Glad you like it guys and glad my eyes are still young enough to do this unassisted
Some progress to report, the base is done! Well halfway at least... I got the board stained and sealed (Early American Stain), added the raised portion and covered it with a scrap piece of 300lb cold-pressed watercolor paper (Arches). I'm going to paint the paper and then clear coat it using the texture of the paper for the sea, we'll see how it goes. I'll use paint to give the illusion of depth since this is a river scene.
I drew out the dio and laid out some of the parts so far. Basically we have a piece of land, water, and a small sand bar in the corner. The land will have a stone retaining wall around the facility as well as a stone flood wall with gates. Random palms and other desert veggies will abound. The facility will be a scrap yard for old watercraft and and basically anything metal. So far, there will be a stone building, a covered garage area, two large above ground fuel tanks with their own flood wall and concrete slab, a small storage area with random junk, a dock with random boats tied up, and a large ramp for the dragging of boats to be scrapped and for the LCT to beach.
I'm going to have one large vessel capsized at its moorings with some holes in the hull; she's been there a while. I'll add some random trucks and a crane of sorts to go with the random boats. I'm using my spares box to populate much of this, hence the random landing craft. I'll be cutting them down to act as crude barges or something similar.
Story notes so far:
The recon guys will be an OSS team sent to retrieve some VIPs from behind enemy lines in a random Middle Eastern/Med country. They will have to shoot their way out of their target location and then make a run for the coast and friendly territory. Along the way they come across the scrap yard and the LCT and will secure passage down the river to safety. There will be more to it but that's the gist for now.
It will take place in around 1980 and the country will be on the verge of war with the West and/or itself. Think Beirut or something along those lines. I'm been drawing heavily on photos of the Nile, Suez, Said, etc... for inspiration on the landscape.
So yeah, we'll see what happens by the end of the month and after the extension (<----Hint, hint, *cough* hint!
)
Until later,
-Mike