Tuesday, July 17, 2012

WIP: Oat Bundles

This weekend's Arc of Fire game requires eight "oat bundles" in a field on one side of the battlefield.  I've taken this to mean bundled together sheaves of harvested crops.  In the absence of anyone making such in 20mm scale I decided to make my own.

Mark 2 oat bundle on the left, Mark 1 on the right. Oat bundle skeletons behind.
I started off by gluing short lengths of dowel to a 2p coin and building up some groundwork around the dowel with my usual tile-adhesive-and-poster-paint gloop.  I then added greenstuff to the sides and scratched in stems with a craft knife.  The tops are more greenstuff stabbed with a wooden skewer to give the texture of the grain.  Finally I added an incised line around the waist of each bundle to represent where the bundle is tied off.

I've decided the multiple heads of grain on Mark 2 (made from balls of green stuff) work better and from Mark 3 onwards I'm building in a cinched "waist" from the start.

Painted photos later.  

5 comments:

BigRedBat said...

I do like those. Do you have a picture of what you are trying to achieve?

I quite fancy making some of those, m'self.

Counterpane said...

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/de-wint-children-at-lunch-by-a-corn-stook-t07099

...is the best visual source I've found but to be honest I'm mostly working from the mental picture I have of a heraldic wheat-sheaf. Being a Cheshire lad I'm very familiar with them as they appear on most of the county's heraldry.

BigRedBat said...

Very nice! Will have a crack, post Partizan. Thanks, Simon

Paul´s Bods said...

Not a bad idea at all...are you going to make casts?
Cheers
paul

Counterpane said...

I've made 8 which is all need for now but I might choose the best and see if Steve Oates of
the-baggagetrain.com wants to have a go at casting from it.