Following on from the last blog post (ages ago, about the Japanese Platoon, here) please find an update on the project. The last few weeks has been spent making some Jungle terrain including recently – a river.

The first thing I did was to cut some pieces of river, I made these 6 inches wide in total, I used White Foamex Board 3mm thick, that is a fantastic material to work with, it is not that cheap but have wonderful non-warping properties compated to say MDF, at least in my experience. Note the additional border added (this is just abut 10mm cut out of the offcut on each side). Be careful here and make sure that each piece fits with the others. You can get 10 A2 boards for about £35 on ebay, I used two boards for the project so about £7.

I made enough for 8 feet (as we occassional might need a longer river). The 2 feet versions will become more fragile as they are a little bit wobbly and might not be strong enough unless you are careful – so worth considering. I went for the longer version. Cut down the sides.

I then added some filler on the outside of the borders.

Missed a few steps here, but in summary (i) Paint all of it in dark brown, (ii) paint the middle part with no sand in a greenish colour (this was done by mixing dark brown with yellow), add some highlights, (iii) drybrush the sand with a light brown (spill over a little bit on the green parts, (iv) add Herbs the Provance on the sides (cover with PVA and add the herbs), (v)add some foliage, I used some flock and some plastic jungle plants (let dry at appropriate points).

The final thing is to mix some clear resin and pour it over the boards (I used a clear low odour version from CFS, for this project but some brands can be really smelly), I cut a piece of foamex and applied it on each side with some hot glue, if you add a consistent bead of it on the side the leakage should be minimal but ensure it drops on something you are not precious about. I did a test piece before the big pour to make sure it all worked – and it did. I added some light brown paint in the resin to make it a little bit more interesting. I probably spent the equivalent of say £13 on resin for this project, meaning that the total cost of the river with the boards at £7 (with the cost of the other materials being negligible), so about £20 in total.

Alternatively you could just use a gloss varnish a few times over the boards, but will have a less striking effect.

Ended up with 8 feet of river.

Next time we will look at some of the other jungle stuff built/made to date.

Until then keep on toysoldiering!