Hardware and Halloween

Despite not having posted a regular update, I have been pretty busy hobby-wise. Today I present to you the last three buildings for Gray Haven.



 

These are the "Value Hardware and Sporting goods" and "Halloween 24/7". Sorry for the bad pic, lighting was horrible and the flash ruined most of the others.

Anyway, the Hardware store is an Ameritown police station and the Halloween store is a converted Plasticville firehouse.

 

 

The front of the Halloween store with the giant spider decoration and the riot cop and zombie costumes on display. I sculpted the pumpkin for the sign and the foam scrapbook letters were placed crooked intentionally. (honest!)

 

Some of you keen eyes might have noticed the stop sign in the first picture. Here are examples of a few more.

 

I purchase these from Scale Like Industries, you can find them here:

http://stores.ebay.com/scalelikeindustries/

They are really nice signs printed on thin styrene. A few words of caution working with them though:

-Seal them first if you mask them off for any reason. I ruined my first batch of these with a liquid latex mask when I painted the backs of the signs.

-Too much styrene glue will melt/ warp them. This could be good or bad depending on the effect you want to create.

What else? I have corn. Yep corn.

 

These will be combined with pumpkins and hay bails for fall decor around town. I had to spray these with Army Painter desert yellow because they are supposed to be modeled as a live crop.

http://shop.hobbylobby.com/products/o-scale-corn-stalks-496976/ corn stalks

 http://shop.thearmypainter.com/products.php?ProductGroupId=2  desert paint

 

On the actual playing games side of things I got a lot of games of Zombicide in with some co-workers, played a few games of Operation Flashpoint with the family.

 I picked up three copies of X-wing that were on sale at 60% off and will be posting about that, I will have some examples of my castings I finally did, and will post/talk Deadzone in the next few days, so don't touch  that dial!

Papa Spanky

 

Fall Cemetery aka the zombie playground

So this is where the zombies are all coming from! I finally decided on how to finish the one short board edge for Gray Haven. I was going to make a separate board in the future that was just a cemetery, but this worked out nice to put it here. On with the pictures!

Here is the overview shot. Lets look at the details a little closer...

 

 

Zooming in a bit on the left side, we see the main concentration of dead folk. The tree is removable for storage, and the gates are magnetized for storage or when they get smashed down in-game by the undead hordes.

 

Zooming in more we see the detailed weathering on the grave markers. I make full size prop headstones for Halloween, and these use some of the same methods for painting, only smaller.  

 

 

Back out and move to the right, and we find the entrance, some more dead folk and the entrance to the mausoleum.

 

Here's the mausoleum and the back part of the property. About this part of the board: I put the power module for the lighted sign (seen in a bit) inside the mausoleum. I was going to run the cord under the grass, but had forgotten about the pumpkin patch the crazy old groundskeeper had planted. I had to put in a electrical "drop" over the patch. I tried to hide/integrate it the best I could, I think the crows help. Why is there a casket out back? Maybe the groundskeeper has his garden tools in there. Or fertilizer...

 

This is the welcome sign that sits outside the cemetery. It lights up, that's why I needed the power cord run. The little mound and rock is there just as a natural element.

 

 

I took these two shots to help if you needed a little perspective.

 

 

The Grass is teddy bear fur, all the leaves, bushes, and vines are Woodland Scenics products. I used lots of Sil-for clump foliage as well as dyed birch seeds. I picked up the walls and fence at Menards during Halloween last year. The pumpkins are from JTT, the headstones are from Renedra and GW.

 

Questions and Comments are welcome!

 

Papa Spanky