Elven Village On the Cheap
With a full backlog and modest pile of opportunity, I often find myself wondering what project deserves next place in the queue. At times like these, I go to The Joy of Wargaming viewers. It’s cheap market research, and it hasn’t failed me yet.
An elven village, you say? We can do that, and on the cheap!
I make no claims to originality on this one. You’re looking at a half-dozen orange juice lids glued to thin wooden craft eggs. These lids have wonderful arches in the texture that makes them perfect for use as fantastic or sci-fi buildings for your 10mm to 15mm tables. The orange come from formerly 64-oz bottles which now contain 59-oz. (Thanks, Brandon!) The green ones come from single-serving bottles, and using both gives us some variety.
The giant skeleton comes from a two-dollar Halloween decoration carved up for parts. All told, that’s less than ten bucks for all six bases.
The sand and gravel come free from the beach and the garden. The details on the roof are simple wood craft discs and plastic jewels.
To get a richer, more natural white, these buildings were primed white, given a sepia wash, then drybrushed back up to bright white. This helps the colored gems pop out, and stands them in stark contrast to the greenery that abounds around them. The yellow flowers are stick-bits that cost seven bucks, half the total cost of the project, from Army Painter or Vallejo, I can’t remember which
And if you look closely, you can see that this boneyard has a few human-sized skulls littering the area as well. Those were impulse additions to the cart, and are available from Alternative Armies.
