More bits!

Another order has just arrived from the terrain store. They do precast hirst arts blocks at a very reasonable rate, this little pile was about 12quid I think. The casts are pretty good, though the plaster is softer than the type I use myself. Don't see it beng a problem though, the church tower is made from them and they're fine.

Unwrapped and put in this box to dry out, sitting in the sun yesterday has done that so they're ready to go.

I bought two types of floor slabs, 1 1/2" square each. There are basic rough textured slabs, then a mixed bag of bricks, herringbone and concentric. All look great and will be awesome in my town square as my chess board.

Speaking of the chess board, I'm going to go for dwarfs vs chaos dwarfs. Should be great, though I'll have to convert my own CDs since the old plastics go for a fortune on ebay, and the new ones are rumoured to be FW only. Hardly a cheap solution. Chaos Dwarf Online has lots of guides for converting and I'm not bad with greenstuff, so I'm sure I'll manage.

Just wish I had more time to work on this, work is batshit insane at the moment and taking up a big chunk of my free time. Still, when I'm retired by 35 I'll have plenty of time to work on my models. hehe.

The Watch house

This is the watch house itself then. It's quite large as you can see, but I intentionally reduced the size of the main block so it didn't dwarf the watch tower. The link to the tower will be on the other side of the main block.

The small block on the right sits over the stables, still not sure if I'm going to do that as a hay loft or actual rooms. Ideally I'd like it to look like a converted hay loft but I'm not sure I can manage that.

The basic premise (need to find a decent spot to write down these themes) behind this is a coaching inn which was built in the shelter of a watch tower. As the town grew the watch commandeered the building, linked the tower to the inn block and started using it as their headquarters.

Oh yes, there's logic behind everything I do. Honest ;)

Brewery Base

Done a bit more to the brewery base. I appreciate this blog isn't really showing the whole picture, so I'll try and take more explanatory photos.

This is the type of bases I'm using for the whole town. 40cm squared. The polystyrene is about 2inches thick, and it will go up to three layers high. The first layer is the basic road, allowing for digging down for the canal and sewers/basement steps etc.
The second and third layer will give me nice height to the whole town when complete. I hope.

The brewery goes up one level, but it will be an enclosed courtyard so it won't need to join onto anything. All sides will be textured so tiles can butt together even if there are mismatched layers.

The space front right is for the town house, the little triangle front left is a running theme through the boards, just a small section of cobbles to give a consistency to the boards so they should join nicely. The roads are all done from textured wallpaper.

Should get a photo of each of the boards with the current buildings in place.

Church Roof

Hah, sounds like it should be a fundraising event. However the church roof is started, has been for a while. I'm really happy with the whole church, the dimensions are rather pleasing.

The other side of the roof is complete, just need to finish off this one, then join them together. Could be tricky since the glue seems to have warped the foamboard for some reason. I'll build an a-frame then clamp the sides to it, all should be ok.

I've also come up with a solution for the missing pieces in the window frames, hacked an old pencil to pieces! Just needs a spot of plasticard and should be sorted.

Current Plans

Just a quick run down of the current ideas bubbling around in my head.

Town square. This one is next, I've ordered some pre-cast 1inch square floor pieces to save me casting them (shame they don't do the 1" by 1/2" I need for the watchhouse). It's going to be a raised square with steps all around and a small slope to get carts up (for market day!).

The basic idea is I'm going to build it in such a way it will double is a chess board. Then I'll build a chess set from dwarves and probably greenskins to be traditional. Should be a nice showpiece when I eventually sort out some cabinets to store these things in.

Waterwheel. There's going to be a canal in the town to give me opportunity for bridges and docks and so on. One thing I really want to add is a waterwheel. Next to a mill or something, bit fuzzy on the finer details.

Mordheim gangs. So I don't game, never have really, but I thought it'd be a shame to not at least have a couple of gangs for this scenery. So I've bought a few dwarf warriors I'm going to convert into a treasure hunter band. Not sure what the others will be, probably just humans of some description.

Bloodbowl. I started a bloodbowl pitch a while ago. I'm thinking I might try and turn it into a stadium and use it as double or even quadruple tile for the board. Would fit the style quite nicely and follow the theme of the chess set of "useful" terrain pieces. We'll see.

Things are moving along well, despite a couple of holidays in the past few weeks. Very happy at how easy to paint the watchtower roof was. Painting is always my major bugbear. I have dozens of unpainted miniatures (ok hundreds, but who's counting?), and it's where I always stumble. I want to get the church painted up next just to prove to myself it's easy. Then we should be ok!

Watch Tower Roof

The watchtower roof is now complete. Very happy with the finished result, colour is a little darker than shows in the pics. The build was easy, and the paintjob itself very simple. A bright blue undercoat, a black wash (both cheap poster paint), then drybrush with a light grey to "mucky" it up a bit.

I'm going to use this roof style across all the slate roofed buildings. I figure a small town like this would most likely use the same quarry anyway and it'll bring uniformity across the rag tag collection of buildings.

Also done the wooden ballustrade around the top of the tower, as well as the door. This all needs painting now.

Having trouble casting enough floor blocks for the base, might need to buy a different mould. I only have 1 of the pieces I need, and I need several dozen to get it finished. Most frustrating.

Church Walls

The church now has the real wall sorted. I'm not 100% happy with the design of the front corner, but I think suitably detailed and painted it should be ok. Not restarting now!

Need to come up with a solution for the bottom of the window arches, don't have enough actual pieces (or a mould to cast from!) so need something else. Sure I'll find something.

Bought some more ink for the printer and transparent paper so I can print out the windows. Then I'm going to cut cardboard overlays to paint up the same colour as the stonework. Should all be ok I reckon.

Random Postage

Quick random one. Was in the range (a rather useful hobby/stuff shop) the other day and bought a little case for all my hirst arts casts. Works really well, much better than having them kicking around in a box lid like before.

Watch Tower

Working on the railings for the top of the watch tower. I think it should look pretty good when done. Ideally want to do diagonal cross pieces as well, but I think I'll probably get frustrated trying to cut the angles and give up. hah.

The roof is done now, just needs edging strips to tidy the corners. I've also cut the door, which just needs hinges and bolts adding.

Not photo'd it, but got most of the courtyard done too. The street needs cobbling (found some great wallpaper at the diy shop which looks like cobbles), and lots of gaps need detailing, but should look ok I hope. Want to get this board painted up before I have to go back to work a week on monday.

Watch Tower

The watch tower is coming along nicely. Started the peaked roof. It should look a little more coherent once the walkway has a wall and support posts in place.

Fairly simple construction, just foam board base and supports, then thin card for the triangles. Finally long strips of card with snips in for cheap and easy tiles. I'll then trim the corners with edging strips to make the whole thing neat and tidy.

Hoping to get something painted next week, which'll be nice.

Church back thingy

Definitely need to learn some church terminology. Started a little lean-to affair at the back of the church. It's going to be clad in wood, then tiled in the same way as the main church roof. Adds a little interest and detail to the shape, and saves me casting a lot of bricks ;)

As you can see still lots to do, but it's progress. Also working on the rear wall above this part. As soon as I have a few more blocks cast I'll be able to finish the main body and start working on the roof.