ECW Scenery - Cottages - 16 Feb 2018

[Wirelizard]

Tony Harwood (better known in this parish as dampfpanzerwagon) had a build article of a nice half-timber dovecote in the recent English Civil War themed issue of Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy.

Wanting more ECW scenery, I've decided to do my own version of his dovecote!

Mine is 60mm by 60mm wide/deep and 120mm tall to the current tops of the walls.



The stonework at the base of the walls is pink styrofoam insulation, the walls are 1/16th mattboard, and the timberwork is all coffee stir sticks.

More soon, hope to get the basic structure done this weekend and then start work on the roof.

[Harwood Hobbies]

Nice work!   

[marianas_gamer]

Nice!

[manic _miner]

 Looking really good so far.

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Looking good and thanks for the shout-out.

Tony

[Wirelizard]

Got all the half-timbering done over the weekend, and the basic roof structure installed.



28mm Warlord pikeman down on the lower right there for scale. The walls are 6cm wide, the base is about 65mm, and while I haven't measured the total height it's somewhere around 20cm or so. The main walls are 12cm top to bottom.

The stonework at the foundation has had two or three coats of white glue for strength, and I'm trying out stippling heavy coats of white glue into the panels between the timbers for texturing.

Slate tile roofing next from card, and detailing around the walls of the "tower" part of the roof.

[Wirelizard]

Got the dovecote construction finished and black primer over the whole thing. I also picked up some GW Liquid Greenstuff and tried that out to texture the wattle-and-daub panels between the timbers.

Here's the current state of the dovecote. I could almost just declare it finished right now; I'm pretty sure I've seen black-and-green halftimbered buildings before!


I also started work on a large farmhouse. Not quite a manor house, except maybe in some really backwoods shire, but a substantial two-storey place.

Here's one end, with a 28mm Warlord pikeman for scale. I'm especially pleased with how the chimney has turned out. It's pink foam insulation, coated with liquid greenstuff, then the bricks were pressed in with the metal part of an old paintbrush.


Here's the other side of the farmhouse:


More details tomorrow when I have time, but I wanted to get a few more photos up tonight!

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Looking good.

I've never used Liquid Greenstuff for texturing, but it looks like it could be a test on my next model.

Tony

[von Lucky]

Very nice, and yes - that chimney is something to be proud of.

[OSHIROmodels]

Looking good 

cheers

James

[Wirelizard]

Looking good.

I've never used Liquid Greenstuff for texturing, but it looks like it could be a test on my next model.

Tony

It's basically a tiny pot of texture paint.

It doesn't fill gaps worth a damn, despite being sold for that by GW. The gap at the bottom of the chimney, where it meets the back of the fireplace, has had two doses of liquid greenstuff and will now need real greenstuff to actually fill it in.

But the liquid greenstuff works great for texturing; I've used it over the whole chimney and to give a bit of texture to the wattle-and-daub panels between the timbering on both the dovecote and the farmhouse now.

I've also been having fun making brick and stone "stamps" out of old paintbrushes. Yank or cut the bristles out, squeeze the metal ferrule slightly with pliers to get the shape you want, push into foam or putty to get quick easy stone patterns.

The bits of stone paving in front of both doors of the farmhouse are done with a #2 brush that I turned into a cobblestone stamp; I used a slightly larger brush for a rectangular paving stone stamp; and the bricks on the chimney are done with a smaller brush (a 0, I think, but will have to check) that I turned into a brick stamp.

[Wirelizard]

In my recent order to Warbases I picked up their small church, marketed for VBCW but really suitable for loads of periods and locations, being a pretty standard small stone or brick church. There's little churches like this all over the world, certainly all over North America, so having it show up in pulp games and other eras works too!

Inspired by the customer photos on Warbases' website of a considerably dressed up version of the church I've decided to do my own version.

First of all, here's the basic church propped up, only the tower and tower end wall actually assembled, for some idea of what it looks like complete.


First thing I did was add flagstone flooring to the main section and add a simple altar, as i intend to keep the roof removable for skirmish gaming. You can't really tell in the photo below but the area from the altar to the end wall behind it is raised slightly from the main floor of the rest of the church.


The altar is just scrap card covered in liquid green stuff for stone texture; the flagstones are just light card.

I'm not sure about the reddish colour, although I've seen some photos of country churches in really striking reddish stone from various places in the UK, and it's a nice change from the usual greys!

More soon; I'm adding some detail to the top of the church tower, planning what I want to do for the inside walls and the windows, and planning the buttresses and other stonework details for the outer walls.

[haydn]

very nice, thanks for the updating. There are a few idea's i shall apply to my next building.

[majorsmith]

Really nice work on these!

[Ramirez Noname]

That's some great looking buildings, especially the Dovecote.

Stonework on churches UK have plenty of variation with some tending towards dark grey/ black or going the completely opposite way and being rendered and painted white.

RMZ