Market Hall WIP 6

The Market Hall gaol gets some straw and a slop bucket. The straw is bristles cut from an old toothbrush, the bucket from a very handy set of market goods from Etsy.

Mainly baskets , barrels and sacks of grain and veg, a couple of empty baskets and half barrels allowed for dressing both the gaol and also the base of the orange trees I did, complete with some oranges that came off the Temu trees.

This is the rest of the set in progress. That’s a lot of fennel…

 

Market Hall - a splash of colour

I needed to paint some colour… and the plan was always to have some decorative bits.

 

Market Hall WIP 5

And timbers and plaster done - well barring a bit of a dry brush and any touch ups. It doesn’t match the older buildings, but then none of those paints exist anymore so I had to try closest matches. But then some variety doesn’t hurt either.

Tiles to do, but for now think I may change tack a bit and do something a bit different. Quite happy with this though, the doors work well.

Market Hall WIP 4

Plodding on, not had much mojo lately, but doing little bits often so getting stuff progressing… just the roof tiles to add then painting…

I wanted something carved on the topmost roof section, so I could ID which way round it goes instantly. Toyed with various options, but decided a carved relief of some kind. Much searching and a callout on Lead Adventure provided a bit from the Pegasus Hobbies grim dark cathedral sets.

Now the downside with adding balsa is everything gets a touch bigger. So roof extensions. But the end result should be good. Need to tidy my desk I think.

Market Hall WIP 2

First two floors almost done. Haven’t settled on the stairs yet. I want to do a courtroom and have the mezzanine as a viewing gallery. If I do an accused box, it won’t be able to take a 25mm base, that would be too big. I’m thinking of just a judges chair and table and a clerks desk. But waiting on that to arrive before committing. Still need to hit the balsa with a wire brush as well.

 

Market Hall WIP 1

Some pimping begins… managed to track down a 4ground market hall at a similar price to when it was in production, so it needs to be brought up to match my other 4ground stuff… interiors textured and a little balsa for the door and window lintels for a bit of depth. Need a lot of balsa to start the timbers externally so just tarted the door to the cell.

Other pics of my older 4ground buildings can be found here, here and here…

Would be nice if some picked them up to continue the line…

Pseudo Peninsular Property - the full village

Finished the vaguely peninsular styled buildings. Three buildings, with accessible interiors, a ruin and a variety of garden inserts designed to allow the various buildings to be arranged in different ways around a village ‘square’ rather than just the grass of the terrain board.

I think a chapel or something will be needed down the line. 

The fountain (from Fenris Games, with a cherub from Reaper Miniatures, as the original fountain was very eldritch) is not permanent of course, allowing the addition of other centre pieces - a guillotine or a market (which is still WIP) for now…

Furnished something else...

So I’ve been busy doing stuff... including starting a new job which has jollied me along a bit. I’ve had these for an age, tables for the Manor House/Inn and other buildings. They are from Ainsty Castings, but I have altered these though, making each table narrower by removing some planks - I did this for space when in a building and also think it fits better with the slighter historical minis I’m using over dungeon crawl type minis. I also removed some more fantasy elements from the full tables and added a couple of tankards in places. The tankards are white metal and I have no idea where they came from.

As I’d trimmed the table tops, the resin legs didn’t work, so I made some legs from plasticard and plastic U beams, wood grain was carved into the plasticard end pieces and job done...

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.

more cottaging...

and finally the 2nd house gets some slap... apologies for the pics, I've moved my light-tent/lighting setup and need to adjust the camera settings, but you get the idea... it needs doors making and windows fitting - quite why I always leave the doors til after I've painted I don't know...

this one has a removable outbuilding, for variety, it can be used with or without just to change things up a wee bit...

inside gets a rather spiffy kit from Petite Properties - 1/48 dolls house stairs, had to raise the walls of the ground floor a little (which also gives it a bit of variety from the first house) and leave out a couple of steps to fit, but it works well I reckon.

