Something of a Maze

I imagine that before the forest became what it is now, there were signs of life and civilisation.  The fallen statue and pieces of brick road are two such elements, but I wanted to include other bits to give a sense of time and ageing.

With that in mind, I decided to add some walls.  Not only would this give me another texture to work with, but it would also introduce another colour palette and, of course, add to the maze element by including some other features to navigate around.

Sticking as close as I could to ‘old school’ methods, I set about using lots of individual bricks and a set of tweezers to build some old, ruined walls.

I don’t think I will be changing careers to become a brickie any time soon.

I used PVA glue to stick each brick down individually.  I ended up making several wall sections on several of the terrain tiles, but for this, I will follow the journey of one of those tiles.

With the bricks in place, I could then set about painting them.

I needed to get them painted before I add the ground cover, as some of the bricks will end up embedded in the earth.  Plus, it would also make it a lot easier to add the grout.

I started with a fairly light terracotta colour and then dabbed a few different shades over the top using a sponge.  I deliberately went a bit lighter than I otherwise would because I figured they would start to lose that contrast once I start to do the weathering, once everything is in place.

As always with the brickwork I do, I added a layer of premixed wall filler.

When applying the filler, I think it looks nicer if you deliberately leave some parts without filler, especially where the broken sections are.

After that, I let the filler partially dry before giving it a quick rub with a slightly damp cloth to tidy it up a bit.

The next stage will be to add the ground covering and flock, and then something to the end of the wall to fill that gap that I have intentionally left bare.