Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Old West => Topic started by: pocoloco on March 14, 2013, 06:16:54 AM
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Ay caramba! As I wouldn't have already too many projects going on and keeping me not-finishing any of them I started yet another one. Or actually I came back to the Old West as I used to have a small village project, Hickville, some years ago. But this is a totally new start, new minis and new scenery.
The town is named 'Dos Cruces' and it's located somewhere near Mexican border. Actually it was founded by Mexican/Spanish ages ago but now the present population includes also newer arrivals from the East Coast and from the Old World as well. My plan buildingswise is to show the older era in two buildings that have remained intact and in use after all these years, abode church and cantina type of building (I will try to scratchbuild those). Rest of the buildings will be more in style of "traditional" Old West buildings, meaning that I might purchase few laser-cut buildings to speed up the terrain accumulation process. Then I need a cemetary of some sorts, with two old stone crosses (Dos Cruces, see?) and gallows, of course.
But to show that I have actually started doing something, I shall present you a wip picture of the oldest wooden building of Dos Cruces, I think it might be a granary of some sort. It has three floors, the upper floor being a later addition to it. Still needs a roof and I'm thinking of giving it a basic plank roof, my wife says I should make a shake/shingle roof instead :) Will paint it to very weathered grey to show its age.
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plowbuild2_zps35ee953c.jpg)
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plowbuild1_zpsd2a317be.jpg)
Any comments and feedback welcome.
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Lookin' good. I get excited every time I see a new project in this sub-section. Keep up the good work!
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Hmmm, looks quite interesting so far! :)
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A good start, mate.
The woodwork has a very authentic look to it.
:-*
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Thank you pistoleros for your comments. I hope to finish and clean the build of the granary today. Still undecided about the roof of it: the planked roof would be most robust and maybe fitting for this old and shanty building but also adode tiles (how am I going to do those? ??? ) would fit the theme as well.
Having spent part of my museum career in the environment with 18th and 19th century rural buildings I had had a vision for a granary for some time already, what a better way to incorporate it than Old West setting.
List of buildings planned to do so far:
- granary (started)
- abode church, Spanish mission style, 18th century (plans sort of ready, starting next weekend latest)
- abode cantina, Spanish mission style, 18th century, building previously used for habitation, now in use as local cantina, 2˝ stories?
- cemetary, needs two stone crosses, included on same base as the church?
- gallows, can't have a town/ville without them
List of buildings to purchase:
- stables (livery stable from Hovels, Masons stable looks so good, the price is right and can be used for other settings as well)
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Looking forward to seeing this progress, Pocoloco.
- stables (livery stable from Hovels, Masons stable looks so good, the price is right and can be used for other settings as well)
It is a nice building, I would recommend it.
You have to remember that mine was the pre-painted version.
All I did was a little drybrushing and a few washes and then finished the base.
It will be a part of the start of my own Old West town later on in the year.
I have a few recent acquisitions from Bobble to add to it now too.
I will be watching your thread, amongst others, to pilfer ideas from.
;)
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Oh, well I don't mind painting scenery etc, miniatures on the other hand are a different matter ;)
Surely you already have a name for your project? And sneak peak for us about the buildings you already have? ;)
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Oh, well I don't mind painting scenery etc, miniatures on the other hand are a different matter ;)
lol
Surely you already have a name for your project? And sneak peak for us about the buildings you already have? ;)
Not revealing my hand until I am ready to devote some time to the project.
Soon.
:D
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Ok, I had to try nevertheless :D
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Looks like a great start. I think I would go with a planked roof on that. Tiles were not commonly used on "working" buildings.
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Thanks Heisler, good thing that I didn't listen to wife (this time) and went for the planking, will post a pic or tomorrow. It does look quite crude but I blame the inhabitants of Dos Cruces who have decided to add the third level to old granary thus the building got a new roof at the same go.
Now planning/drawing the church and hopefully get a proper start on it this weekend.
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Not much of an update but here's a pic of the granary with planked roof. Planks do look too biggish at least in the picture, and irl almost too big. It will have to do for now, since it is removable I can easily redo it later on. Ponderin a bit about the size of the adode church, since Dos Cruces is not a thriving town the church will not be too big but I kind of still would like to do it in cross shape but that might make it too big... decisions, decisions... will have to wait for Saturday though, this evening is reserved for the Cirque du Soleil :-*
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plowbuild3_zpsbe7a8b28.jpg)
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Looks great :-*
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For a small church the cross style is probably not appropriate and not very common in the southwest US anyway. I think you should take a look at the adobe church from Sarissa Precision (http://www.sarissa-precision.co.uk/store/oldwestHR/ (http://www.sarissa-precision.co.uk/store/oldwestHR/)). I think that will give you some inspiration. I know there is a resin one out there somewhere but I don't remember who makes it.