ok, so that didn't work out as I'd planned

so, partial mojo renewed at least... however the wonders of Norovirus and then my PC crapping out on me have not helped. So, despite pissing out of my arse for a week, having no PC for even longer and then loading a new operating system (and every little program or plug in you needed - seriously, never had that happen before, bloody Linux, back to Windows for me...), I still haven't been back on form modelling wise, partly a rediscovered love of boardgames is to blame, but also mainly Borderlands 2... but, I have been doing stuff (besides trying to remember every reference photo or pdf or link I lost in the crash), so viola:

just a tease for now, as the inside is trying something new (which looks great, but I want a big reveal)... ok, so another building, literally another Old Timber Frame Cottage from 4ground, but I've tried to vary it a little bit - hence the shift of the overhang being all at the front and, if you're sharp eyed enough, the ground floor is a little taller - so it doesn't look too identical to the other one. This one will have a tiled roof, so should be sufficiently different when finished. The chimney is bluefoam with random bricks etched in and then toughened up with liquid g/s. Splits in the chimney for the floors are similar to the big chimney in the Manor House, but I'll do close ups of those another time.

Now the overhang was originally going to take the wonderful Gothic Corbels from Antenociti, but I simply cannot find the damn things, I've looked everywhere and I know I had some somewhere... I would buy some more (£2 for 6), but postage would be £4 - I may yet cave in, as that overhang needs something to offset it and I'm now commited. Another building will be worked on next and then hopefully both will be painted together (with the Manor House, if I can decide how to finish the Gate House upper floor), but will need windows, lots and lots of windows...

EDIT: finally found the Corbels - which was a double result as they were in the same bag as the GW Green Man wall sconces, which would have been annoying if I'd realised that...

wood for the trees and other vistas

ok, excuse the poor photos (colours really aren't being done credit), but have finally got stuff to stick to the sodding trees... it looks much more blended in real life, but job done (finally). The big trees sadly just didn't work, tried and tried to get them looking as I intended and just couldn't - so chopped them down and used the bases for thickets (as I was very happy with the bases), these are a good solid line of sight blocker, and will be doing some smaller ones as well to help make a more overgrown woodland-ish look. The new and improved foliage of course meant I needed to redo my bushes, so the hillfort and other bits of undergrowth have been redone to match the thickets, again, photos don't really do it justice... but as I said, more bits are in progress as I've run out of Burnt Umber.

 as the trees were to big to really get in the light tent, the board came out, which then dovetailed into a request someone on Frothers made to see it all, so above is the woodland in progress, with stone circle and hillfort, and below is the coaching inn, the blacksmiths and the two houses...

this has been surprising useful in that it fills the area better than I had thought - I have two more 2-storey houses to build which should about do it, along with some little bits for flavour (a well and some mud/dirt roads/townsquare), plus of course I still want to do a church and graveyard as a 3rd option (none of which yet exists). Also unseen is the river side which would roughly fill the bottom corner area above, and numerous hedges I built ages back when I was working to fill a larger area, plus some drystone walls from Fenris Games.

I know I plod along at this and am easily distracted, but am quite chuffed looking at it how good it's coming together... even if I do say so myself.

plague house...

This was one of my Salute purchases... kind of an impulse really as I'd been umming and arring over a few lasercut buildings... technically, this was one of the prepainted models I think, as it had a touch more detail on it and this particular building (the medium Medieval hovel) isn't available as a basic kit like the timber frame cottage... either way I got to work...

 as before, balsa added for timbers, but I tried liquid g/s for the render on this one, and it gave an interesting finish when stippled...

the cracks and exposed wattle are part of the original lasercut kit... the inside came with a seperate sheet of mdf for the detailed interior, I didn't use this as I was going to dress the interior myself, and it also meant I had two buildings (all bar a roof) from the same kit... the frame of the fire pit is included, with added sand for ash and some chopped up matchsticks for burnt logs, the straw is the bristles from an old toothbrush - I wasn't sure that was going to work at first as it's a bit disconcerting looking at pink and blue bits at the bottom of your model...

the kit also comes with some teddy fur for thatching, but as I'd already done towelling, I did it again here... I original tried a single piece, but that didn't look right, so did some uneven strips - my intention for this was an old hovel away from any village, so it would be dirty, unused and grotty... annoyingly, I'm not 100% sure that the thatch has worked this time, the colour seems a little bit off...

oh, and I just couldn't resist the plague cross on the door... I know it should be red, but that seemed a bit too garish...