Something a little naughtical

I added some ground cover and planted some of the trees that I spray-painted.  I have left the trees removable so that I can unplug them and change them if I need to.

I will add further vegetation to these when I have the time, so that they match with my other terrain pieces I made some time ago for Blood and Plunder.

I bought a huge number of trees for this project from Ali Express.  I think they come under cake decorations from memory.   I got a variety of different sizes with the largest being about 16cm tall.

They look very glossy when they arrive, so I cleaned them up a little bit before setting to them with some good old-fashioned rattle-cans.

Of course, as for everything else, Leather brown went down first.

After that it was just a case of spraying the green parts, green followed by a yellow and then green once again and the trunks of the trees with a light beige kind of colour.

Nothing to fancy but quick to do and I think it definitely improves on the look of them.

I find using rattle cans not only quick, but the overspray also gives a nice natural look.  Some of the under leaves remain brown, and I don’t mind that.  It gives the impression that those leaves are dying off.

So, this is the first batch of many done.  Doing them in smaller batches rather than all at once will give me a greater variety in how they look, which, in turn I think will give a more natural look.

Each batch will be slightly different, as it depends on how heavy I am with the application of each stage of spraying.

I finished adding all the magnets to my baseboards.

I am not sure at this moment whether to do another one or two of these sets to increase the overall playing area to a whopping

18′ x 15′

If I do that, they will have to be separated into 3 layouts so that it is possible to walk down between them.

The benefit of a huge set up like that means I can have one 6′ x 15′ set up with a port in one corner and another with the pirate island hideouts.   The third could then feature Cannibal Island.   This would also give plenty of room to sail around on.

The downside of course is the extra cost and storage of it all.  Decisions, decisions.

When making terrain, I find it helpful to check that the colours I am using work okay with the rest of the layout.  To do that, I will lay bits out together to make sure that the different elements look okay when placed next to each other.

I also find it useful to always start with the same colour undercoat and work up from there.   My go-to for this is Army Painter Leather Brown spray paint.  It’s a nice neutral colour that is easy to paint over, and if you do miss something, it will just show through as brown.

For this layout, the Islands need to fit in well with the blue playing surface.  There will be a lot of blue, so having a contrast that stands out but is not too glaring is important.  However, they do need to stand out as points of interest.

Once I add the greenery to the islands, I hope that it will create a tropical feel and almost soften up the transition between the colours.

As these are getting closer to being complete, I have started to put together ideas for the next piece of the puzzle.

I am toying between either;

A port or fort that can be used as a base of operations for the main naval forces, England, Spain etc.  Possibly to fit in one of the corners of the layout.   Will include a castle wall or coastal defences along with houses and harbour buildings but with a more structured look.

Cannibal Island, an island with possibly a volcano or huge skull like rock in its centre.  Lots of trees and tribal village.

Ghostship, a spectral ship to sail the seas in an attempt to make the other ships crews meet Davy Jones locker.

As always, I am open to suggestions so please let me know if you would prefer one thing over the other for the next part.

Carrying on with this little collection of islands, I managed to paint some of the details.  Old sails form parts of the roofs, barrels, and hinges have had metal parts finished.

I base-coated the parts of the roofs that were not wooden or cloth with a dark Brown-black.   The next stage will be to highlight those up a bit.

I am just going for a look that kind of complement each other rather than any form of historical accuracy on these.

I added some dry brushing to the wooden areas using a mix of yellows and grey paints.  Basically, anything that came to hand at the time.  It is probably not accurate that the wood would be that colour, but this is quite obviously not a historical set up.

I also went through and painted all the ropes in a bone colour.  The idea is to review these with a wash at a later point.  For now, I just wanted them to contrast against the rest of the buildings.

I know these are all looking a little bland at the moment, and when the roofs are painted, I don’t think it will help matters much either.  I am thinking the roofs will be a brown-grey colour, as any foliage used on them would no longer be green.

Once I start adding the trees and plant life, I am hopeful that all the colours will work together to raise the islands a bit.

I added watered-down grey wash to the rocks, varying the dilution in different areas.   I think I can build up a decent enough effect over time by adding more and more washes.

I also touched up some of the wooden supports that had been hit with a bit too much overspray whilst doing the sand and base colours for the rocks.  Just a case of painting on some Army Painter Leather Brown with a large cheap brush.

A little more progress on this set of islands.

I used PVA glue to apply sand, ironically from the beach.  I like to pass the sand through a fine sieve to remove any larger bits and, of course, foreign objects.

I then used Desert Sand spray paint to cover all the sand areas. I followed that up with some Skeleton Bone spray, both from the Army Painter range.  I applied less skeleton bone spray paint so that it keeps some of the base coat showing through.

After that, a light dusting of Wraithbone spray from the citadel range.

I have used the same style of basing on my other Blood and Plunder building bases and also on my Circus Maximus build.

The next stage will be to add some details to the rocks and get them painted to give a bit more contrast to the sand, because at the moment they are looking a bit washed out.