Crossfiregrad facelift Part 3: finishing touches to the scenery

It's been about three years since I first posted about what I have come to call my 'Crossfiregrad' project - a Stalingradesque cityscape for playing Crossfire. It's been through several reincarnations. This post illustrates the final touches and the final look of the cityscape.

The starting point for the finishing phase. Cat litter has been added around buildings. I didn't add a fully realistic amount of rubble, partly because this rubble is merely decorative and needs to be differentiated from rubble that features as Crossfire areas, and partly because creating too much of a 3D effect would add to my storage and transport problems.

The rubble is given a coat of craft acrylic approximating to brick red and then darkened with a black-brown wash. The GW wash brush allowed very good control.

Static grass is blown onto splodges of PVA. The grass needs to look sparse. Ideally the surface would be cratered, but that would have required a whole additional level of modelling putty or similar, and, again, would have made the boards thicker and heavier.

A light dusting of Woodland Scenics snow preceded and sealed with sprayed-on WS Cement. It could almost be taken for a Christmas card scene...

Snow is also added to the buildings and rubble. WS Cement takes quite a while to dry but does dry with a good matt finish.

The finished scene. It has already been used for at least five games. While presenting certain challenges, it seems to work well as a Crossfire layout.