Stone: Walls, not the movie



Battlefield Accessories Rough Stone Walls
fresh out of the pack.

 For those not from Australia, the movie was an off beat, even B-grade Australian movie from the 70's. Anyway, on the posting ...


Who doesn't have at least a few stone walls in their scenery collection? Not me, obviously. In the past I've made them out of foam, wood with cardboard brickwork details and my last attempt was to make them out of actual pebbles. This last effort I regard as a success and certainly my ultimate solution IF you have an unlimited amount of time and next to no budget. Then I ran into Mike Parker, owner operator of Battlefield Accessories (see logo below) at the Canberra wargames convention (Cancon) in Australia this year.

Mike and I got to talking about how he made his 15mm stone walls - sold as BA03: Rough Stone Walls Pack. It turns out he made his exactly the same way I made mine except he had the sense and commercial purpose to build just two 90 mm sections, cast them and reproduce them commercially in resin. Normally retailing for $12.50 Australian, I picked the pack up for $11.00 as a Show Special price (thanks for coming) which has 7 plain wall sections and one with a wooden gate.

Product after 'black wash'.

If this sounds like an endorsement, your right. His pack makes about 720mm (30") of wall. When I think about how long it took me to make admittedly four times as much, this strikes me as a complete bargain and I'd have been mad to pass it up - which I didn't. A wash with dish-washing liquid, thorough rinse, a 'black wash' of Humbrol No: 72 Khaki Drill and matt Black (No:33) heavily diluted with mineral turpentine, all that was needed was a dry brush with a lightened (whitened) Khaki Drill and a dry brush for the base and a peck or two of dry static grass to make my desert or arid terrain wall sections.

Lightened Khaki dry brushing (right)

Whilst marketed for 15mm figure scale, these walls are perfect for 20mm dry stone walls and even low yard or farm walls in 28mm - for a pig sty for example. The only advantage to sticking to real pebble constructions is the colour variation which I would not want to bother attempting to replicate through brush-work.  Labelled accordingly, I've included my walls and Mike's by way of comparison. In future, it will be Mike's I'll be opting for.

My natural pebble wall (left) and Mike's product (right)

Mike has kindly granted permission for me to review his product. His his web site is under construction at the time of this posting but he can be enquired of via e-mail at mailto:mike.parker@tpg.com.au. His products are also available on-line through The Warstore.com.