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JR used to make one I believe, but they closed up shop. The Sarissa looks good - if you can get a proper finish on it. I agree though, there are not many cross-style churches. In fact in a place such as Dos Cruces, the chances are that your church would be very poor..a single rusty bell, an awning made of dried out cactus pulp etc. Some poor white-wash and white washed stones indicating the path to the front door.
I had a crappy old adobe church in several of the Indian towns I worked in - shame I never took pictures. :-I
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Arnica is the other company that makes a resin version of an adobe church. I forgot who acquired that line. Some one acquired the JR Miniatures line as well but I'm not sure who did that and I don't remember seeing any annoucements.
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Many thanks for the inspiring words and insight good Sirs, much appreciated.
Many good points have been raised regarding the shape, size and looks of the abode church and I have kept those in mind. There are some Spanish mission churches in cross shape with quite nice facades but it is quite true that they are quite big, especially regarding Dos Cruces and its size. Thus I will be rather going for something like in the pic in the link below than something that used to be too grand and posh.
edit: will post pic later, huge link otherwise.
edit: if you google Calera mission chapel, you get the idea what I have in mind. Won't post pics, as I have no rights to those pics.
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Sorry for double posting, here's the granary painted on a piece of mdf board that will be its base:
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plow130316_03_zpsc174e670.jpg)
And couple of close-ups, first from the front:
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plow130316_02_zps50d6fda8.jpg)
And from the back... yes, it has a backdoor, but openeble only from inside... unless one has a proper skeletonkey in form of shotgun thus Paco has to stay outside for timebeing :D
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plow130316_zps362aa370.jpg)
Now to tackle the adobe church issue...
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I really like how the grainary came out, great work! I like the pictures of Calera mission chapel I think that's a good choice to use as an example.
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That has certainly come out well.
:-*
Dont forget to pay just as much attention to the base as you did to the building itself... ;)
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Thanks Heisler. Although the Calera mission is quite newish, it has still quite proper Old West feeling to it. I think I will add an small sacristy to Dos Cruces church/chapel and prolly give the whole building a flat roof as it seemed to be quite common in older Spanish mission type of churches... and good people of Dos Cruces have been lazy to replace it with a ridge roof.
Thanks Mason. Building will be based... I need to ponder proper look for the ground. Arid and dusty? Arid yet with few patches of bushes or tufts of hay thereabouts? I also will add some flock on the roof of the granary, owner has not been cleaning the roof and moss gathers, even in Dos Cruces :)
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And here are two wip pics of the Iglesia de San Lorenzo de Dos Cruces, the hombre posing by the entrances is a Pinkerton detective, just to show some scale. The plastering needs to be sanded on some parts and on the other side of the church (not show) I left deliberately few spots without plastering so that I try to make the abode work showing... we'll see how it goes. Roof will be a flat one, need to finish plastering from the inside as well.
Still pondering if I should make a smallish adjoined sacristy or not... I could make it out of wood, just to give more colour to this terrain piece. Also will make a small cemetary (Camposanto Viejo) with two crosses next to the church.
Hope to finish the plastering and make the wooden doors and door & window frames tomorrow evening after slaving in the office. After that, no other "decorations" except finding a bell and maybe a cross on the backwall.
Anyways, here are the pics for your viewing "pleasure".
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plow130317_zps720cd128.jpg)
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plow130317_02_zps13d39af8.jpg)
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That is absolutely spot on to what I used to see in the desert. Very appropriate.
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Sounds good. And a good thing is, I don't need to paint the wall surface that much, it looks quite good the way it is already. Had an idea to put floor planking inside instead of having just plain earth ground, how does that sound?
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Definitely looking good! I think floor planking is pretty much mandatory for most structures. Places that would still have dirt floors, would be homes and such. Commercial structures in particular want wood floors to protect merchandise and a beautiful wood floor would be mandatory for a church, there is to much pride amongst the population to not have a wood floor.
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Good point on the local peoples pride, even if the parish would be quite poor there would prolly be some sort of planked floor. Now the big question is would it be wide planks (like the upper part of the granary) or slimmer planks (rest of the granary). If I use big wide planks and carve the sides a little here and there, it might do the trick.
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I don't think it matters to much. It should just be neat, they are going to do their best work here.
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Maybe the good (and the bad and the ugly) people of Dos Cruces don't have any good carpenters amongst them as the current status of the church floor planking shows ;) Managed to finish the floor to what is seen in the pic below, also one window frame is done. After all frames are done, need to work bit more on the plaster work and then finish the roof. After that some detail work and then it will be finished and gets to wait its turn with the basing work.
