Sunday 12 April 2020

The Hills are Alive....


Works in progress. The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice the Command and Colours Napoleonic Spanish expansion as well as a rather mysterious storage box under the labels - what could it be?

First of all a Happy Easter to everyone even though the world is not at its best at present. You would be forgiven for thinking that I had gone all bank holiday Sound of Music on you but no. The hills in question are those that I am currently making for use with my gaming mat.

The hills are 18mm think pieces of MDF and as you can see above they have been painted around the edges and with a border on the top surface. The sheet you see is a picture taken on a 1 to 1 scale of the mat and then printed out on an A4 self adhesive label sheet. By cutting the label smaller than the size of the hexes (you can see why there is a border now) there will be no problem with overlapping. If you recall when I was labelling the block armies I deliberately made the label smaller than the size of the block for the same reason.

The shade of green you see is Humbrol Satin 131 and assuming it has dried by this evening I will then be labelling them. A quick seal with some spray varnish (and yes, it works without causing the colours to run) and the first 10 hills will be ready to use.

The brown hexes you see (that is the original colour) have been cut out for some specific terrain pieces I want to make, including a sandpit.

I shall be undertaking a photo review of the Del Prado collection at some point (I originally planned to do so today) but for now I want to maintain the creative momentum and these hills are essential. I shall be making another five of them so will have fifteen in all. I also plan to produce another fifteen using the same method but in a desert hue.

It is all moving along nicely!

4 comments:

'Lee. said...

Keeping busy I see David! Those hills are rather clever, they look very cleanly cut, did you cut them yourself? Should look great when the labels are added.

David Crook said...

Hi ‘Lee,

I did not cut them but purchased them from a firm near Gravesend in Kent. Much as I like hexes I do not have a great track record cutting or drawing them out!

The labels are now on so I shall be varnishing them tomorrow.

Keeping busy for sure!

All the best,

DC

Ray Rousell said...

Nice work Dave, sounds like you really have the bug at the moment!! Keep it up!
Where did you get the hills cut then?

David Crook said...

Hi Ray,

Cheers old chap! The firm are called Applebridge and they have an eBay shop - https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/applebridgelettersandsigns as well as a facebook page.

I will need to get some more in due course.

All the best,

DC