Church WIP Part 1

Ok, so about time I did a church...

An unusually appropriately targeted Facebook ad told of a sale on mdf scenery at Wargames Tournaments and a casual browse gave this little church for a tenner (and I think it was free postage as well), so as I pimp up mdf anyway, bare bones for a tenner worked for me...

It’s not bad for the money, the door will need cutting out, but that’s fine, and and laser cut brick texture would be covered anyway so the lack of that in this kit is fine as well. It’s just put together here, no glue as the pimping will be easier on flat pieces. There are decorative window trims as well.

The only two downsides I can see is that one tower wall is too short (above), but that’s fixable and I’m not sure how the roof goes together, no instructions came with it but the rest is obvious and I’ll probably have to tinker anyway as any wall pimping will need to be taken into account. All in all not too bad...

Just need to see the best way to get some big brick work on there.

Barnstorming...

and the cart store/barn - another Blotz kit, I only used the provided beams for the front because - arches... the other sides I did with balsa as usual.. the Blotz beams are serviceable, but they just differ too much from my other buildings... I did try them, but end up stripping them and redoing it all. I tried the brick pattern for the lower panels as well, but I just didn't like the look, so liquid g/s over those bits.

 

rooftiles and spare wheel from Warbases.co.uk, pick axe from I honestly don't remember (came on a sprue with a shovel, sledge hammer and a hoe), the hook was just balsa and plastic rod... just a little bit of something to tart the inside of an otherwise simple building...

Revenants (well zombies but hey...)

OK, so finally got a photo session and so here are the zombies from a while back... not sure my camera is at it's best anymore, it doesn't remember the date or settings when it's turned off... but hey, better pics than I've been managing....

So... Mantic zombies with a variety of g/s to just 17thC them up a bit...

base figures with a bit of g/s to vary clothing and poses a wee bit...

and as an equal opportunities necromancer some lady corpses... g/s for boobs, although one has a boob ripped off as I couldn't get them even. She also has a missing hand, as it seemed unlikely that so many would be carrying around a fresh hand for snacking, so lopped off and a bit of wire for bone and g/s for flesh...

Miller Time (new pics)...

[OK, since I moved house, I've not done any photos of stuff and discovered last week that my new place isn't blessed for lighting like my old place was (skylight and sloped white roof to reflect an anglepoise), so treated myself to a new lightbox, with a built in LED strip, nice and bright, but I need to keep tinkering with my camera I think - anyhoo newer better pics below...]

Finally, here is the watermill...

I added a dovecote to the front wall to cover the expanse of wall without any real feature. Quite happy with it, although it's not that clear. I'll have to redo these pics at some point.

The millstones, cogs and bits are all scratchbuilt, the stairs are from Fenris Games.

The grain sacks are from Ainsty Castings Trade Goods range.

And it connects nicely within the existing river sections. The angled corner eliminates an awkward angle that was created by the adjoining river bank section. In fact I managed to match up the new bit to stuff done 4-5 years ago quite nicely even if I say so myself, but then managed to kill everything when I added gloss to all the pieces... so I had to do some remedial work to rescue them. You can see if you really examine it, but for now, it works for me.

Planning the base...

Okeydoke... thatch is done and in various states of touch up, base coat shenanigans. Base is sand done with patches where I want to blend in the Vallejo texture for hard worn paths. A test fit to check everything looks ok and that is s hell of a wall of nothing on the front. Considering a tree...

Mill interior

 OK, so the interior is kind of done, a couple of small bits will be added but I needed the first floor done so I could attach the roof and needed to do the ground floor at the same time so they would match. Crappy phone pictures still I’m afraid. The exterior is base colour only, I’m thinking thatch for the roof.

EM4 ships and X-Wing

So, I’m picking up the occasional ship for X-Wing still when cheap, with 2nd edition now out it’s easier to get the cards than the models, so a bit of creative licence might be in the offing. So I picked up the spruce of plastic ships from EM4 Miniatures. I’m mainly trying to get a small Scum & Villainy selection, so a bit of a ragtag feel would not go amiss. As you can see, some could work for smaller stuff like the M3-A Interceptor (the pic below is the best comparison I could find online and puts the M3-A at about the length of the Y-Wing engine), or with a bit work a Kihraxz fighter. The more true to scale A-Wing is comparable, and the scaleable Snowspeeder from the Hoth ERTL kits suggest a possible source of Scum speeders for Ground Assault as well. The unpainted X-Wing from the same Hoth kits will eventually make some decent Z-95 Headhunters.

Hmmm...

Mayan bat god... and he’s a horseshoe just like Angel’s demon. The lovely meso-zombies from Antidiluvian Miniatures become more tempting...

https://antediluvianminiatures.wordpress.com/2019/03/27/shop-conquistadors-of-mictlan/

cogs and workings

Just a quick pic (phone still) of the millstones and workings. Quite chuffed with the cogs considering it’s fiddly and little... if you’ve ever stumbled across my Pinterest board you’ll see all the mill diagrams and such, and no way was I going to replicate all that...

Water Mill WIP

OK, so the base to join in with the other river tiles is done. Went through several stages/designs but the main consideration was to avoid making the building look like it cut into the inevitable slope of the river - the slope is a result of placeable river sections and not a incline as far as models are concerned. That resulted in a larger base than originally envisioned, but hey...

I’ve added some texture to the wheel, the plain mdf is serviceable but I’m anal about that kind of thing. This is actually the inner side rather than a before shot as I’m not that organised. Ignore the hole in the middle, that was to allow a plastic tube in for the axel, which is an absent detail from the kit. Also, I was an idiot and built the wheel before thinking about any of this and my efforts then resulted in a broken spoke (hence the white plastic reinforcement).

And the visible side with liquid green stuff added and then scored to give some texture. I made a little irregularly toothed tool to do this and made sure to pick out the existing details of the retaining blocks and so on. Hopefully it will paint up ok. The hub is thin balsa which was hit with a steel brush.

The interior starting mock up. Think this should give the right impression, but I need to make some cogs to transfer the horizontal rotation to the vertical. It’s a basic idea of a mill and not a working model or anything, so gives the right impression I think.

And finally another consideration that I’d not thought of is that a different kit from a different manufacturer means different sized doors. I don’t mind the windows being different, but I do want my doors to be mix and match as needed which means consistency...

diving back in...

So, I’ve been slowly getting a groove on, greenstuffed a load of zombies into the 17th century. I had them kind of half done from a few years back, but finished them off and slapped some paint on them. Not my best, but a) not bad for two plus years absence and 2) I hate doing rank and file and wanted to get them out of the way. Now, my laptop is dead so no fancy pics at the moment as I’m using my phone and no light tent, so a quick “painted something honest” shot below. Basing still to be sorted and will see to doing a photo session later...

Next up then is back to building... saw these online (Blotz.co.uk) and figured a change to the 4ground buildings would be good. The mill is interesting as with my fetish for interiors I’m looking forward to doing some workings in there. 

What is interesting is that the timbers are cut separately and stand proud... normally I’d do that myself with balsa, but may have to see if I can get a rough timber texture on them. The barn is simple enough, an extension floor is available, but I reckon I can do that myself. So far, so good, reckon I won’t go wrong to get a couple more if needed.