28mm Redoubt model

Over the last couple of months I seem to have lost my figure-painting 'mojo', with my current project of painting up a battalion of Napoleonic French Gendarmes-a-pied taking forever. However, as a wee side project I've built a 28mm redoubt to house my 4Ground blockhouse. This ties in with the Gendarmes project as I intend this unit to be defending blockhouse in a future Peninsular campaign.

Inspired by Paul Darnell's book, 'Touching History: Recreating History in Miniature - The Napoleonic Spanish Peninsular War', I built the redoubt model along the lines Paul uses. I cut a 12 inch square piece of insulation foam board, cut out the middle and then glued the outer piece onto an MDF base. I then cut out strips of  balsa for the interior planking and glued them in. The final touch was to use filler to plug any gaps between the base and the insulation foam. I used a Black & Decker 'Mouse' sander to get the round edging of the embankment.     

The next step was to glue some railway flocking to give some texture to the embankment. I then painted the whole model with a dark brown base paint (cheap water-based stuff) and then dry brushed both the planking (light grey) and the ground (light brown). I wanted the redoubt to look as though it had been built for some time, so I was looking for the wood work to seem a bit weathered.  

This is the redoubt completed. I had initially intended to have defensive stakes coming out of the sides of the embankment, but decided that this would probably be a bit impractical in storing and transporting the model...as the toothpicks I was going to use would probably easily break off over time.   

The beauty of this model is that I can use it for many periods and it will fit in nicely with my Napoleonic, AWI, ACW and SYW forces. Paul Darnell uses a drawbridge as a defence measure for the entrance to the redoubt, but I will keep it simple by making a couple of cheveax-de-fris to block it. 

I've added the 4Ground blockhouse to show how I intend to use the model. I made sure that I had enough space to to fit my infantry bases between the embankment and the blockhouse before I cut the foam out at the start. 

I can also use the model as an artillery redoubt, as seen here with my late 17th century Jacobites in Ireland.
  

   This was really easy to make and I hope it has inspired others to have a crack at simple terrain building. I've already got some other terrain project ideas that will keep me busy over the festive season.

Until next time - Yuletide felicitations to all!