As promised!

As I promised, I have pictures (as ever, I'm late with posting this. Why do I tell everyone I'm always late with this? Hmmm, oh well...) of my progress thus far! Raging Torrent sections, made from cork tile bases, thin strips of cardboard to heighten and define the banks, lightweight filler to build up the banks, a scattering of sand glued down to texture the water, spray black and add paint! The banks are Bestial Brown (to match Stormsoul's base colour so that we can place them on the same table and have the bases match), the water is Ultramarines Blue, with splodge-lines of Hawk Turqoise to show the running water and broken surface tension, highlighted with Ice Blue (I plan to add a few bits of pure Skull White for the very crests etc).

For the bends (of which you can see there are two, both of which curve 90 degrees to the left), I sloped the inside bank gently and the outside bank steeply to show how the sediment would build up in the direction that the water is travelling before the turn. I also added Scorched Brown to where it would be wet (even drbrushing it at the outside corner to show it had sprayed further) and then coated that with 'Ardcoat varnish to make it look freshly wet. I did the same thing to the ford after having built it up with cardboard and lightweight filler, covering it with sand and trying to  draw lines into the slopes banking up to the ford. Again, I painted Scorched Brown and added the same splodge-lines as before, then covered the whole of the ford part in 'Ardcoat varnish.

Lastly, the bridge part - same processes as before, but I drybrushed the sprayed black bridge with Fortress Grey. Pretty simple really. Anyway, as for my scenario, I'm currently leaning towards basing it around the "Forest of the Living Dead" scenario, by Richard Irvine (can be found here: http://www.angelfire.com/wa/dralair/enclave.html), although both Stormsoul and I are looking at http://www.biguns.co.uk/articles/scenariocards.asp for other ideas (amongst other places).

Stormsoul: From having the base shape, I then purchased some trees after finding it much simpler than making each tree from scratch. The trees were purchased at http://www.themodeltreeshop.co.uk/index.html
I went with a range of different trees as it's much more realistic. I used PVA glue to stick the trees in the places, this was quite a slow process as I waited for each tree to dry after a disaster where several fell off. Once all the trees were glued in place, I covered the base in lightweight filler, this was to smooth the sides as well as ensure the trees were secure. It also helped to make the ground look more realistic.
Once this was dry, I simply painted the whole base bestial brown, once this was dry, I stuck static grass on top.
The forest is not yet finished, as I want to add some vines and creatures to make it much more life like and to add in the venom for Venom Thicket.

Hashut's Blessing: Still awaiting any ideas for the extra task or two for us to start! Any help would be appreciated. Until next time...

Post-disaster Update

Well, it seems there was no disaster, other than me trying to make time to update this :D Sorry for that everyone, but got some great news. Actually, I guess that depends upon what your idea of great is. Anywho, this month was quite tough because Sousuno has a large personal concern going on at the moment that takes up a lot of time (don't worry, it's not a bad concern, just means the hobby comes second - stupid real life...) and I was away for two weeks, with Stormsoul not really having any knowledge in scenarios, nor having had any previous experience trying to build terrain (so needed my advice on technical stuff and the like). Where was I for those two weeks? I was in Manchester, filming a 10 part webseries, called Ramblers! Want to know more? Go to http://www.ramblerstheshow.com/ and you'll get to see the latest content and find out what's happening on their Facebook page.

[/shameless plug of awesome show that I enjoyed being a part of]. So, onto the news that I promised: because we've all been kept so busy that we decided to extend this month, as well as it being because we didn't really realise how long two pieces of terrain would take each of us to create and we kind of forgot slightly about the scenarios. Regardless, we also thought that with Christmas coming up, it would be best to extend this month further so that next month we can concentrate on building and painting models (hopefully we'll get them as Christmas presents or sell the socks and smellies we're given to buy our plastic crack!). As a result, this "month" is now two months, ending in the week between Christmas day and new year's day. To make up for that though, we are planning to add in some extra tasks, although we don't know what yet. Anybody got any suggestions? I have a couple of ideas, but would love to get some feedback on it first.

Where are we all stood at this moment in time:

• Stormsoul has completed her Venom Thicket, except for a few gribblies and such like to show that it's filled with poisonous critters, but her building design went a bit awry and she's not had the confidence to re-attempt drawing its plan out, so it looks like I've gotta help her with that. She's also been doing some research on scenarios to learn about them and use what she finds as a set of guidelines.
• Sousunou, from what I've heard, hasn't really got all that far, but with an extra month should be able to manage and can do any thinking stuff at work when he's doing nights and nobody's calling.
• Skyjacker - again, I've only heard this down the grapevine - has begun work on his Haunted "Mansion", but has quite a way to go, however, it's looking very promising.
• Lastly, me - Hashut's Blessing - I have made and painted all of my river sections and am very pleased thus far. Just got to start layering on PVA, then finish it off with a coat of 'Ardcoat gloss varnish, maybe add a layer of Asurmen Blue wash and it should be all good. As to my scree slope, I have made it slopier, but need to add more sand, as well as some rocks and more scree, then paint the new slopey bit and it's done! I've also been considering how to go about my scenario, but not confirmed anything as of yet.

I shall update this later today (maybe tomorrow) with pictures of Stormsoul's progress and my own, whilst we wait for any information/pictures from Skyjacker and Sousunou. Lastly, still waiting for the marking of the previous month to come through so that we can reveal who is where.