Overthinking Terrain

Hello again,

I've been a little slow on the posts. Usually, I write my blog posts during down time while at work.  But these days I've been doing other secret writings when I should be working.  I've also been spending more time on other forms of wargaming social media besides blogs.  

And you know, there's only so much of me to go around.  The absence has to be felt somewhere.  Which works for me, because I have one of those personalities that is best experienced in small doses.

Today is a small post about how overthinking terrain leads to distracting projects.  And Overthinking Silly Stuff...is my middle name.

Overthinking Terrain

As seen previously, I've painted up a bunch of these resin fences for use in Quar games to move away from using the Snake rail fence...

And use them I did. But in the process, I saw something disturbing, and now I can't unsee it. 

Look here:

Do You see it? 

Here's an even WORSE example:

Now You see it.
Isn't it.... Hideous?

I know right?  I, of course, mean those itty-bitty-teeny-weeny-barely-noticeable-but-utterly-wretched-and-disgusting gaps in between the fence bases.  Now you can't unsee it either.  Let's all take moment for the feeling of nausea to pass.  

Yes; in truth this is not a big deal and yes; most wargaming fences have this appearance and yes; doesn't effect game play at all and yes! I like to engage in hyperbole.  

But I am not your average miniature wargamer.  I am an Overthinker.  And Overthinking can sometimes lead to over doing.  The gaps had to be filled with something as modular as the fences themselves.

In the end, I made a bunch of little stone pillars to fill the gaps.

My hand in the picture for a sense of scale.
Also, because I have gorgeous cuticles.

The process, while time consuming, was not difficult.  I used my Proxxon to cut a spare piece of foam into 1" cubes and diamond shapes (because I'm that kind of crafter now, where I have spare foam just lying around.  Some might call that hording trash; others might call it preserving supplies).  Then just carved a brick / stone pattern into it.

The carving was done with an Exacto knife and then gone over with a dull pencil like one sees on Youtube in almost every crafting video.  I steal from the best.

Continuing to steal learn from the best on YouTube, I put the cubes into a coffee can with a bunch of rocks, closed the lid, and shook the hell out of it to give the pillars some texture.  

This did not really work that well.  I mean it worked, just not super well.  I suspect it's because the pillars are too large to get beat up sufficiently.  Just like me.  And it had the side effect of being really noisy and waking up my children, because I do hobby stuff late at night after everyone is asleep.  

So, I ended up just using a big rock and a foil ball and pressing into the foam.  

And here's a PRO TIP not on the Youtubes; Don't just grab some dirty rocks from your backyard, throw them in a can, and then shake it with your big strong arms; because when you pull the lid off all this dust is gonna come billowing out.  

After all that it was just painting them up.

AND NOW: 

Gorgeous!

Superb!

Somewhere along the way I figured out that if you cut the pillars into a diamond shape you can do 45-degree angles....

marvelous!

And there we go.  No more unsightly gaps.  This post reminds me of those make-over shows where they have a revolting 'before' image and a glamorous "after' image.  And all it took was hours and hours and hours of work in between.

Thanks for reading.

Double thanks for writing a comment.

Till Next Time.