New 6mm Stone Walls Set

"What do you want to do on your birthday this year?" the wife asks... My immediate response was "give me 3 hours to make my new 6mm stone walls!" Yes, it's the small things in life that make us the happiest. Based on my previous experiences with the other walls and fences, I added a larger base with green stuff modeled to be the grassy turf surrounding the wall. This makes casting much easier and is a feature that I will use for the 10mm-15mm Snake-Rail Fence Set project.

New 6mm Snake-Rail Fence Set

A customer from the Cleveland area sent two out of print snake-rail fence pieces with the request that I cast some more for his gaming board. These are 6mm in scale and look pretty good for the size and period. I patched some things on the casts that he sent and made a mold. I am very pleased with the results and have already sent several sets out from eBay sales... Now I have to create a complimentary stone wall set for the same scale!

Shelob Warmaster Unit

It's been ages since the last post but I have been quite busy with ACME Terrain development and sales. After watching the Lord of the Rings Trilogy marathon, I decided that a Shelob command/artillery unit would be great to have along with the Spiders of Mirkwood units. I checked on line for some plastic spiders and wasn't really successful with what I found. So, with serendipity being the mother of opportunity, I stumbled across a spiders earring set in an early halloween dsiplay at the local party store. They were perfect in size and just needed a little modification to work for my needs. A little green stuff and modeling clay later, I was making the mold for what has become my new addition to the ACME Terrain family... Shelob!

Spiders of Mirkwood Units

I managed to create three units of Mirkwood Spiders painted and mounted them on magnetic bases. The casts are from the out of print "Battle of Five Armies" series from Games Workshop. I have these on eBay now and will cast more once I am back from San Antonio. I checked out the Alamo today - very cool. Other than seeing the actual Alamo, the next best thing was checking out all of the dioramas that depicted various stages of the mission and fortifications. I wish I could do that for a living!

Log Fence Set

I have finished the Log Fence Set and have posted the first one on eBay. I had finished the masters and created the RTV molds over the weekend. I quickly casted a set and painted them up last night. I have added some clump foliage from Woodland Scenics to add a little more realism. The intent is to capture a fairly new fence with the bark still on the logs. The cut portions are light tan and haven't grayed under the sun yet. I liked this look better as it allows the highlights to be better and creates a nice contrast to the ground terrain and fields.

ACME Terrain Action Photo Studio

So I have been noticing how great some of the pics are of miniatures and gaming boards on eBay, TMP and Yahoo Groups. I have also noticed that some of them are really bad.

So... I started looking around for tips and ideas on how to take better photos of the minis. There are some great web sites out there but believe it or not, the best resource was the DIGITAL CONCEPTS PORTABLE LIGHTING STUDIO FOR DUMMIES set at OfficeMax. It's basically a light box system and instructions for setting up your camera. The whole premise is to take better pictures of your merchandise so that it will sell better on eBay. Hmmm... what a novel idea.

Rather than buy the kit for $40, I figured that I had most of the equipment necessary so enter the ACME Terrain Action Photo Studio. The stands are from my PA speakers and the table is actually Lucy's dog crate. The lights are all utility lights with a mix of fluorescent and incandescent bulbs. I just rolled out my terrain mat and added the hill feature and some buildings. Getting the stone walls on eBay was top priority so that was the first shoot. I found a Barrow Mounds set amongst my supplies and put those along with some standing stones on eBay too. That was shoot number two.

I am really pleased with the results and will probably re-shoot the other sets that ACME offers with the new set up...

Stone Wall Set

It has been awhile since my last posting. Of course it's the normal excuse of family, business travel and a completely different hobby (writing and recording rock music) getting in the way of some serious terrain making. I have had the stone wall molds finished for some time and I have cranked out 4 sets since the beginning of the month. I just now got time to post on eBay and so far they are going well. I think they go well with the 10mm-15mm scale and can be used on just about any period wargame table and could be flocked for different climates.