TMTerrain future

Sorry I haven't posted much over the last week or so. I had great plans for when I got back from my holidays but, unfortunately some bad news has got in the way and I have been sorting it out.

The news was to do with our dealership arrangement with John Jenkins 60mm toy soldier range. It has a big effect on us at TMTerrain but really only effects our toy soldier customers so all you wargamers out there, please bear with me.
This is a release we have sent to Treefrog (a toy soldier forum):

Some of you may have heard that TMTerrain has lost the JJD dealership so we can no buy his figures from John. Mark and I were very disappointed when John told us and it dramatically effects our business. John's ranges made up around half of our toy soldier sales and his monthly release schedule helped a great deal with cash flow. Now that this has gone and the fact that the terrain side of the business is going from strength to strength, we have decided to stop selling toy soldiers altogether.

We have arranged for the new JJD dealer to buy all our John Jenkins stock from us so from Monday evening we will be stopping the sale of John’s figures altogether.

We also have stocks of First Legion, Collectors Showcase and W Britain's. We plan to sell these off at 20% discount from today. Our web site still has the full prices listed but we will sort that out over the next couple of days. If you do want anything then ring us so we can sort it out over the phone. When the prices are done on the web site then you can buy using our online store as normal.

The web site lists what we have in stock. Items will disappear off the site as we sell them and that will be it so if you want a deal on First Legion, Collectors or Britain's get in touch with us quickly.

We expect to sell off the last of our stock at the Birmingham and London shows before Christmas so you will also be able to see us there.

Finally, although TMTerrain will no longer be selling toy soldiers once we have sold off our stock, this does not affect the terrain building. Mark and I set up the company about 10 years ago to make terrain so we will have really just done a full circle but we now have all that experience under our belt and the dioramas we are making just get better and better. We plan to be around for many years to come.

May we take this opportunity to thank all our customers over the last 4 years. It has been great fun selling toy soldiers to you. We hope we did a good job for you.  Hopefully we will continue to see you and talk to you when you want a diorama.

So, as you can see things have dramatically changed at TMTerrain. The good news is that I can now concentrate even more on the terrain and have more time to post pictures and articles etc on the blog.

The situation is just about under control now but I will probably be free to start posting again in September.

20mm Omaha Beach 4

I am back from my holiday and the first thing I have to do is parcel up the Omaha project ready for shipping to the USA on Monday. I was able to put the finishing touches to it and photograph it before I got the boxes out.
Before I went away, I left the whole board drying after a wash of brown paint so all there is to do now is finish it off with lots of dry brushing and adding bits of details.

I go over all the green grass in a lighter shade of green and then a yellow. The sand that was glued down really catches these highlights and really adds life to the grassy areas. I then highlight the muddy or un grassed areas including roads with a buff or cream highlight. I like this dry brush to go over onto the grass as it helps to blend everything in.
Once this is done then I start on smaller details such as the sandbags and fortifications. The sandbags get a heavy coat of a butterscotch shade followed by a cream dusting. These bags contrast very well with the green grass and gives you something else to look at. The fortifications are all from concrete so I highlight with a mid grey and slowly add more white to it until the final coat is pure white.

close up of concrete bunkers

That is pretty much it but I just finish off with some brown shading and water stains on the concrete and around the sandbags. I find this helps weather the job and highlights any features that I want highlighting. I added some shading around the sandbag lines and that helped the contrast even more with the grass.

The final finishing touches was to make sure the edges of each board was clean and smooth and then painted green- it is just a little thing but really finishes the job off especially with boards like these where they are so deep.
That is it. All I need now are photos of the beach in action. I understand the first game on it is at the end of August and I have been promised some pictures after that. When I post those that will be a good way to finish this thread.
I hope you found it useful with enough information to give it a go yourself or even better to get in touch with me and get me to make one for you! If you do go to the web site- www.tmterrain.co.uk
and all the contact details are there.