Village for French Indo-China

I painted these Vietnamese buildings from SHQ donkey's years ago but they've never made it to the table top.  With my interest in the French Wars of Decolonisation reinvigorated it was time to change that.  But first they needed a home.

I've been playing about with EVA foam for a couple of weeks or so.  I did some tests to see how it would take different types of paint (emulsion, cheap craft acrylics, hobby acrylics) and how sand and filler would adhere to it.  It fared well with all of these tests.  Now was the time to actually do something with it.

After looking at a plethora of photos of Vietnamese buildings and villages (both real and model) I positioned the buildings and drew round them to mark their footprints.  

Then the fun bit.  I used cheap household filler from Amazon to add a layer of texture to the whole of the base.  This was simpler than I anticipated when going around the buildings footprints.  The whole lot was left to dry for a couple of hours.

On returning to the piece later in the day I decided to trim it down to follow the buildings rather than be another piece of rectangular terrain.  As the EVA foam is only 2mm this was quick and easy to do with a scalpel.   

I then painted it with Brown Umber craft paint.  While this was drying I randomly added some of my jungle scatter mix (mixed sands and gravel, tea leaves and Javis urban scatter).  I then chucked some PVA on and added a bit more scatter.  

After being left to settle overnight I did a fresh coat of Brown Umber craft paint. Then I splodged on a load of Citadel Vermin Brown which was the remnants of an old pot.  I liked the orangey red tone this gave it.  

I then added succeeding greater amounts of VMC Iraqui Sand to the Vermin Brown to drybrush on highlights.  I also repainted the scatter items that came with the SHQ set so they'd blend in. 

And I thought the job was done.  But like a meal with no vegetables it needed something green.  Out came all the pots of scatter material and then it was done.  I have to say I'm very pleased with how it looks.  The EVA foam sheet worked out well.  I've got another nine sheets to use, what else can I make?

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