look. I'm going to try spraying it with wood stain and dry brushing again.

Here's a 28mm Old Glory hand gunner for scale.

Vauban or Star Fortress

I recently purchased a hot wire styrofoam cutting tool. I decided to do a make a star fortress first. The too makes cutting styrofoam very quick; I can't wait to make something else' I'm thinking about a parking garage.

It was supposed to look like it was cut out of rock, but it looks fake. If you have suggestions please post.

Left 4 Dead 2

My son is addicted to the Left 4 Dead 2 video game. So I thought I'd make him some miniatures that resemble some of the specially infected zombies found throughout the game.

For the project, I sacrificed some plastic Heroclix garbage, which a friend gave me. I can't figure the rules out and I don't really like super heros. Why would the equivalent of modern day gods prance around in tights and use silly pseudonyms like Captain Atom, the Black Falcon and the Human Fly? All the better for being made into zombies.

I cut myself quite bad with a dull Exacto knife chopping the models up, but luckily I didn't get infected. You can see the before and as far as the models got, before I completely lost interest in this project. The zombies are quite dirty in the video game, so I tried to duplicate the filthy look. Left to rightish, common zombie in riot gear, smoker with long tongue thing, tank, jockey, charger, boomer, and another tank.

That's all for now.....for some reason I'm really craving raw meat.......

Some of the Forces and My Painting Table

The first of the two pictures shows maybe half of the toy army man horde. There's quite a few more hiding in boxes. There's too many to fully list: Byzantines, Egyptians, fantasy monsters, Goblins, Greeks, GW Empire, Hittites, Hungarians, Hussites, Imperial Romans, Republican Romans, siege engines (40ish), space men (a horde on their own), Successors, WWI Brits, WWI French, and more I can't think of. Most aren't painted due to stupid work and stupid need to sleep.

This second picture is of the disorganized table where I give the little guys color.