Some barn progress, and other 28mm (ish) terrain!

Lets start with the barn, shall we?  I finally got in my little supply of coffee stirrers, which are awesome, by the way.  I have been doing quite a few things with them!  Laying down flooring, bracing walls, making things look awesome in general, and probably doing things in a way that probably has a better and less time consuming method that I am unaware of as of yet.  But, it has been kinda nice to do, and gives me something to do after work (which has been hectic with coworkers being out of town and all that.)  So, progress has happened!  

What has been done with the barn:  The outer walls have been 'framed' with the wooden 'supports'.  Well, mostly framed.  I'm sure I'll end up adding to it later.  Also, I kinda want to put 'stone' on the bottom portion of the walls, but I'm still deciding how I want to do that.  I'll keep thinking on that one.

 The insides have been started.  As I said previously, I'm sure there is a better way of doing this, probably with balsa wood and/or things that are premade.  But, I tend to make things difficult for myself.  Oh well!  As seen in the picture below, I framed out each of the 'stalls' with the coffee stirrers.  And by the time I had finished cutting out all the wood, gluing them all on, etc.... I was really wishing I had rethought it lol.  Balsa would have been a lot easier.  But hey.... that parts done now, so whatever!  And the flooring.  Painted the base black because there would be things showing through the floor, and black is better than white, especially when I get to 'dirtying' the floor up.  As you can see, I went with different directions for the open floor in the middle versus the floor under the stalls.

 Eh, I think it looks cool.  But, I will say this....  A break from the barn is much needed!  So, that is now sitting on a nice blue box next to my closet (cause I really don't have a lot of storage lol) and I have started to get some other things done!

 In anticipation of receiving my next group of minis from the amazing Stonehaven Miniatures, I finally based one of my trolls!  He is supposed to be on a swampy looking base, and I think it looks swampy, but I don't know! My first time really making an intricate base.  I'll leave its final form up to your interpretation.

I've named him Bartholomew.  Mew for short.

Next up on the finished list....  My dung heap!  So, this thing I made with a base of a scratched CD, followed with a few heaping piles of pre-mixed grout to make the ground and poo piles.  It was surrounded by fence posts made of toothpicks.  I then painted the base a nice dark brown and left it for about two weeks.  Mainly because I didn't have what I wanted to finish it until about two weeks later.  I purchased some of the Woodland Scenic kits (Foliage and Grasses, and the Rippling Water kit) and I also got some new paints/textures at the comic book store at the local (read: 50+ miles away) mall on Free Comic Book Day.  

Texture paints are fun.  In the picture above, I used two of my new paints!  Well, they are new to me, but probably not new to everyone else.  Oh well lol.  The light brown is the Agrellan Earth technical paint from Citadel Paints, and the shiny part is 'Aedcoat, by the same.  I'll try to take a closer picture of the Agrellan Earth later and post it, to show that it did crackle nicely, and makes it look like that heap has dried on the outside.  The 'Ardcoat helps to show that the smaller pile is fresher and a little moist.  Eeww... moist poo...

 After everything was dry, with a sufficient amount of blending to make the lighter and darker paints cohesively coexist, I was able to start with the rest of the fun stuff!  The wattle part of the fence was done using basting thread (I make quilts in my 'spare' time).  It was then painted with a mixture of browns and a little white glue mixed in as well, so its actually quite hard now that it is dry.  The green flock was from the Woodland Scenic set, and the flowers and grasses are from the Army Painter (one is Battlefields Meadow Flowers, the other Battlefields Swamp Grass).

Now I just need to make a shovel or two....  I did make two brooms, and a rake tho!  I need to take pictures hahaha

Dung heap with a human 28mm miniature to show scale.  I think she is my go to at the moment to show scale....  She is the only human one I have hahahha.  Please, ignore the horrible paint job.  The plan is to re-paint her at some point.  She was my very first paint job, and it was before I had any clue lol.

Alrighty folks!  Next up is the goat pasture!  Yup, I finally decided which animal would be living in this one.  The goats.  The ground was actually made with Spackle this time, not the grout (because when I made it, I didn't have the grout....  I will say this tho... Grout is a lot easier to work with in larger doses than Spackle is.)  It was also base coated in a dark brown, then highlighted with lighter browns so anything showing through the flock would look good.

 The fencing (I debated between doing the same wattle as the dung heap or doing something different.  I went with something different.) is just coffee stirrers cut to length, and glued on.  It probably is not historically accurate, or anything, but Oh Well!  Its my world, and while my world is based on fantasy/partially medieval, there is technology!  I mean, come on!  Some of my gnomes have guns, others have mechanical swords with gears and a chainsaw blade...

 Here is the pasture with the goats (not yet painted, at all....) and with my go to mini with a goat.  I think size wise the animals I got look pretty good next to her.  Yes, they may be a touch big (namely the cattle) but I like to think that because it is a fantasy/medieval land that I am making, the animals could very well be larger than their modern day non-fantasy world counterparts.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!

Oh, and before its asked.... the inside of the shed/barn thing has cut up hemp twine acting as hay.  I left it the color it was, but I did put a wash of Agrax Earthshade over it to give it some variance and a little depth to it.  Also, I made a bramble bush thing in one corner!  Goats like to eat brambles.  I might make it a blackberry bramble, but I'm not sure.  Use imagination!

Here is a quick glance at the plants behind the shed.  Couldn't leave all that space empty, now could I?

 And so I will leave this post with one last thing.  Piggies!  I painted my piggies, aren't they adorable?  I need to finish the piglets faces, but the adults are done!  So, I guess that means the next for sure project will be a pigsty....