So after the last project went well I thought I’d have a go at another piece of modelled scenery. A spawning pond seemed just what I needed. You might question the wisdom of this, seeing as I don’t have any Lizardman-Seraphon miniatures, or any jungly themed miniatures at all, but look at it like this – a Spawning Pond doesn’t need to be a pond for spawning lizardpeoples, it could be a swimming pool for chaos cultists, or an immersitarian for space marines, or even (despite the apparently clear water) a drops for orkses. Yes, a Spawning Pond is truly the ultimate in flexible terrain pieces and anyone who says that I was idly reading an old WD and fancied building something without having any actual need for it is a poopoohead.

I enjoyed this build and only variated from the script in one way, which was to use water effects rather than a layer of pva covered in gloss varnish for the water. This was because I had impulse bought some water effects a year or two back and wanted an excuse for using it. Because I was using water effects I put some old fashioned model railway foliage in the pond before pouring to look like water-weed. During this build I learnt a few things. Firstly I learned that water effects contract when they dry. This was a problem because I had painted the inside of the pond and the contracting resin caused cracks in the paint that i couldn’t reach to repair. Further layers of water effects repaired the cracks in the resin but you can still see the white of the foamcard base, we can dismiss it as sunlight reflections! Secondly I learned that sand-pva glue mix is a bugger to work with! You can’t just paint it on as Nick Davies implies. Fortunately the effect (tree trunk bark) came out ok. I am going to make more trees following the methods described in this article because I liked the effects but recognise that it is a skill! Thirdly I learned that beer bottle caps do not really look like big waterlily leaves. A paper leaf would have looked better I think.

The pictures are crap, sorry. I am mid-sort out and didn’t have a good place to take pics. I might retake these and change them at a later date. If that has happened you won;t be reading this!

Hope everyone is well and enjoying their hobby!