I built two more big ass walls.  It occurs to me that maybe I should build some kind of portal by which one could gain entrance to the walled wonders beyond, a "gate-like" device, if you will.  It also occurs to me that Maybe I should make some towers to go along with them.  I have two story buildings that would be perfect.  All they need is to be the same color.  Checking the poll, I see the metal walls have been edged out by the yellow and brown.  Vox Populi Vox Dei!  Or not.  Whatever.  That's going to be part of my project for this week.  but I digress.  See that container of stuff?  You know what that is?  It's flock.  For those of you not familiar with flock, it's used to create more realistic terrain pieces and miniature bases.  It looks like grass so you can glue it to things to give a grass like appearance.  What's so special about this flock?

I made it.  Yes, I made this flock.  Sure, this batch looks more like dead grass than grass, but it does look like grass.  That and I have batch number 2 drying in the oven right now.  What you see there is about $5-6 of flock in a hobby shop.  It cost me much less than that. :) And it gave me something to do in the process. 

How does one make flock?  Well, it's nice of you to ask.  There's several tutorials on the intar-web detailing the process, but, boiling it down, it's basically like this...  You get a bunch of sawdust (free from a lumber mill, Home Despot, a woodshop, etc.), some paint, water, something flat and a container to mix it all in.  Mix the paint and water until it's about the consistency of milk  but not translucent.  Then, little by little, stir in sawdust.  Keep adding it until it's thick and hard to stir.  When you get to that point, spread the mixture out kinda thin on your flat thing and then set on a warm dry place until the moisture has dried out.  Then sift through a strainer to get out the big crappy chunks (or several if you want different textures of fineness) and voila!  And it's cheap, too!  a cheap bottle of paint that can make 20-30 batch is about $2.  Sawdust is free.   Water is free.  a container is cheap to free.  I'm lazy and decided I wanted the mixing process to be faster and more thorough so I bought a cheap ass blender for under $15.  I intend to make a lot so the time I save mixing is worth the extra expense. 

Unfortunately, the first batch is dead grass looking because I only had yellow paint on hand and the yellow and brown of the sawdust left that color which I don't think is all that bad.  My second batch I used a cheap ass tempura paint instead of an acrylic.  It's bright green so the second batch has come out more of an olive color, but it still looks like grass.  I'll have to experiment with mixing some paints to get different colors, but it has been quite a success!

Why have I even gone to all this trouble?  Because I have a lot of miniatures and none of them have ever been flocked.  I've just never really cared enough to do it.  But lately, I've decided why not flock them?  And the biggest impediment in my way has been cost.  I don't like the idea of spending shit loads of money on flock of all things.  That and I have a bunch of terrain hills and trees that would look much cooler with some grass on them and what not.  One day, when Welsh Girl and I have a house with a garage space big enough, I might actually start making some larger boards to play in and how awesome would it be to have them all flocked with my super cheap flock?  Totally, that's how awesome! 

My next goal for the week will deviate from my standard goal.  This week, my goal is to paint at least one of my walls and to also flock 5 of my miniatures.  I've never flocked before so I want to do it a few times before I go into mass production.  That and once I have a process down, I should be able to flock a bunch of them every night.  I'm wanting to do several squads at a time in one type of flock then go to another.  That way units I use together will be more similar and whatnot.  A small goal, leading soon to larger things!

Tune in tomorrow when I tell you guys about my weekend.  Hell, if you guys ask nicely, I may even tell you about this:

Until tomorrow!