Back On The Farm

This project is a rather gritty, but fairly realistic example of what happens to normal farm animals caught up between warring forces. They die.

The inspiration for this project, a series of dead horses, came from the movie 'Saving Private Ryan' where some GI's seek cover behind - what else but - the dead, bloated, carcasses of cattle killed and left in the fields during WWII.

The horses were a dollar store find - four for a dollar, wooden fence pieces included. Their scale is slightly large for 28mm, but when laying on the ground the difference is not as noticeable as if they were upright. Dismemberment also adds to disguise the differences in scale.
My goal was to litter the field with the freshly killed remains of the animals. They were dismembered with an x-acto knife and 'guts' added with a hot glue gun for effect. They were dismembered then based on corrugated card using hot glue.

see the mini for scale - dead horses are 1/2 or soft cover.

Next time I would use something sturdier that makes it easier to finish the base with sand and other suitable rubble without it warping. The test horse (done in white) Was finished with a cat-litter crater. The rubble is too large and continually breaks off, as well as providing a very unstable base to stand miniatures on (they don't stay upright).

After this test run, I decided to finish the others with only a plain black spray paint and lots of blood splatter. I find the blood shows up better on the black ground than on an earth-colored base, however in future I would finish the base with fine sand, add the horse, finish around the animal with fine sand, and seal it all with a watered down PVA before painting it appropriately. The horses would stand out better if painted in several natural colour schemes.

I'm happy with the end result, even if it appears very simplistic - the pieces are highly playable and the perfect thing to make crossing an open field in a game so much easier, and more intresting. The Horses all seem to have looks of terror on their faces, as if they were scared by the sound of the artillery before it hit and blew them apart.