Tutorial: flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar

Building the Townscape gives me ample opportunity to make some pictures for tutorials. Let's start off with a double feature: Flock basing around buildings and painting rivers for Warhammer and Age of Sigmar (and any other wargame as well for that matter). Followed up with some bonus content about adding signs to buildings. To follow along you'll need some appropriate bases (I prefer MDF), a few colors of flock, grass tufts, instant filler and (optionally) plaster and molds. Let's get started.

We start with the end result, this is what I'm aiming for here.

Static flock is one of those materials that is easy to work with but hard to master. Usually on a wargaming base it lies flat and disheveled, quite often in a visible pool of badly applied PVA. On the other end of the spectrum you find model railroad fanatics (the station past enthusiast) where every blade of static grass neatly stands on its own in a verdant field. This is usually achieved with an expensive (or homemade) static flock applicator. I find mine a pain to use so I'll go for option b) an easy application that looks good.

I used a Popsicle stick to shape the mud.

First I want to make sure your base looks ok. For the Townscape I'm using Vallejo Thick Mud to cover an unprimed MDF base. Mostly because I do not really like using this particular mud on regular bases (its too coarse in my opinion) and this give me a great excuse to empty the pot (and buy a new one if I continue this project). You can easily swap this step out with sand, PVA and cheap paint. Short version: make your base textured and brown.

Add flowers and tufts to the mix.

The trick to making static grass look good is to make sure there are color and height differences. To start with I apply some grass tufts and flowers by Gamer's Grass as well as some spare tufts from Army Painter and GW. Some of these tufts (most) have their own adhesive layer. I still prefer to add a small dollop of PVA to make very sure they stay stuck.

Drop in dollops of PVA and then use a bad brush to spread it out a bit.

Next I want to add some more color. I use a bad, old or cheap brush (or one that combines these three wonderful qualities) to add some pools of PVA to the base.

Add some brightly colored flock with tweezers.

Next I add some of the brighter colored flock in my collection. I could use aforementioned applicator, but I prefer tweezers, just grab a clumb of grass and add it to the pool, repeat. Don't bother shaking anything off at this stage. When all brightly colored patches are in place I cover the rest of the base (where I want grass to go) with PVA.

Add the leftover flock from a thousand other bases.

With the rest of the base covered I grab my 'garbage can flock'. This used to be the big bag of GW flock included in the old scenery painting set. Over the years I have been collecting used flock and adding it to this tub. It now hosts an eclectic collection of grass colors (and some other materials). Using the tweezers I thickly cover the base with it. After this has been applied, I hold the base on its side and softly tap the underside to let excess flock fall off. Pro-tip: make sure there is a bit of paper towel underneath so you can collect the cast off flock (and store it with the rest of the 'garbage can flock' for the next project).

Use pressurized air to blow the flock into shape.

Next I grab an airbrush. Don't add paint to the cup (on this picture the needle and nozzle where absent as well). Just blast pressurized air over the flock. As the PVA is still wet this helps flock stand up. It also gives you a chance to blow excess flock out of flower beds and the like. Pro-tip: don't be like me and do this above you neat paint station. You'll be cursing madly as you have to pull leftover bits of flock out of detailed paintwork for the foreseeable future.

Now wait for the PVA to dry.

And there is a wild and verdant field of grass. All you have to do now is wait for the PVA to dry.

Making a wargaming river tutorial

As you may have noticed, the water mill has a river in front of it. This is a nice place to talk about making wargaming rivers. You can make a river by carving it into your gaming (or dinner) table, but most of us want to move it around between games (and prevent discussions about carved tables with the SO). Modular rivers require a different approach. Wargaming rivers tend to be higher than the flat earth around them. Being Dutch I'm quite used to the idea of living below sea level, but to make a wargaming river look good you need more than watery Dutch ancestry. You need to mask the fact that your river is too high for its surroundings.

Investing in tools pays of on the long run. I should remember that next time I'm on the Hirst Arts website. 

To achieve this you need river banks. You can make these by cutting up polystyrene, using hot glue or sand and PVA. I went for a slightly easier option and bought the Creek Bank (1245) mold from Woodland Scenics. Above you can see some extra hard drying plaster in it. The advantage to this approach is that I get equal height along my bank of about 2mm (at a guess) and it speeds up my build time as I don't have to screw around with sand, glue or polystyrene.

Rule #1: Always texture flat surfaces.

Now into a timewarp (I forgot to take in between pictures). I used the creek bank castings to form a river bed (yeah I'm a rebel). Using a bit of instant filler and a wet brush I made sure it all fit snugly. I also used the Wooden Bridge I had to pick a reasonable river width (I'm aiming for 10cm (4")). Then I added some more instant filler to the bed of the river, using water and a wet brush to give it a bit of flow. You can't really get this wrong except by not texturing the bottom (the full flatness of MDF looks unnatural).

