The Promised Land: Work In Progress

Just as promised yesterday, I've got the first of a series of work in progress posts for all you faithful reader out there.  Most of the work here was accomplished over the weekend:

The brown portions of the ground here were primed, a little sand added, and then primed again to seal in the sand.  I used the same shade of brown as used on the other boards so that they'll blend in (almost) seamlessly.

It ain't pretty yet, but it's progress.

An Itch Not Fully Scratched

Wha-hey!  Guess who still has the gumption to slap some paint around?  That's right, it's your old pal, Warren.

Check it, peeps, the public utilities board is totes complete:

It's a little light on cover, but it's the heaviest board in the box. So it should be rugged enough to withstand plenty of play time.  The ground isn't nearly as shiny as it appears in that last shot.  The black windows were left that shiny on purpose, though.  I think it makes them look more like security camera covers.

Now I've just got to sand, prime, paint, seal, and dullcote four more boards.  Brace yourself for a few work-in-progress posts.

Obligatory Still Kicking Post

If you must, feel free to insert a cliched "not dead yet" joke here. (That's what most bloggers do when they return after an extended absence.)   Instead of that, I'm just going to stick with a meta-not-dead-yet joke instead.

At any rate...here are a couple of shots of the freshly painted pumphouse block.  It needs a coat of black wash to dull it out - it's too bright compared to the rest of the buildings, but a shot of The Dip will fix it up just fine.

It might seem silly to prime those blue plastic electric boxes in preparation for painting them a slightly different shade of blue, but this shade matches the blue in the rest of the buildings on the table.  This helps the overall visual appeal of the neighborhood and helps tie everything together.

I considered painting the buildings a nice industrial green, but that wouldn't work well with the green sludge pond.  I could have gone with blue water in the sludge pond, but The Dip would have made it look too muddy for my taste.  So here we are - blue buildings and green sludge make the pump house a less dull boy.

Mini's Eye View Redux

Happy Independence Day!

Here's a couple of quick shots of the new public utilities board from the tabletop:

New Board

Two posts in one week?  I'm just the eager little beaver.  Good wife willing and the creek don't rise, I may get a chunk more done this three day weekend.

Part of my seedy underbelly board got reclaimed by my daughter this past week.  That forced me to add in more little details.  A few lumber piles, some soil to delineate the sump pond, and now we've got a lot more interest on this board.

The two maintenance shacks are blue electrical boxes with cereal box details.  Standard copper pipe and PVC elbows serve as giant conduits, and the lumber is just balsa wood cut to size.

Mini's Eye View

Couple of quick shots of what my little mans are going to be seeing when they fight over these nine square feet of battlefield.

Big City Update

Dirtied up the city blocks this week with a coat of The Dip.  You can see that it took some experimenting.  The roof on the building in the lower left is a little dark for my tastes, but it does help to break up the buildings a little more.

This shot was taken moments after the application of static grass.  When it dries, it should be less splotchy. Otherwise, this seems to be coming along smoothly, if not quickly.

Here's a miniature's eye view of things.  I shopped out my kitchen and added a bit of lovely scenery for the little mans to fight over.

You can see how glossy that Dip makes the terrain.  There's very little color difference between the sidewalks and dirt now, but the grass helps.  Looks like this terrain will require some dullcote after all.