Desert Roads

 Hello There! With the weather taking a very cold turn, I have started to add to the blog again. I have done some work on the roads for the desert terrain.

I purchased the latex flexible roads from Early War Miniatures, here.

I have a scratch built collection of  rutted roads which I use for my bocage scenery, but this tarmac road was to be used for the desert. There were roads connecting passes and oasis in North Africa but the only tarmac road was the Via Balba. I wanted a smooth surface to the roads and they had to be pliable enough to conform to the uneven surface of the desert terrain I have already made.

Here is the smooth road on the left with a unpainted cobbled road on the right. This is the first time I have used latex roads so they were a bit of a learning curve for me.

I found that they roads tended to stick to each other very easily. I had to consistently peel them apart every time I put them to one side, I would suggest, in the future that if you purchase these, paint and seal them immediately, to stop this happening. This is not a complaint, just an observation as it is a side effect of using latex items.

The other thing I noticed is that if you do not store these flat, both before and after painting, that they can maintain a crease in them. I found this but after a couple of nights sandwiched between two pieces of plywood with a weight on top this was reduced. I presume that a longer period of time would remove any creases. 

With the tarmac roads I air brushed them in Vallejo Model Air 028 sand yellow. Them edged them in yellow ochre artist paint, the same colour as the desert scenery.

About here I noticed that after a few days the roads, if they were not left flat, the paint would start to crack. It was very cold at the time and I did have to put the heater on in the cabin. The roads were not in the direct path of the air heater so were not heated to a great degree.

I would paint soft plastic Airfix figures in a coat of PVA, many years ago, in an effort to stop the paint peeling off them. Here I had already painted the tarmac roads but have added a couple of layers of watered down PVA to both sides of them.

I have since painted the cobbled roads as well.

 

After coating the roads in PVA, I wanted to 'rough' the surface up a bit. The desert environment can easily cover any surface so I decided to use AK dry ground. The road on the left has been stippled with dry ground while the one on the right has some applied at the top, to compare the difference.

 

This is as far as I  have progressed. I am going to monitor the cracking in the paint, to see if it gets worse. I am also considering a further layer of PVA. I will update you on further discoveries.