Verdun 105 (2): Hair-raising explosions

I have been playing around with ideas for explosion markers to use with Westfront. I have made some from the usual candidate of cotton wool (actually a synthetic stuffing from some cushions that our youngest dog, Xena now three, 'destroyed' when she was a pup!). I hit upon another idea recently, following the dog theme; dog hair.

I was brushing our old dog 'Monty' recently (who turned 12 in December) and thought, as I was pulling the hair from the brush, that the mix of colours could be ideal for explosions. So, I glued a few clumps onto some round latex bases today and was pretty happy with the outcome.

Monty looking well-groomed after his most recent brush

Xena the warrior dog—I might 'harvest' some hair from her too

Dog-hair explosions

The synthetic stuffing, cotton wool-style version

I like the ability to make strands of smoke with this method

Above and below: comparing the two

My dark, trench terrain makes the figures look really dark, especially under artificial light. This is what they look like to my eye.

I might try a mix of the cushion stuffing and hair next time to see if I can generate something a bit more like the images that I have seen in The Times History of the War and other places

Some pictures from The Times History of the War illustrating explosions

Anyway, just a quick update on my Verdun project for now, ahead of something more substantial soon...

On the subject of hair-raising, an unexpected encounter had my wife's hair on end this evening. She went to bring in the chook feeders, which we put away at night to avoid the rodents getting to the pellets, and checked to see if there were any late-laid eggs that we had missed, only to find that we had a visitor in the layer box. Not sure what it was, she decided that I should put the feeders away. Turned out to be a lovely carpet python, that hopefully will help to keep down said rodents.

Look at the beautiful camouflage on this specimen

References

Times, T (1915) The Times History of the War. 5. The Times, London. 516 pp. Available from archive.org (https://archive.org/details/timeshistoryofwa05londuoft)

Times, T (1916) The Times History of the War. 6. The Times, London. 448 pp. Available from archive.org (https://archive.org/details/timeshistoryofwa06londuoft)

Times, T (1916) The Times History of the War. 8. The Times, London. 512 pp. Available from archive.org (https://archive.org/details/timeshistoryofwa08lond)