6mm Antietam in Modeling Clay
Finally finished working on my 6mm wargames setup of Antietam. The board measures 30×40 inches and are just two foam board pieces butted together. Here is a few pictures on the initial stages:
Here are pictures of the final display/wargames board
All the landscape is in modeling clay except for the individual trees which are simply ‘push pins’ covered in clay and textured. The woods are florist Styrofoam covered in clay and textured. Fencing, buildings and the ground cover are all made of modeling clay. I am in the process of making the buildings out of air-dried clay so these buildings depicted will be replaced later on.
Dunker church is at the lower right side. The cornfield is at the center of the board and the Miller farm is upper left. Muma farm is upper right with its cemetery located right in the middle of the plowed field. Some of the terrain was altered to fit within the available area I had to work with but the proportions are more or less there.
What needs to be added? Suggestions welcomed. For one thing, the secondary farm road running from the Miller farm down towards the Dunker church needs adding. I’ve seen this in various ‘dead’ photos of Antietam and it should be in my display too.
I tried doing limestone ledges here and there but they looked like white-caps in a sea of green. Maybe I’ll come up with an idea.
Post and rail fences are pretty easy to make. All I did was roll out a piece of clay, press it into the ground work and then use tools to shape them. The split rail fences required me to roll out on my finger tip a little piece at a time and place them. I went back and using tweezers, just squeezed them here and there to form them into the desired shape. I would say it took at 10 minutes per foot to lay and then form and texture the clay.
Individual trees took less than a minute to make. Take a push-pin, cover it in clay and then I textured them with an old brush. The brushes I used were of the toothpaste type or when I needed to get into a narrow area, a gun cleaning plastic brush.
All in all, when I was actually working on the project, it went quickly. To alleviate boredom, I would work on fences for 5 minutes and then trees for a couple more or do some ground work.
Next up: Battle of Little Big Horn stretching from Reno’s crossing to last stand hill. Less trees and that’s a good thing.
