Dark age church Terrain 30

Still on the terrain shtick. This church is the venerable dapol/ex airfix  church model from 1959, same age as my first car , dapol says they're still using the same 65 + year old moulds and the walls are a bit bendy but at £8 from the model shop in Shrewsbury it's a bit of a bargain I think?  I assembled the walls but with the exception of the bell tower left  the roof off as I wanted a thatched roof . I extended the wall height with foamboard, packed out with some card and added some of the rough brick work plasticard I've used on the burnt out buildings as brickwork, not the block work sheet shown, as that didn't work, I followed the piers down with bits of foamboard and covered them with some card and added a roof made of the same underlay I've done my other half timbered medieval and dark age buildings with. I've seen this church converted  before on a half remembered blog which I can no longer find to acknowledge it but I think it's a useful way of providing my dark age village with a focal point and I'll be using it as a chapel in later periods as well. 

Here it is with the card added to the foamboard and some underlay thatch

 

The image above shows it off it's hardboard base as I've made it detachable to help with storage, there are some foamboard lugs to keep it in position when playing. I've kept the small end roof piece to make a roadside shrine at some point, obviously I've kept the rest of the roof, I just don't have a plan to use it at the moment but as Donnie says, keep everything !

Bit of inspiration, Bengeo old church, it's a Norman church, that is often part of my weekend dog walk, you can see the additions of various finishes from varied periods, obviously not thatched but I'm trying to push it back beyond the 11th century!

Current thatched churches in East Anglia, they've not that unusual there but elsewhere churches were often thatched until they got modernised or updated to show status. These are all thatched in reed and are terribly neat, I wanted something more scruffy, I've seen some rather more overgrown thatch, in more varied materials, which I have tried to emulate.

Given a quick coat of Halfords khaki spray, then some raw umber on the thatch, wet mixed with another brown colour and a raw umber wash on the stone work, some stone colours ( all emulsion) and a bit of flock, seems to work well enough I think and gives my Romano British something to defend, probably with some classical ruins in the background? 

All inspired by Dave Stones Summer of scenery, even if it's a bit more autumnal! This also acts as a kind of prototype for when I start on my equally venerable airfix Roman fort which I'm going to increase in height and  possibly width?

Up next? More terrain, more Napoleonics? Both?

All the best 

Iain 

Classical ruins Terrain 29

 Here are some classical ruins,  I've had a pair of wooden columns and mouldings left over from a job for about 30 years,  I thought I'd make use of them together with some chunky balsa and some plastic sheet I've had for 40 plus years. I've cut the columns into three and stuck them down to some discarded CDs, added the architrave moulding to the balsa and then pva ,sand and grit.

After I did these three I found another old CD and used up some more bits and pieces. Primed with Halfords khaki and then a wash of watered down raw umber and a wet brush of my stone colour in emulsion paints and some flock. 

Good for Italian Wars ( The forum in Rome for the seige 1527?), ancients of course     ( maybe inspired by my relatively recent trip to Greece?), maybe Napoleonic but mainly I was thinking of remnants of empire with my timber framed dark age  buildings in the ruins .

Up next more terrain, more Napoleonics, more dark ages, any  combination of the above!

All the best 

Iain 

Kriegslock Bolt Action Terrain 28

Like Keith I was looking for something vaguely 28mm compatible to be a locomotive for bolt action, either a German Kreigslocomotive or something Soviet,  I  was looking at toy trains I could add to my existing HO/OO track and found this in the Works Cardiff in the summer last year.

Obviously I bought three, it would seem silly not to?

The last two images are German Kreigslocomotives which were a simplified wartime economy steam train, funnily enough there's still a couple working at a Bosnian coal mine, still going after 80 years! The first image is an earlier German train and I think  resembles our Hogswarts express a bit more? So this is the first of three, with our friend the commisar for company. 

I think it's not bad for scale? They're big lumps of resin that needed a fair amount of cleaning up. Sprayed with Halfords black primer and with some wind defenders added to make them look more like the reference drawings , then some raw umber wash, to make it less pristine    ( but not as dirty as the Bosnian ones!), bit of steel colour where the wheels meet the rails. I don't think it's too bad and arrayed in front of my damaged factory I think it'll work well enough, for German or Soviet trains, I just have to build some tenders and carriages and paint the other two, no red flags as that would be too specific, so just dirty black!

All the best 

 Iain 

French supply wagon Napoleonic 78

 Here is a 3d printed Napoleonic French supply wagon from TayloredFiguresGB on etsy,  from the same supplier I got the limbers and horse teams from, although it was actually last Christmas's secret santa present , so a rapid turnaround in my book ! Nice model, not too much clean up, sprayed in Army painter goblin green, black ink on horses and driver, agrax earthshade wash over all the green, bit of metal,horse colours and driver colours,  the tilt was primed in Halfords matt khaki spray. 

Another wagon done, more in the queue, together with Napoleonic infantry, cavalry terrain and some more Romano British. 

All the best 

Iain