Cacti

I make no excuses to my over romanticised, some would say naive, approach to the historical periods that interest me.  A perfect example of this would be my wholly sanitised foray into the Wild West inspired by the many Hollywood celluloid spectacles.  A lasting memory of those films was the tall cacti that seemed to dominate the landscape and so I set about to see if I could find some to add to the terrain around my village.  A rudimentary search of the infoweb unearthed a number of potential finds, particularly if I was prepared to 'print' my own, something I hope to get into one day, but at the moment I seem content with purchasing files that sit neglected on the computer, not that different to the unpainted miniatures in the wardrobe of woe.  

There were some Saguaro like models available in either white metal or plastic, but these were proving to be quite costly and were lacking the stature that I was after until, as luck would have it, I stumbled across the following 'how to' on the Western Role Playing & Miniature Games Resource site. 

 

Making Saguaro Cactus Terrain Tutorial

So as to not be accused of plagiarism, I am happy to admit that I followed this wonderfully clear guide pretty much to the letter, so there is little point replicating it here, but I will share some of my 'work in progress photographs' to reiterate just how straightforward it was. 

I used a combination of 6" and 4" nails with aluminium, armature, modelling wire to form the basic structures.  These were then covered in Sculpey, not a material I had used before, but not unlike DAS modeling clay, which might prove to be an cheaper alternative.  Drawing lines into the clay would convey a sense of the cactus structure, but on reflection I rather rushed this stage, perhaps more modelling would have produced more varied and interesting results?  Once baked and cooled they were fixed to some MDF bases and the surfaces built up and textured accordingly.  I indulged in some Buffalo and Longhorn steer skulls from 'Dixon Miniatures' just to sell the piece a little more. 

With time very much against me, I fired up the trusty airbrush and covered them in a rather lurid green that was not nearly dusty enough.  Fortunately some drybrishing helped to get the project back on track, but something still felt as if it was lacking.  

In a bid to give my cacti some more texture I dabbed dots of PVA glue along the trunk and then sprinkled on some fine green turf that I had.  A final flourish was added with a course, red turf used atop to hint at the ripening fruit. 

With the bases painted to match the rest of the miniatures and the liberal application of some brown shrubs and tufts the build was complete.  Thoroughly enjoyable and with that sense of achievement that comes from a successful scratch build.  Huge thanks to Western Role Playing & Miniature Games Resource for pointing the way.