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/plow20130319_zpsdf172192.jpg)
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I think that looks pretty darn good! Perhaps some base boards would help neaten up the appearance. You could get really adventurous and add some nail holes as well. :D
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Some very swift progress, Pocoloco.
Very impressive!
:-*
A couple of quick and dirty pews and an altar should finish that interior off nicely.
;)
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Thank you Sir.
Altar should be quite easy to do but did the Catholic churches or missions have pews back then? Anyone with the info on that?
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Poorer communities are not as likely as affluent communities to have pews. It may not be common to not have pews but it would not be unusual either.
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Terve! (one of the few words I know in Finnish :D)
That's really nice work there, as been said elsewhere, this forum is very inspirational but expensive...
I would go with only a simple altar and a bell rope (of course) with mostly standing spaces, maybe a few selected seatings for the important people in the community in the front.
Keep up the good work.
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Often just rough hewn benches would serve as pews.
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I think I will make few crude benches that are meant for elderly folk and pregnant ladies so those benches can be moved around if there happens to be a fight etc inside the church. Now need to find a proper padre miniature as well.
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Now need to find a proper padre miniature as well.
There are a lot of those around.
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Any suggestions? Rather a miniature fitting to Artizan or Black Scorpion size range. Tall and flanky or big belly ones preferred.
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Great stuff Antti, I'm looking forward to watching Dos Cruces grow 8)
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Lovely work :-* As Bugsda says,looking forward to more :)
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I like the wood effect on the first building, looking forward to seeing the church with a lock of paint 8)
cheers
James
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Cheers gents, I hope to advance Dos Cruces during the coming week. No progress this weekend as it was/is spent at my folks, some 500km from Dos Cruces buildings :)
What colour is suggested for the church? o_o Dark wood for floor etc but aren't the walls white enough already? :)
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Well, I suppose if I was going to paint the exterior at this point I would start with an off-white and then dry brush with a pure white to add some shadow. Other than that I'm not sure what else you could do, maybe work in some dirt along the bottom edges.
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What colour is suggested for the church? o_o Dark wood for floor etc but aren't the walls white enough already? :)
I would use Malamute's buildings as a guideline, as they are perfect examples of adobe dwellings (and the colouring-in of)in my opinion.
I cannot seem to find a link at the moment.
Maybe someone else could point you in the right direction.
:D
EDIT: Found it.
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=42890.0
If that does not give you some ideas, I dont know what will.
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I would use Malamute's buildings as a guideline, as they are perfect examples of adobe dwellings (and the colouring-in of)in my opinion.
Yep, I've got to second that, they're mouth wateringly good looking buildings 8)
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Yep, I've got to second that, they're mouth wateringly good looking buildings 8)
Going to third it but beware of having visible barcodes on your pergola lol
cheers
James
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Going to third it but beware of having visible barcodes on your pergola lol
cheers
James
Git!
lol
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So after a long hiatus, there's some revival in the sleeping and almost abandoned village of Dos Crystal, for that thanks goes to this forum. But at the same time, I have to blame this forum as I just went and bought three different Badlands sets by the Battlefield Terrain. As many have noted, those pieces do need some repainting but that's ok, still saves me lots of time to do other stuff for Dos Cruces.
I hope to have a small demo sort of game of SNS for myself and couple of friends later this month so I need to paint some minis for that so we can have a smallish shoot-out amongst the surroundings of Dos Cruces :)
I think I will wield six to eight Apaches myself and give two other players three bandidos each and start the scenario as a shootout between the two groups of bandidos, wanting to settle their disputes with six-shooters. And then, suddenly, Apaches appear…
(http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/j384/pocolocopocoloco/kuva_zpsb8517c25.jpg) (http://s1083.photobucket.com/user/pocolocopocoloco/media/kuva_zpsb8517c25.jpg.html)
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I look forward to seeing more progress on your town :) I'll be picking up those larger rocks next week to add to the smaller ones. As you say they make it quick and easy to add features without having to make them yourself.
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Those bloody rocks are stalking me, I tell ya!
I am trying hard to avoid buying them but am running out of excuses after seeing all you bad lads waving them around willy-nilly and making me want them all the more.
>:(
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Haha Paul :) You know, you can get just one set, first… ;)
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The rocks are great, but they are a bit small, so "unfortunately" you definitely need a couple of each to really get a feel on the table. They are great though.
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Some of them are kind of smallish but for me they are ok as my gaming board will be around 4' x 4' max. If I need more of that type rock formations, I think I will make my own then as I don't want to have similar pieces :)
Currentyl reading the SNS rules, btw :)