From LeeH: Winter War Bunker (10 Points)

I hadn’t planned on making any terrain this year at all. Fate, however, had other ideas in the form of a gammy leg and an unexpected week off work. Painting miniatures turned out to be a bit of a non-starter—too much sitting still and not enough focus—but pottering about and making something from scratch felt just right. The result was this little Winter War fieldwork, currently occupied by a couple of my Russians. Realistically, though, it’s far more likely to end up sheltering Ray’s Finns, which rather suggests I may have built something that will be used against me. Such is life.

The piece is entirely scratch-built from what can only politely be described as rubbish. A few weeks earlier, on a walk in the park, I’d picked up a selection of sticks and bits of bark that looked suitably rough and utilitarian. The irregular base measures just over five by three inches, and the snow banks were built up using offcuts of high-density foam. These were glued down and partially filled with stones and putty to create a roughly U-shaped mound, giving the whole thing a sense of purpose rather than symmetry.

Once that had set, I cut some of the larger sticks into roughly 1.25-inch lengths to form the vertical supports of the bunker walls. Smaller sticks were laid across the top to suggest a crude roof structure. At this stage, the build relied heavily on liberal applications of PVA glue and, just as importantly, patience while everything dried properly. This isn’t fast terrain, but it is forgiving terrain.

With the structure solid, I went back in to fill gaps, add extra layers of sticks, and glue on bits of bark to break up the roofline. When that had fully dried, I moved on to a simple paint job. The ground was blocked in with an Earth Brown basecoat, while the sticks were left unpainted so the natural wood could show through. The earth was then drybrushed with London Grey and lightly highlighted with white. At this point, you might reasonably wonder why I bothered, given that almost all of it would be buried under snow. Two reasons: first, I hadn’t fully committed to 100% snow coverage at that stage, and second, I think painting the ground underneath gives the snow a more natural, convincing depth. It may be subtle, but it didn’t take long, and I think it helps. The exposed wood was then given a very light drybrush of white to give it a frosty, cold-weather look.

With the painting done, it was time for the snow. On the roof, I used Woodland Scenics Soft Flake snow mixed with PVA and water into a paste, spreading it carefully between the wooden beams and letting some of the timbers poke through. For the U-shaped bank, I applied several layers of snow in varying thicknesses to keep it uneven and rough, rather than smooth and sculpted. The final touch was the addition of a few tufts, poking through the snow for a bit of visual interest.

I probably spent a couple of hours on this over a couple of days, working in short bursts while things dried. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t expensive, and it wasn’t complicated, but it was deeply satisfying. Even if it does end up giving the Finns yet another place to ambush my poor Russians.

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What a great looking piece Lee, it left me wishing I could award points for the actually building of the model as that is where most of the work is, and lovely work it is at that!  Everything looks very natural and it will look great on the table.  The painting itself though and the size of the piece doesn't add up to a whole lot, but I am going to bend my own rules a little bit and award 10 points because of the end effect and the work that went into the piece.

 Great work, I think most of us would love to have something like this in our terrain collection.

-Byron