Wednesday 28 March 2012

old timber frame cottage part 3

interior is done... -ish... pondering some furniture, and need to do the ladder access to upstairs...

the fire was made from blue insulation foam, two pins, splintered matchsticks and superglue... the flaw there involved the hole from the pin leading to unprotected foam which promptly melted and collapsed when the superglue found it's way down there... g/s replaced that bit, sadly it looked better beforehand, but it will do...

Thursday 22 March 2012

old timber frame cottage part 2

ok... terrible pictures, but progress of sorts - I had been worried the render wasn't working, so gave it a spray undercoat to get a better feel for it... that worked ok, a few spots needed more definition, so I stippled some liquid g/s in spots... windows were added and the door and lintel... the windows and door lintel are from the detail kit, with a bit of texture added to the lintel again with liquid g/s... the door was made from 2mm balsa, with a latch made from g/s - it's loosely hinged, so can be open, closed or kicked in...

and then to the roof... tried thatch as I couldn't face cutting all those tiles... some nice tutorials can be found here for teddy fur and here for towelling... I went the towelling route, as they were dirt cheap in primark... not 100% about it yet, it looks ok, but I was a bit over enthusiastic with the brushing down and trimming, so patches needed replacing... this was especially true for the split where the roof seperates to give access to the first floor, a good hard line there helps a bit... the roof is taking an age... I think I've managed to replicate the weave ok in g/s, but won't know for certain til I can undercoat that... it may all get removed before long...

now, the sharp eyed will have noticed the absense of a chimney, Levied Troop over on Frothers pointed me towards a very useful little book... Discovering Timber Framed Buildings - it's dirt cheap (from £2 something used) and has some great illustrations... including the evolution of the chimney, so I went with a smoke hood rather than a chimney proper - that will stay regardless of what I do with roof...

Thursday 8 March 2012

Who Dares WIP

some g/s'ing has been afoot while waiting for Tudor cottage things to set/dry...

finally found some 80's SAS I can live with:

TAG Modern SWAT with gasmask heads from Eureka and some g/s - I did buy some of the Urban Beat SAS from North Star, but they are so skinny they looked silly next to normal 28mm figs... these will be doing duty as special forces back up obviously...

Lewis Collins in waiting:

a Rogue miniatures not-DieHard terrorist with new feet, soon to get some new hands and when I get my head order a new head... undecided which one, may be the Man from 2000...

and my super spy:


another Rogue Miniatures figure, this time a not Steve McQueen - I'm torn when it comes to Rogue minis, they have some nice ideas, but some odd sculpts... off came the small head and the small hand with a vague blobby revolver, some g's to give him some bigger feet (why the Rogue minis all have such small extremities I have no idea, they just look weird) and his remaining hand was bulked out... the shoulder holster was sculpted very oddly at the rear, I get that they were aiming for tight and elasticated, but the thing was sculpted so deep into his back it looked like something from a Saw movie, so g/s over that and a new rear holster made... the head is from the Man from 2000 from Crooked Dice, as is the gun (made less sci-fi and more silencer) - this head is quite close to the original in style, just bigger and better... sadly the Hasslefree heads are a little too large for the slighter Rogue Mini's, but the Crooked Dice heads work just fine... I almost went with the beardy Tweedy for this chap, but the MF2000 seemed more in keeping...