Rocky scatter terrain

Around the same time that I started making the rocky hills I started fiddling about with some scatter pieces.  Very much inspired by an article on the excellent Steven's Balagan website I set to work.

The first stage was to assemble the material.  I wanted the bases to be very thin but also strong.  I also wanted them to be irregularly shaped so precut MDF bases were automatically ruled out.  EVA foam was not going to be sturdy enough and I have noticed that this does have a tendency to curl up.  A delve through the bits bag produced a sheet of 1mm thick plastic card.  Perfect for the job.  Using just household scissors I cut out a whole load of irregular shapes for bases.

I went through my tin of stones and selected some that I thought looked good.  When I placed them on the bases they looked a bit feeble.  A scout round the garden and flower pots produced some better ones as did a walk along the paths through our local woods.  I tried PVA and super glue to stick them to the bases but this didn't seem to work. At this stage real life intervened and I had more pressing matters to deal with, so they were put in a tin and and it's only in the last couple of weeks I've got back to them.

My new approach was to bed the stones in a layer of cheap household filler spread across the base.  Straightaway I saw this was the way to go.  It also allowed me to vary the heights of the stones by applying a thicker or thinner layer of filler.  This was dry within a couple of hours and I could apply a Liberal coat of diluted PVA and a layer of mixed sand. 

As usual I let the texturing dry overnight and then brushed each piece to get rid of any loose material.  For painting I used a similar palette to the hills.  I was thinking of leaving some of the stones their natural colour but for speed I covered each piece with a base coat of my Dulux match of Citadel Dheneb Stone.    Emulsion dries quickly so it wasn't long before I added some patches of terracotta emulsion.  Further drybrushes of Dheneb Stone mixed with Dulux match Vallejo Iraqui Sand, and finally pure Iraqui Sand were added.

I then went back and worked on the rocks.  I used Army Painter Soft, Light and Strong Tones and Vallejo Sepia and Light Grey Game Washes to pick out individual rocks to add variety.  I also drybrushed a couple of the rocks with terracotta toned down with Iraqui Sand. The washes worked surprisingly well and left the highlights that had been applied when drybrushing.  

The final stage was to add a bit of foliage.  I used the clump foliage I'd made out of scourers torn into tiny bit and then attached with PVA.  I used this very sparingly but it really finished them off.  I may add a bit of static grass if I can find the right tone.  But for the moment job done apart from the usual feeling of needing to make more.

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