Building the Brecourt Gun Battery Part 5

Finally I've started to paint the boards. Had a little bit of trial and error before settling on a method which I'm comfortable with. The boards have been given a base coat of Sandtex Exterior paint 'Bitter Chocolate'. In to that I mixed in sand, grit and powdered filler. Then sprinkled on more sand and cat litter onto the base coat. I have then applied another coat (roughly) of the Sandtex paint alone over the base coat.

The extra pieces I had painted previously have been added to the boards, literally just pushed them into the originally mix and then applied some more of the base coat around their edges to hold the scenery in place.

The 'paths' which I had applied in filler have been painted with acrylic burnt umber, to give an initial first contrast from the base colour.

I have also started to make and add on sandbags made from Milliput. This are fairly easy to make; I had a go at making sandbags a few years ago to put on a Sherman (which is still not finished!). I followed a tutorial from Amorama making sandbags (remember this is for 1/35th scale) then and now. There are plenty of tutorials out there, including books from Games Workshop and Forge World, who recommend using Green Stuff. I have used Milliput again. I roll my putty out on an old ceramic tile to reduce it sticking, and make sure you have a pot of water nearby to reduce the stickiness, if required. Also, though this is probably common sense, once the sandbag is down let it cure for a short while and then you can go back to it and really push it into more interesting shapes it required. Lots more to do, and I'm going to add them on first and paint before completing the ground colour for the boards.

This board is the 'test' board. I had experimented with drybrushing the ground but was not entirely happy with the result. So I decided to airbrush the ground colour. I'm much happier with the result. The colours are from the Vallejo Model Air range. Airbrushing is more time consuming, but very rewarding. The other down side is the cost of the paint, particularly since I have a habit of going over the area painted just to add that bit more detail/effect. Of course it will be covered eventually in flock. I've also made the roof for the command bunker, which is removable.

Time to crack on! More to follow.