Category: Buildings

Modern Haiti in 28mm

With Historicon over, I had planned to immediately start working on my Pavia project for Historicon 2025. To free my time up for the Pavia project, I had planned not to put on any game at Fall In! 2024 and just throw a small modern Afghanistan game on the table for Cold Wars 2025. I already have everything I need for an Afghanistan game, so that would be easy. This plan came apart when I visited the vendor hall at Historicon. This is how the project “Modern Haiti in 28mm” began.

I had always wanted a different theater of operations for my modern 28mm figures. Having already done Afghanistan in 28mm, Iraq or Somali just weren’t different enough in terms of terrain. I also am not ready to do modern day Ukraine. One possibility was doing a more Central African shanty type town. The problem that I had with this idea, was that a lot of representations of shanty towns seem a little too cartoony for me – more of what people think a shanty town should look like, rather than what they actually look like.

The motel on the left and the maternity hospital on the right.

That is when I decided on modern Haiti in 28mm. The US actively got involved in Haiti in 2004 by sending in the US Marines. This meant that I could use my marine figures and vehicles. The island also has a lot of jungle type terrain, so I could re-use the jungle terrain bases that took so long to make for my Japan-China Senkaku project. Also, many of the buildings are painted extremely bright colors, and while not modern design, are quite well maintained. These colorful buildings are what interested me as they would make for a very different table.

Convenience store and petrol station

The convoy passes the bar on the left and the fruit stand on the right.


I quickly purchased and painted a number of buildings from the Miniature Building Authority range that are close to Haitian buildings from photos that I have assembled. I am now in the process of detailing the outside and inside of the buildings.

The convenience store even sells Nikes. The inside is super detailed.

I based each building on its own base for two reasons. The first is to allow a quick table set up. The second is so that I can add a lot of details and vegetation to the scene. I am trying to create many small vignettes.

The convoy passes the Motel in the background and the bar in the center

The project has come together in about three weeks. I have about 60 figures of Haitian insurgents that I need to paint, but they should not take long.

A cover was added to the hotel to protect the washer, drier and coke machine
The cat peers over the maternity ward checking things out.

The base terrain was my WarSigil Afghanistan mat. I then cut out sections of a teddy bear fur mat and placed it on top. The building bases and jungle bases were then added as a final layer.

The fruit market stand on the left will have a lot more merchandise in the next few weeks.

Many of the civilian vehicles and road signs are reused from my Afghanistan game

The terrain base was my WarSigil desert mat with a cut down teddy bear fur mat on top.

Not only were the brightly colored buildings fun to paint, but I also enjoyed weathering both the tin roofs and rusting the side of the buildings. The next two photos show some of the weathering effects.

A construction yard building

An auto parts and vehicle repair building. This building base needs more detail.

I plan to officially unveil this project Modern Haiti in 28mm project at Barrage later this year. It will be my first time running a game at Barrage, so I hope that it is well received. I have really enjoyed this project as it came together very quickly. I managed to reuse troops, vehicles and some scatter terrain from my afghan project as well as jungle from my Senkau project. This reuse of items really kept the work down and allowed me to concentrate on the buildings. Once the figures are painted, I really must get back to Pavia.

Afghan market town in 28mm

Cold Wars 2023 will be taking place from March 9th-13th. There I plan to run a Force on Force battle with Taliban attacking a 3rd Para Forward Operating Base just outside an Afghan town. As Force on Force requires a lot of terrain for a realistic battle, I decided that I needed some extra buildings and a market for the Afghan market town.

I had previously bought about six, two story Afghan houses from Etsy, and I was pleased with them. So I decided to go back to Etsy for some larger buildings, as I wanted to create height on the table. I found a row of shops/small businesses and a larger concrete apartment building.

Preparing the Afghan market town buildings

Row of shops primed black.
Apartment building primed black

Like many of the buildings on Etsy, they had been 3D printed. I washed the buildings in a mild soap solution. I don’t know if it is necessary with 3D printed models, but it is a simple step. Finally, I primed the buildings black with a hand applied Vallejo black primer.

Base coating the buildings

Spray painted

I then spray painted the buildings sand on the outside. As I have a lot to do for Cold Wars, I decided not to detail the insides. I left the insides black. I can always go back and detail the insides later.

Sponge application.

To break up the flat texture of the models and to hide any printing layer lines, I took a sponge and applied a layer of a slightly darker sand. This instantly improved the building appearance.

