The Parapet

Construction began at Finger Lakes Paint Day on the coffee lid into a proper Parapet.

I added a cardboard rim under the lid to insert into the tower and bolstered that with cork.

Then added a wooden round to the top of the lid and added another cardboard rim around that.

Craft glue was applied to fill and solidify the lid.  The actual lip of the lid will be the bottom of the parapet on the exterior.

I created a wood plank surface for the top of the Parapet from Milliput (Yellow/Grey) and the Happy Seppuku Wooden Planks Stamp.

I also installed a cardboard rod for the full size tree trunk and installed two swamp rotted stumps made from small corks.  The corks are roughed up, coated with Brush On Sealer and then painted Reaper Miniatures Walnut Brown.

The ground has Vallejo Yellow Green haphazardly applied to most of the surface.

 I “damaged” the one end by removing sections of the planking and then roughing the ends.  There are also other holes farther up for missing knots and the like.

Once the glues had set I did manage to get a primer coat down … more Reaper Walnut Brown.

The next phase of the Parapet is to make the merlons and embrasure sections so they sit over the cardboard rim and rest on the coffee lid’s outer ring and hide the gap for the parapet floor.  But that is for another post.

The Tower Walls

Next I pulled out the Milliput and started working on wrapping the tower exterior.

I made a paper template and rolled the Milliput on to wax paper to match the template.

The wax paper was taped to a tube that matched the one used to get the roundness similar to the tower.

Once these dried I could dry fit the pieces to the tower, cut out the window and merge the seams.

I used excess Milliput to start the tree stump.

Here’s the two sections of the wall in place and glued down.

First I cut in the window, then using some Squadron White Putty I quickly hid the edges of the pieces of wall.  I sketched in some overlapping slate.

Then I cleaned up and started painting.

The wall is slate so the colors won’t vary a ton but I plan to do it similar to my Bones Ankheg’s base: http://goo.gl/6tWlSu. Though I might push the blue towards indigo to give it some fantasy factor.

We’ll also see a return of the red ground foam foliage and the black & green ground foam mosses will cover some of the tower, ground and the parapet.

I’ve seen some vine videos floating on the interwebs and thought I might try one to create some creeping vines that look like the ground is trying really hard to swallow the tower.

Stay tuned.