Bolt Action Zombie - work on more scenery

Ok, it has taken a week and a half for me to finish off my recent purchase: the guard tower I found here for sale in Australia.

 It took a while as it was not quite what I was expecting.   I had in my mind it was a laser cut kit you just put together rather like those excellent products made by various companies.

 Instead it was more like a plane kit, where the pieces had to be cut out of a sprue, then files or sanded where the pieces joined the sprue before you could put it all together.

 Here is a sample of the 'sprue' to better show what I mean:

 The instructions said you need a good hobby knife, but I found a Stanley Knife was the best thing to use.

 As I cut the pieces out and filed the tabs back I assembled it without using glue to see how it went together, and once I was happy I glued my tower together.

 Next I added some corrugated card to the tower walls and roof to try and give it more of a WW2 to Modern feel about it.

At first I was a bit uncertain about this, but the end results left me feeling very happy that I made the effort.

The kit has the option of glueing the roof in to place or keeping it separate so as to make it easier to place figures in the tower.  I decided not to glue to roof in place.

Finishing off the tower had to wait about half a week as I wanted to get some brown paint for the legs that I felt was the best colour for it.

 Having secured the paint I proceeded to paint the legs and the ladder and then the walls, roof and leg supports with a dark grey undercoat, followed by a lighter grey top layer.

 As the whole thing looked a bit too clean I used a diluted ink wash on the model to weather it a little.

Once it was all dry I glued it to a base for extra stability and then finished off the base to make it fit in with my other scenery.

These photos show the end results of my work:

Tower with roof on

Tower with roof off

Commando Sniper in the tower. Safest place to be really. Or is it?

It wasn't until I was editing the photos that I noticed the zombies had knocked a tree over in the background. Stupid zombies.

Other scenery

I am making some buildings for use in the game and will have photos of these as soon as I have finished the first batch of them.

 I also found 4Ground make a nice German guard box, so I have requested a Paypal invoice from NorthStar who are selling it with the best postage rates I could find.  4Ground really need to look at their postage rates if they want overseas customers to buy from them directly.

 I also want to make some fences for a German base, but I am not 100% sure on what I will do for this.  I will tinker around to see what is the easiest to make without compromising how it looks.

Still here - working in the background

It has been over a week since my last post, but I am still working in the background.


 I was away on exercise with the military a couple of weekends ago, and that usually throws my mojo out for a number of days.


 As it is winter here, I managed to catch a nasty cold a few days after coming home, and that has put a huge "dampner" (apparently 'dampner' isn't a real word) on the mojo as well.


 I haven't done any gaming, but I have been making a forest. Trees are something I never seem to have enough of for my games, so I have started to fix this problem.


This is a new method of making trees for me - they are cheap model railway trees I bought on ebay. I then cut pieces of cardboard into various shapes, covered the edges with masking tape, hot glued the trees to the card board, painted the bases brown and then flocked the bases.

 The picture shows a variety of trees at the different stages of being made.  The pine trees are actually for a friend: a wargaming mate of mine gave me the trees as he didn't know what to do with them. He is currently on holiday, and when he gets back I will give him the trees back as a surprise.


 The few trees I was making in the past took a lot of time - the method I am using now allows me to knock up a forest in next to now time by comparison. I only wish I had though of it sooner.


I also have my next road section near completion and I should get off my arse and finish it this week - I just need to slap my mojo into action.


I also have a hankering for some historical wargaming, so I might play around with that for a little while until I can get my next lot of zombie scenery up an running. As indicated in previous posts, that isn't a small task and I want to get it right.


 For those interested in my other wargame projects, please visit my other blog: Shelldrake's Wargame blog

Biotek Billboard

I finished making my biotek billboard to go next to my road today.


 I should have re-enforced the actual board itself, as it buckled a little when I painted it, but apart from that I am happy with how it looks.

I was intending to put a wash over the reverse side to give it a dirty look, but I decided not to after seeing how the cardboard was warping.

my first road

Over the weekend I started to make a road section for the next scenario "On the Road".

 I had looked at the excellent roads that Zombie Ad had made (you can see them here) but didn't have access to the boards to be able to make these.

So, I had a rethink, and after coming up with a few ideas, and changing my mind a few times, I decided to go with what I already knew, only with a few modifications.

I taped out my road using paper masking tape on a large board and then spread caulking over it. Whiles it was still wet I sprinkled fine sand over it.

 As it is winter here and rather wet and cold at the moment, I left the 'road' to dry over the weekend. This also gave me time to duck down to the local 'cheapie' shop and buy some cheap black paint to paint the road.

 With the caulking/sand dry I painted the road and because of the cold I left it to dry until Sunday afternoon and then painted the reverse side to stop it sticking. 

 First thing Monday morning I painted a bit more black on to the road over the bits I missed, and while that was drying, I cut myself a jig (a tool, not a dance) to would allow me to paint my road markings in the right spot and at the right length.

 A quick search to find out what colour to paint the road lines later and I decided to use yellow. The jig worked perfectly and I left the road to dry completely for the rest of the day.

Now that I have waffled on a  bit, here are two photos of the finished product:

 This last photo also shows the signs I made for the game. I want a few more cars before I play this game, and I will make some more signs and my billboard before I play the next game. 

Toxic sludge pipe - now with river!

I created a new river section to go with my toxic sludge pipe, that I posted here.

 This one has a bend in it (not seen in the photo) and I painted the toxic sludge flowing into the river and dissipating as it goes:

Now that I have finished this piece of scenery I think I am ready to play the next scenario in my campaign - "Rescuing Jack".  (I wanted a bit more scenery on the board before starting the next game).

Toxic sludge pipe

I wanted to create a bit more scenery for my next game, and I wanted something that could add to the story line, and be used more than once.

 For a while I have been wanting to make a large storm drain pipe and yesterday I finally started it.

 Using a piece of balsa as a base, a cardboard tube cut down, a few pieces of card to go around the entry/exit point of the pipe, what started out as paper mache but turned into paper tape very quickly I had the makings of my pipe.

 This morning I painted the model, and after lunch I flocked it.

 The final result is this:

I designed it to go next to a river or pond kind of thing so as to make it as versatile as possible.

And here is a different angle to show off the sludge a bit better:

It is amazing how the camera shows off the bits you missed and cant see with the naked eye :-P