Railroad ballast to the roof

I then added model railroad ballast to the roof and secured with scenic cement.

Weathering the buildings

Weathering powder application.

After the roof of the apartment was dry I got to work with a couple of weathering powder colors. These take some time to apply with a brush, but they really bring the building to life. I then added some Afghan signs to the buildings. I cut the signs from internet photos and printed onto paper. Afterwards, I then applied them with white glue and weathered them. I also added some model railroad graffiti decals. Finally, the door and windows were painted and weathered. I then sealed the buildings with a coat of matte varnish.

The finished Afghan market town

I then took some pictures with some of the market stands that I recently made. I purchased all of these items from Etsy, Internet vendors and trade show vendors. The base is just my kitchen counter as I did not have time to get my desert terrain mat out today. I will be play testing this game early February and I will have some pictures then. I have about 50 Afghan Civilians that I am half way through painting, so they will add to the market hustle and bustle.

The following pictures show the completed scene, which I think captures the feel of an Afghan market town.

Villa Bicocca for Historicon

Historicon is rapidly approaching with only 44 days left until the start of the convention. While I am still on track with preparations for my games, there is still a lot left to do. This weekend I completed another 36 figure Spanish pike block and 16 Spanish Arquebusiers. Now it is time to finish the Villa Bicocca and the gardens of the villa.

The villa itself was a combination of 6 kits from Charlie Foxtrot models. The kits are mdf, so I needed to add texture the walls assembly. I also had to scratch build the roof system to make them all fit together.

The field defenses link up with the Villa.

The first photo shows the front of the villa. I still have to put a gravel path in front of the villa along with a small fountain. I should complete this work by the end of the week. The villa is assembled on a 1″ piece of foam board so that it can seamlessly integrate with the field defenses.

The patio and steps down to the garden.

At the back I bought the railings and steps from a 3d printing company on Etsy. They were exactly 1″ tall so they worked very well with the foam board and allowed a smooth step down to the garden,

Statue in the garden,

The garden has a number of statues. The main two statues were made from pdf plinths, I then added roman soldiers from Warlord Games. I then painted the statues to represent marble.

View of the statues.

Some of the statues from the edge are Helen of Troy statues from the Foundry Greek mythology range. I scratch built the plinths for these from balsa. The plant pots were another find from Etsy, to which I added some flowers that I bought from Woodland Scenics.

A view down the garden.

The fountains were mdf kits. The stone paths were rubber stone tile mats that I bought at a previous Historicon. I cut these into the desired shape and then put grass mats down in between. I then scratch built some hedges.

a view down the length of the garden.

To finish I put some trees around the edge of the garden.

Overall the Villa Bicocca and garden take up about 2′ x 4′ on the table. Overall I like how they have turned out. I think that they give a good representation of an Italian villa and Italian garden. They should provide a point of interest for the Battle of Bicocca terrain.

Italian Wars Buildings

This post is just to show three buildings that I recently made for my Italian War Scenery.  They were made using dental stone molded in Hirst Arts molds.  I will do another post showing how I constructed the buildings.  The building are a Castello (based Castel Pietraio near Sienna, where I spent a few days on holiday), an outer building and a bell tower.  I am currently building the bells to insert in the tower and will move on to the church later this year.

The first photo shows the three buildings with some landschnekts (Foundry), a Papal pike block (TAG) and some Papal Knights (Steel Fist)

Overall the buildings are quite large compared to those that most people use for 28mm figures, but I really wanted to make something quite impressive to go with the Italian Wars figures.  These are the first three buildings that I have ever built, and overall, I am quite pleased with how they turned out.

28mm Italian Wars Castello, out building and bell tower

This next photo shows a more ground level view.  I like how the lions head on the castello wall turned out.  It started life as a lions head fantasy shield that I purchased on the internet.

28mm Landschnekts pike block advances on the Papal States pike block

The next two photos show more of the bell tower.

28mm Papal Troops hold off Landschekts near the Castello

 

28mm Italian Wars Bell Tower

The final photo shows the bells that I am constructing to go inside the bell tower.  They are made from a stained balsa support and counter weight, wheels and brackets from an old napoleonic canon I had spare, and rope and bells from a model ship building supplier.  I hope to be able to finish and insert the bells into the tower next week.

28mm Bells for the Bell Tower..

 

Here is a picture of Castel Pietraio near Siena, on which this model was loosely based.