Armies on Parade 2019, part 2...The hills are alive?

 So, after a few hellishly hot days back at work, i think someone said that this is the hottest August bank holiday on record, i had today off and made some good progress.

On the rough plan from last time, i was going to add a hill in each far corner, with some trees on them.

So it was into my "useful stuff" pile in the loft to grab some polystyrene.
This was obtained at a knock down price from B&Q as it was a broken sheet.

BARGAIN!

With my supplies gathered outside, the only place i could really carve polystyrene and not incur the wrath of her indoors, the first step was to cut the basic shapes out and glue them all together for each hill.

Two huge dodgy cut out blocks later, i i realised that i could have saved some material by planning the slopes before i started carving, but whatever.

After i had carved the slopes, i added a few random small offcuts, which will be turned into small undulations or rocks as i decide.
I hit all the exposed polystyrene with a water and PVA mix to seal and strengthen it all.
Then this was placed in the sun to dry.

Next, after the previous step had dried, glorious sunshine has its uses.
I worked over the polystyrene with some watered down interior filler (i had used tile grout for the board before).

Unfortunately:

I ran out when i was almost finished with the second hill. I'll go out and pick some more up tomorrow and get this bit finished.

I'm also planning to add filler to the "off scene" vertical sides of the hills in order to protect the polystyrene which would otherwise be visible and subject to all the knocks and hits as the board is transported to GW.
I'll sand these sides smooth, then give them a coat of matte black to make a good presentation to the boards edge.

So at the end of part 2, here's where we are up to:

I would love to hear if anyone else is entering and has started.

Until next time...


 - Lewis