And Cardboard turns into masonry! Homemade 1/1000 terrain -A tutorial of sorts-

[Union Jack]

Some History of the islands: (Especially the Nautilus!)

During the French Revolutionary Wars the Royal Navy held the islands for nearly seven years as a strategic forward base. In July 1795 British sailors and marines from the Western Frigate Squadron under the command of Captain Sir Sidney Smith in Diamond occupied the islands. Smith dedicated several gunvessels, including Badger, Hawke, Shark, and Sandfly, the latter purpose-built for the role, to provide materials and manpower for fortifying the islands and establishing a naval garrison. Royal Engineers helped construct redoubts and shore batteries that detachments of marines and Royal Artillery, who augmented the sailors, helped man. In December 1795 the crew of Shark mutinied, in part because of the harsh conditions on the islands, and handed her over to the French.

The islands served as a forward base for the blockade of Le Havre, a launching point for intercepting coastal shipping, and as a transit point for French émigrés. The British repelled a major attack on 7 May 1798 by French troops at the battle of the Îles Saint-Marcouf, with minimal British but heavy French casualties.
The Nautilus (1800).

The islands almost made naval history in late 1800. On 12 September Robert Fulton sailed his submarine the Nautilus, to Growan, near Isigny-sur-Mer, a small harbour near the islands. His objective was to use his submarine to attack the British gunvessels protecting the islands. He made two attempts, but each time his targets sailed before he could reach them. Then bad weather as winter approached prevented any further attempts.[1] Although Fulton continued work on his concept, he never again threatened the islands.
French control

The British returned the islands to France under the terms of Article 3 of the 1802 Treaty of Amiens; the last British forces left the islands in May 1802. Napoleon ordered the islands fortified and the work began in 1803. The primary defences consisted of a fort on Île du Large, 170 meters in diameter. The main structure is a circular fort with a diameter of 53 meters, with 48 firing ports for cannon on two levels of 24 casemates each. This work was completed by 1812. There are seven underground chambers and a cistern. The fort could accommodate 500 troops.

In 1840 a lighthouse was constructed within the fort. German forces destroyed it during World War II.

Later construction, between 1860 and 1867, added a quay, a powder magazine, and a semaphore station, the whole encircled with moats carved into the rock. In 1871, 200 Communards from the Paris Commune were incarcerated here in deplorable conditions. The total complex covers 2.5 hectares. The quay has since disappeared, reclaimed by the ocean.

On Île de Terre, the fortifications date to between 1849 and 1858. They consist of a shore battery and a guard house capable of housing some 60 troops. Neither island was ever attacked again, or at least not until the 20th Century.

[2500kgm3]

Some History of the islands

Thanks for the history reference, Union Jack

Now we have a clear target. It's time to make templates!

Step 2) Getting ready

Before grabbing the knife, I find necessary to make some preparations.

First, I decided which image to use as a plan for the island. In the end I chose to follow the satellite images available via Google Earth instead of closely following the drawings of the era for two reasons:

-Being able to measure the island using the proper tool in Google earth made it easier to determine actual size and makes it easier to scale the model. Some times it's really hard to figure out scale in old, hand drawn plans at low resolutions.

-It seems the water level has risen over the years, and Ille du Large is not really large anymore. Since I'm trying to keep my terrain as small as possible for gameplay purposes, I justified ignoring the age appropiate plans that show a bigger island and go with the smaller version.

So I started drawing the outline of the terrain, the fortifications, and any other thing I considered important.



Then scaled it to 1:1000. I had tried with 1:2000 before, but it looked so wrong next to the 1:1000 ships that I decided to go with the proper scale and don't mess with any other option. Having ships raised half a centimeter by the base during gameplay doesn't do any favours to terrain in the right scale, but it is way worse if the terrain is smaller than it should!

Finally, I printed plans of the islands with a grid of one centimeter. The regular plan will help me when trying to model and sculpt on top of the island, but I also printed a mirrored version of the plans which will be useful when I transfer the outline of the islands to polystyrene.




Since I am working with several centimeters thick struded polystyrene the angle at which the knife enters the polystyrene through one side can cause important deviations on the outline drawn on the opposite side. Therefore I wanted to draw the outline of the island in the side of the polystyrene which was going to be glued to the base I was using, as it shhould be the one closely resembling the outline of the island. Given that this drawing would end upside down glued to the base, I used the mirrored plan to make sure the actual island outline was not mirrored when not upside down.




I first drew a grid equal to the one in the drawing in the polystyrene, labeled it, and used it as a reference for copying the outline of the plan, but there are many other ways to transfer a drawing into a polystyrene surface.

I also made templates with the shape of the cardboard pieces which would become the fortifications main building. I usually think about model buildings as onions, as I add layers of cardboard cut in shapes over previous layers to detail them.



Actual modelling comes next! I promise xD