hello again and more ECW

Firstly, a quick apology for the time it has taken me to post again. I don't know where the time goes.
This year I hope to keep on top of the blog as well as up date my web site and generally keep up to date. I produce alot of work (as you can see if you follow me on Facebook-  www.facebook.com/Tmterrain ) so have got loads of photos of what I have been doing.

Anyway, I put a photo on Facebook on Monday of a large ECW game that I have done the terrain for over a couple of years. It was on display at Nantwich museum over the weekend. I have featured it before here in both its ECW and WW2 guises.
I want to cover it again because it has now grown to 20 feet long with a new extension delivered for this weekend.
Here are the important points followed by lots of photos taken on the day

size of table- 20feet x 6feet
period and scale- 28mm ECW
manor house and water mill- scratch built by me
church and windmill - Grand Manner (painted by me)
town walls- Ian Weekley (painted by me)
other twon buildings- PMC and Grand Manner
Trees- JG Miniatures
Flock- Woodland Scenics and Realistic Model Services
Figures- various manufactures

Hedges- rubberised horse hair, sprayed black and flocked with home made flock- died cork chippings
water- river- painted and glossed, ponds- 2 part resin from Delux Materials
rocks- casts from woodland scenics rock molds

That is it for this one.
Have a look at my Facebook page if you want to keep an eye on what I am making- I try to post every day.

Toy Soldier displays part 3

The second ACW diorama I talked about yesterday is more involved with lots more going on. This diorama has a river being crossed by charging Confederate infantry being supported across a stone bridge by some cavalry. The Union infantry are gallantly trying to counter charge across the river while defending a fence line against the marauding cavalry.

The board is 18mm thick mdf and is 60cm long and 30cm deep so I ended up squeezing alot on a small space. I think it made it more entertaining to look at and maybe more lifelike?

The stone bridge was made from Daz Pronto coated foam board which when dry is carved with the stone pattern. There wasn't enough room to have the whole bridge so I designed it to disappear off the edge of the board leaving it up to my customers imagination as to what was still to come up the road.

The fencing I have cast- the wooden split poles are metal and look pretty effective as split logs. The piles of stone is just gravel I picked up on my travels- probably by the side of the road somewhere!

I consider the most eye catching piece of the layout is the water. I didn't want to make it smooth as there are loads of men running through it so I had to make it churned up with splashes etc around the figures.

I think I got the effect I was looking for and I thought the spinning rifle half out of the water was a good touch.I remember I didn't make the river very deep so to give the effect of depth I had to cut some of the legs down on the figures- always a nervy time- The Confederate standard bearer looks like he is standing in about2 feet of water (about 2 cm in scale) but the model is really in about 5mm of depth.

There is not alot more to say so here are a few more photos of it

That is it for now with this series of dioramas with the figures built in.