Fine Grit, further adventures in Afghanistan

 

the last time that we saw the base for the Afghani hilltop village it looked like this

       Satisfied that I had applied enough of the True Grit mix to the base I took the next step. Well aware of how apt wargamers are at knocking items over, bumping things and generally creating mayhem amongst terrain and minis I decided that having large, heavy and fragile epoxy castings of buildings located on the high points of the terrain base was just asking for problems. To avoid such a sad occurrence I added some carefully crafted and located "boulders" to the surface. These were cleverly arranged to ensure that the buildings would be trapped in place and could only be knocked astray by Herculean force. OK, that last bit might be an exaggeration. 

 

notice how the cleverly arranged boulders will keep

 the buildings from being knocked astray by an errant elbow

        Having carved a bevy of boulders I got out the buildings and traced their footprint onto the hilltops with a soft pencil. Then I glued the "boulders" into place and added a layer of True Grit around their base to blend them into the surface. This was allowed to dry for several hours and then a complete coat of chocolate brown was applied over the entire base. While this coat was still wet I shook a thin coating of sand and chinchilla dust into the wet paint. Once this has dried I will dry-brush the whole thing again to check that I have a sufficiently "gritty" surface.

 

 

 latex housepaint does a wonderful job of binding the sand to the surface

 but I like to add a coat over the sand as well,

I think that it softens the look and ensures that the sand won't come adrift at a later date.

 

I confess that I was tired and didn't wait for the paint to dry,

that is why the surface is so shiny

but the grittiness is just about perfect

 

it looks better in a larger shot

         Tomorrow I drybrush the surface with medium brown and then pale sand followed by a very pale gray and some white highlights. Then a touch of vegetation and things will be finished.