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Sunday, February 3, 2013

Creating Corvinus' Carpathian camp

Sometimes, you just get lucky.  When it happens, it's best to smile and say it all went according to plan.  You can't see it but I'm smiling as I type!

Rummaging  through my hobby supplies, I discovered I didn't have a medieval tent for my Later Hungarian camp but I did find 2 Essex wagons.  I added cardstock and 15mm Baueda ancient supplies to load out the empty wagons.  I then tried to make a supply train with the 2 wagons but even corner to corner, I couldn't fit them both in the footprint of this Field of Glory camp.

As a fallback, I decided to try capturing the flavor of the Carpathian mountains.  I remembered I had a large piece of bark socked away and bark worked well in my last 3 camps.  So, it was back to the bark!  I cut the bark  at a 45 degree angle to created a switchback that allowed both wagons to fit into the camp.  I used Durham's Rock Hard putty to raise up the rear section of bark and hold it all together.



I primed in black and highlighted up with browns but brown failed me at the finish line.  Once I set the brown wagon with brown horses, brown supplies and brown driver on a brown mountain, I knew I had to start over with a different color. Ouch!  Out came the black and I repainted the mountain in 50 Shades of Grey.  My painting adventure bore no resemblance to the trash novel that's a such a hit with bored housewives, or so I'm told.

The 2nd wagon made the camp very crowded so I put it away for another day.  I used Vallejo Burnt Sienna pigment plus a glaze to make the oxidized runoff.


I used to dread making camps for my armies, putting them off until the very end.  The fact that I had fun with this one means I've finally whipped this bugbear. Bark has turned into my "go to" product for camps lately!


27 comments:

  1. That's some great piece of scenery.

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  2. Oh wow, that really is inspirational Monty. It looks fantastic, I can see why you are smiling!

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    1. Thanks Jonathan! I'm actually an organized person but at the tabletop, I often jump in without a crystal clear vision of where I'm going. That's ok as long as it turns out in the end!

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  3. Very nice, I agree totally with the black-grey over the brown, it just never works for rocks. You have a great blog and I have linked it up to mine. Thanks for your kind comments about LotR Harad.

    John

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    1. John! You are very gracious and thanks much for the link up. I do greatly appreciate that.

      I would love to try a game of LotR and I can only imagine how many dice you get with the monstrous Oliphont (sp?). When you get your Harad on the table, do give us an AAR!

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  4. Hi Monty,

    really nice work and stunning result!
    congratulations!
    you "em-bark" us in your adventure each time you post a message;
    for the bored housewives or the desperate;-) try a whiter shade of pale ( grey or another colour ;-)), old but still working with those that are sensitive to the summer of love of 1967;-)and wear a cool tee shirt with the logo " make love not wargame! ;-) "

    Cheers

    thefrenchjester " Born to game ;-) "



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    1. I was reading your comments on my phone while grocery shopping. And then laughing. And then trying to explain it all to my wife. You do bust me up every time Gilles!

      I'd love to get that on a T shirt and wear it to a Con. I might have to be careful though. What if it turn into a 50 Shades of Gray encounter?

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  5. Ouaouh, that's another great work, Monty, really impressive! This scenery is looking great, and the lights are wonderful too, the choosen colors and are fantastic, we can see all details, BRAVO!
    Cheers,
    Phil.

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  6. Looks great Monty! Almost like they're off to Castle Dracula to peddle their goods. Of course at that tiny scale you paint, they could also be the circus bugs from "A Bug's Life" climbing up a tree. ;-)

    Brown does work for pocks, but mostly for some for the base layers you drybrush the grey over later. Real rocks have a lot of brown in them (as you may well know), but don't forget the grey too.

    Actually the perfect brown-grey that I've found is the old GW Foundation paint Charadon Granite. If you ever find someone who has it, barrow it and take it down to the hardware store to have them match it. Magic color no joke. So basically, prime black, then CG, and then your layers of grey.

    Another nice touch for stone/mountains is do a green/brown/black wash 2/3 the way through your grey layers before the final few. The wash(es) give that nice natural mossy/mold green that you always find in stone walls and rocks.

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    1. Good tips Jason. I was actually looking at the pic and thinking it could use one more light wash. My worklight is super bright and I should probably improvise a diffuser over it because it's not quite as white as it looks in the pic. I might need to fiddle just a bit more before calling it done. And onto Saga!

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  7. Monty,
    That is a nifty focal point for your games. I agree with your grey vs brown decision. Great looking contrast for the wagon and team against the grey-dominated scenery. Well executed!
    Jon

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    1. Thanks Jonathan! If I'd used just a bit of the planning that you utilize in your project, I would have seen it coming. Lesson learned!

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  8. Greate Camp !!!

    Best regards Michael

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  9. great result
    but now you must do a tutorial, this rocky mountain road is impressive
    this is the price !
    "I'd love to get that on a T shirt and wear it to a Con. I might have to be careful though. What if it turn into a 50 Shades of Gray encounter?"
    well, the color you choose for camp is a kind of 50 shades of grey
    obviously painting is not your main hobby
    cordialement
    marco

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    1. Marco, LOL!

      I have a habit of just taking a picture at the finish line. I'll try to reach for my camera "in project" and give a better accounting of how things progress.

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  10. Awesome terrain. What a great transformation (to take a cue from you :)) from the first. At first, the first photo made me think of a slice of cake :)! Best, Dean

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    1. Dean, thanks so much! And now I'm hungry. It was a darn shame I had to reset to black as I carefully blended and drybrushed the cake to perfection.

      I may reach out to you for some 28mm advice. I love your style and the fantastic results you get with your work. I'm working on Saga and it's a learning curve for a guy who spends all his time in 15mm. More later!

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  11. Am I a bad person if I want to see Dracula swooping down on the wagon train?

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    1. Not at all as that would be quite clever! Plus, a great mashup of historical and fantasy!

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  12. Cracking stuff Monty, top marks. Always hard coming up with something new, nicely done.

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    1. Thanks Tarty. Maybe I need a bigger lead pile so I have more choices than "something with bark!"

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