It is my informed opinion that rivers are brown instead of blue, green or grey. 

As any painting guide on the planet will tell you, rivers (and oceans) aren't blue (except when poisonous or on tropical islands). Guides advise you to go for green or grey. I don't quite agree with that. In my very humble opinion most rivers look more brown or black than grey or green. Green instantly makes it looks Nurgle ready and grey, well I just don't like it (maybe for oceans). I decided to go for brown. I painted the deepest end VMA Burnt Umber, then airbrushed a fade to GW Mournfang Brown Air and painted the sides VMA Dark Yellow. I also took care to spray the underside (and inside) of the bridge black. Also important: before applying the building to the base I built an air dry clay dam underneath. Why? To hold in the epoxy used in the next steps.

If you prop your building up before pouring epoxy you can place paper towels and plastic cups underneath if you pour too much.

Next I made dams of Blue Tack on the sides of the base (I should figure out a better way to do this, it gets quite messy). I also propped the entire building up on some milk bottle caps (I usually use these as disposable pallets). You don't want the building to move after the epoxy is applied and this way I can still reach underneath it with (for instance (foreshadowing)) paper towels.

Do not drink the disgusting looking green water!

Next I mix up some epoxy resin, adding (too much) GW Athonian Camoshade (for my next river set I used a few drops of Army Painter Green Tone and Army Painter Soft Tone, it looks better). I did remember to stir the epoxy for at least five minutes. I'm still heavily traumatized by my Mighty Fortress accident at the start of this year. The bubbles in the cup are caused by vigorous stirring, leaving it for five minutes makes most disappear, the rest disappear during the curing process.

Will it cure?

Now I pour in the epoxy.

Too much! If only I had more patience I could've prevented this.

And pour too much epoxy on the front side. Luckily this thing was propped up on bottle caps, allowing me to save my (already badly mistreated) cutting mat. I went back in later and reapplied Thick Mud and flock to the parts where the epoxy had overflown the river bank. Important lesson:  don't pour to quickly and make sure you don't pour in too much. Another tip: I always leave the cup with the leftover epoxy next to the drying model. If you wonder whether the epoxy is dry, tap the remains in the cup instead of the water on the model. That way if it turns out to be soft enough to take indents, but cured enough not to lose them, you've damaged the bit you where going to throw out anyway. Ah the joys of learning by making mistakes...

Bonus content: signs, roads and posters

That's a paved road. Not shown, a lot of experiments with oil washes and varnish only to paint it all over in the old style.

As I have a much bigger update coming soon, I'm going to cram these three in here. Making a road for a building's base is easy. Make the MDF base and draw in where the road has to run. Then spread out some air dry clay and use a texture roller to build the pattern. If you want to do this at a budget you can cut pavement slabs from cardboard and glue it in a pattern. If you're very lazy you can print a pattern you like on thick paper and glue it on (just add a layer of PVA on top to protect it). Next paint the road as you like.

I'm rather satisfied with this gate now that it has a road underneath it.

After the road is dry (or while it is drying if you suffer from my brand of impatience) you can stick the painted building to the base using PVA. Then seal in the road and the building with some Vallejo Thick Mud (or whatever you're using as an alternative). Let it all dry and then add flock to taste. If anyone asks, keep a straight face and claim you painted the cobblestones while holding your hand at an odd angle inside the tunnel (just to show off ;).

Signs on buildings look quite nice and are ridiculously easy to make. 

Quick tip two regards signs. I've cut these two out of a print I made from a Townscape pdf...I mean a colored photocopy of my original of course (cough). The wooden bits are cut to size from a coffee stirrer.

Back in my day we only had a black and white copier available in the library...now get of my freshly flocked lawn!

Just glue the wood to the back of the sign using PVA mixed with a bit of sepia wash (Seraphim Sepia for instance). Wait for the assembly to dry and then cut any excess bits of stirrer off with a scalpel (or scissors). This does not have to be done neatly. We want the signs to look worn down anyway. Next apply a bit more sepia to the sign.

Me? I'm here to enjoy Schaffenfest of course.

In my case the Frugelhöfen sign cracked while drying. No problem. I just added more sepia to cover the very light wood color and make it all look even more run down. I actually added a few spots of Agrax Earthshade to mess it up further. When all is dry, seal it in with a bit of PVA.

You can make posters out of paper? Who'd have though!

As a third bonus tip. You can forego the wooden backing when applying posters. Just mix some wash with PVA and glue the poster to the wall.

Join the militia! Fight Orcs, goblins, mutant chaos warriors, walking dead, vampires, dragon ogres, dark elves, chaos dwarves...hey where have all the enthusiastic volunteers gone off to?

Just remember to add a bit of extra PVA on top for protection after applying the poster.

And that's it for these tutorials. If you get any use out of these please let me know by posting a link to your work in the comments.