Settling the Settlers - The People of Catan

So remember way back to my post about sheep and the HO scale? If not, there's an entire miniature collection that's called the HO scale. (Hilarious, I know!) It's popular amongst the model train crowd. So in addition to my HO sheep, I wanted to add some people to take care of the sheep, and participate in various other resource related activities. So I went and bought some HO people...and now they are settling Catan. Since I made my model resources for the blog first, I was able to incorporate the people into some of the other hexes. You may recall me mentioning that they have HO people in some R rated situations.  I haven't added those...yet.  I'm really tempted.  I think it would be a good laugh every time I laid the board out. Get it?  Laid?  Hahaha...I really shouldn't use this blog as a forum for my terrible sense of humour.

Anyways, here are some of the other resources with the HO people. These are all the Preiser figurines, but I think the naughty ones are Noch.


Lumberjack HO figurine on the lumber/wood resource

   



Moving bricks around on the brick resource



Harvesting the wheat on the grain resource

 



Shepherd watching over his flock on the wool/sheep resource




Harvesting ore from the ore resource




The Wool Resource aka "Sheep"

Ok, so wheat is done.  What next?  Again by random choice of what foam got glued next is... sheep!


HO Scale Sheep

 Did you know you can buy miniature sheep, that just happen to be the perfect size for a 3D Model of Catan?  They were at the train model store, the same place I happened across my delightful wheat!  Apparently you can purchase many miniature animals and people - even miniature people caught in compromising situations! I'm still trying to figure out how I can work them into Settlers.  Alas, I don't think I can ... unless maybe they were in the desert. And the name of the scale? HO. Hilarious.

Anyways, the sheep come in 3 different positions.  Standing, laying, and eating grass.  The package came with 18 white sheep and 1 black sheep, so I'm going to average 4 white sheep per hex.  I'm also toying with the idea of using a sheep on the port hex.  Haven't quite figured that out yet.

Sheep with painted bases



So the only downside to my perfectly sized, little sheepies is that they come attached to white bases, presumably so that they don't fall over. That's great and all, but my hex is green, so they stand out a bit.  Fortunately I found some old acrylic paint I used at Christmas, and painted the bases a lovely Christmas green. I would recommend two coats to cover the base, as the white really wants to shine through.

Hot Glue Ponds & Streams

The sheep still stood out a bit, so I thought I'd add some grass for them to munch on. I took some grass shaped moss from my moss grab bag, and applied the same podgey technique used to stiffen the wheat.  Satisfied that it wouldn't immediately crumble, I also painted it the same Christmas green as the sheep's bases.

Well my sheep now have grass to eat, but nothing to drink.  Thinking my sheep would get thirsty, I made little ponds to place by the grass.  Do real shepherds have little ponds they take the sheep to?  I have no idea.  But my sheep would have water dammit! Using a hot glue gun on a non stick surface, I experimented with different shaped ponds and streams. After they (quickly) dried/cooled, I peeled them off and painted the bottoms blue. The end result?  I've got some sheep that are chilling and eating and my second resource done!

Completed Wool/Sheep hex with sheep, grass and water