Yamashiro wip 4

Here is the fourth and final blog post regarding the building of the tabletop yamashiro. Thank you for bearing with me so far :-)

With the groundwork base colours in place it was time to add the 'growies' (a generic term that I use for types of planting on models). As noted in an earlier post, the ground colours were lighter in places that had more footfall and this was used as a rough guide as to where to place the first layer of grass.

Once this first layer was down and dry, a second layer was added to help thicken up some of the less trodden parts. I also added a slightly darker, rougher mix of flock to some of these areas to help represent small scrub/bushes/weeds etc. All of this was stuck down with a generally 50/50 mix of wood glue and either filtered or distilled water. I usually paint the glue mix on with a large, flat brush, being relatively rough with the procedure but making sure that no glue goes where it isn't wanted. Unless I'm using a static applicator I grab a handful of grass and 'damp' it down onto the area that has the glue; this happens several times and gives a more random effect than the static applicator. The same process applies for the darker, rougher flock mix.

The dry moat had some grass tufts or varying sizes added to it along with some small amounts of water effects and some brown/green ink that helped to make it looked damp and unused. I also added some small trees to the interior as they were often used to help bind the soil of the earthworks and could also be used as a timber source as a last resort.

I painted up some additions from the range to be added to give the model some flavour. These were left loose though (and will probably get lost over time lol).

The bridge's were painted the same way as the wood on the walls; a tutorial on this later and the small fence was made with an arc of acrylic with a berm of bluefoam stuck and carved on top. cocktail sicks cut to size were 'planted' on it and some growies were added using the process above.

One of the last things for this I made was a set of removable flag poles. Balsa dowel was glued to pennies and a small hole (1.7mm) was drilled in the top. I made some nobori poles from 1.6mm brass and added some paper flags with the Sanada mon on them. The idea being is that the flags can be switched out if the castle falls into enemy hands. I will also do a small tutorial on the nobori and flag stands at a later date.

Well, that's about it for this project. I think I will be adding to it in the near future and it will probably be another board to the left of this one but for now, here are some pictures of the finished board!