Thursday 10 October 2024

The Vineyard

Some twenty years ago I wanted to create a vineyard for my 1866 battles in Italy, but I wasn't impressed with the commercial products on the market and I wasn't a fan of green foam flock glued onto commercial model fences. So I sat down with a bit of wire and some GreenStuff and made a master pattern for a strip of vines that could be cast.


Fortunately I had seen a lot of grapevines in my time, usually from the window of the vineyard tasting room, or on the labels of the bottles containing their fermented fruit, so it was a relatively simply task to create the master. In due course I cast up some 30 pieces, twelve of them were mounted on strips and used in a game and they are still used in various games today. Half a dozen pieces were given away and the remaining twelve pieces languished in my spare bits box until I had a major clean up a few weeks ago.


Over a couple of evenings I had them cleaned up, painted up and based them up as a small vineyard. Of course, because the pieces are fixed to the base, it will have to be a piece of terrain impassable to all but skirmishing troops, which is quite fitting really since it would have been exceedingly difficult to maintain a battle line in a vineyard. I did think about making the gaps between the rows of vines wider to allow line troops to move along them, but it just looked silly. Here then is the finished piece.







20 comments:

  1. That looks like a proper vineyard. Most of the commercial products look like clumps of foliage stuck in rows. Lovely work Mark.

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    1. Embarrassingly I have seen quite a few vineyards in my time (and I am staying right in the middle of one over Christmas). The original plans was to take the master pattern and make three or four variants before casting off many more, but that plan never really came to fruition...or should that be never became a vintage?

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  2. Well that's come out rather well Mark:)! Mine for 10mm are simply foliage tufts and a few cocktail sticks at intervals to suggest the supports. Not perfect but it works well in a game.

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    1. Yes it came up well...maybe I should get some more cast up...

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    2. cash job for when you are a gentleman of leisure

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    3. Yes...left in a plain envelope in the mailbox...

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  4. They really do look great Mark 👍

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  5. Those look really ice, especially all based up. 😁
    though miniature vineyards are always too small in my mind, because I always picture vines going on for miles and miles....

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    1. Thanks Stew. Certainly that is my vision of vineyards too...long lines disappearing over the rolling hills, but I wonder if that is our modern view with high volume production. I suspect that while there would certainly have been have been some large producers pre-20th century, I reckon most would have been small producers like Bob and Mary who planted a few lines of grapes to make a hundred bottles for themselves and to trade with their neighbours.

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  6. A very effective piece of terrain Mark…
    Your diligent research has paid off…

    All the best. Aly

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    1. But I shall keep my study, for continuous improvement, of course...

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  7. Splendid looking vinyard, I keep meaning to do some for Italy in the 16th century, probaly after the cypress's!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain...now cypress trees...that is the next challenge.

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  8. Having passed by several of these in Litchfield County yesterday, good job.

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    1. Where we live used to be the centre of wine production in West Auckland, but alas the last vineyard fell to the housing developers a few years ago. Now instead of rows of grapevines we have rows of cookie-cutter houses.

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