TFTB & CF Sleepy Hollow & Tarrytown Buildings (Killian WIP)

[Cat]

Thank you for the kind comments folks!
 
I had pulled the Martling House out for its final flourish as I was working on the much larger project of detailing the scenic base for the Church which I've been working on for the last several weeks.  I had finished shingling the Sleepy Hollow Church back in October (see earlier in the thread).  And then procrastinated on doing the scenic base which has a fair area to detail because of the perimeter fence.  Just making the fence to fit was a fair amount of fiddly work.

The fence is modified Renedra plastics, with the fancy gateposts and the church sign board scratch-built from styrene.  The hitching post is made from limbs clipped from a Woodland Scenics tree armature. 

The sign board in the movie set is quite the anachronistic detail.  These began appearing in the 1920s and 30s, and didn't become popular until the 1960s and onward.  My bet is that because the director called for a big stained glass window behind a high pulpit for Baltus Van Tassel to be yanked through, that Rick Heinrichs — the award winning Production Designer — then decided to run full First Church of the Anachronist!  There' no legible shot of the writing on the sign in the movie or in any production photos that I could find, so I went with the typical modern basics for lettering it.

The gravestones in the back of the church are also modified Renedra plastics, with thematic names carved in on the ones facing outwards.  From left to right: Van Tassel and Van Brunt for family names from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a cameo appearance by an ancestor of Washington Irving, Philipse for the original chartered landowner in Sleepy Hollow (the Philipse Manor is across the street from the actual Old Dutch Church), and Van Dam the ghostly rower of the Hudson River.  As a foreshadowing of events to come in the movie, there is a trail of red autumn leaves leading from the big stained glass window to the fence where Baltus will get his head cut off.  Just beyond the Van Dam gravestone at the corner of the foundation is a little brown rat — not all is well in this church.

I have a lot more gravestones, some with names added, all prepped and painted for doing the larger graveyard on the hillside beyond the side gate of the church.

[Roo]

Nice work

[Blackwolf]

Lovely work,that lighting effect is very clever

[marianas_gamer]

Great work. I love this whole thread! 

[Cat]

Lovely work,that lighting effect is very clever

Thanks — it was quite fun to do!  The red of the 'stained glass' is just painted on the inside of the mullions and stands out very nicely at the usual game table viewing angles; and shined a flashlight through the window and marked out where the light and shadows fell for painting:

[Cat]

Work has begun on Cemetery Hill.  As this will be a detailed terrain piece, I wanted a baseboard and backboard to protect the foam from chipping.  Once you start bringing plywood into base construction, then anti-warp measures need be taken.

I cut a number of rib pieces for the skeletal framework of the hill to aid in warp prevention, and they also provide nice guides for shaping the foam pieces that will be fit in.  Gluing the whole frame together involved my usual anti-warp technology™ — which involves applying all the clamps, big iron anvil attachments, hammers, and any other heavy objects that can be brought to bear down while the glue sets.  (I have a cherished anvil, so the workshop is fairly wealthy in these sorts of objects.)

After the glue had dried thoroughly, then gave it a coat of spray paint and began fitting the foam pieces.  I dry fit the foam blocks and trimmed to shape before gluing them in.  The trusty French Chef Knife and Surform Shaver are the tools for this job.  (The French knife definitely needed a re-sharpening after this before being returned to the kitchen!)

Those wooden ribs were perfect guides for sliding the knife right along the top edge to cut the foam contours for a perfect fit.  For the complex contours over the large areas, I would cut smaller pieces as needed — cutting as much as I could, then twisting the knife to snap and break the cut foam piece off.  For the deeper areas, I made a vertical cut, and then cut horizontally towards that and snapped that piece off.  The Surform Shaver then blends and smooths everything together.

There will be a road coming down the hill at the widest point.  I marked the road on the foam and used the shaver to make a nice smooth grade.  The longest wooden rib cuts across a stretch of the road.  After grading with the shaver, I took the foam out and filed down the top edge of the rib where needed to match the grade of the road.

Then all the foam blocks were glued in.  Yes, hammers and iron anvil attachments were used to hold it all down snug while the glue set. 
: 3

After it dried, a light pass with the shaver did a finally blending together of joints in the foam.  Now on to the detailing work.  I think I'll use a thin layer of gesso to give the foam surface a hard protective shell.

[Dr Mathias]

Interesting project, that church is beautifully done.

[Blackwolf]

Wow! Great stuff

[OSHIROmodels]

A good start 

[Cat]

Thanks for the kind comments folks!

Two days ago, I made the storage and transport boxes for the buildings that are finished to date, and yesterday brought them up to New Hampshire for a photo shoot.  Dave Valentine will be using the photos he took for use in his upcoming The Devil In Sleepy Hollow game.  Here are some of the ones I took.

Up til now, I've been using a random assortment of boxes, but the plan all along has been to eventually unify the storage system for the most compact space I could get.  In order to protect the scenic bases during transport, they all have magnets in the bottom and they sit in 1/4 sized cookie sheets.  Those cookie sheets fit easily into file storage boxes.  I finally got around to picking up a bundle of those boxes and it was easy to cut each one down to the needed height, with just an extra 1/4" buffer space.  This will help ease the storage space crunch in my basement!
 
Then it was great having the chance to see a gaming friend live and in person, since we haven't seen each other since Huzzah Con in 2019.  And it was great to have an excuse to lay all the finished buildings out on a table and see them all together.

Cemetery Hill, the Notary Public, and the Van Tassel Manor are all still in various stages of progress, as are a few more historical style models for Tarrytown proper.

Boxes, and a few fun close-ups here:

[Cat]

After Dave got the photos he wanted, I set up a village scene with all the current buildings and staged a little action scene.
 
The corn is JTT scenics autumn corn which comes in monotone tan; I brush painted some light green highlights to make more transitional late season corn.  The grasses are cut from twine.
 
The Wesquaesgeek Indians were the local tribe.  I've modified Old Glory figures for Wappinger Federation style long hair and with their raccoon-mask style warpaint.

[Cat]

The Muse has brought me back to working on Sleepy Hollow again.  Working on a number of kits at once that all share woodwork weathering, so whenever I clean my paintbrushes, I can just wipe them on something for detail.
 
I have several Charlie Foxtrot kits in the mix now that are pretty easy conversions to make the movie buildings.  The smallest one is completed first, a small shed that stands in the field where the sheep graze.  Only glimpsed in a few scenes, but adds some nice tactical cover for gaming. 
 
This is a very straightforward build.  I added raised trim details, and filed a slight sag in the roof because Sleepy Hollow.
 
Down by the goldenrod and the late fall asters, a  rabbit lurks in wait for the sheep.* 

* From our own pet rabbits, I can attest that they crave the tasted of sheep and will take any opportunity to nibble on sheep skins.  We can only presume that sheep in the wild face this problem too.

[Cat]

A few more little carts in a red oxide vein.

The farm cart by Charlie Foxtrot Models is the best mdf cart kit I've seen.  The side stakes are U-shaped pieces that glue onto the bottom, giving great side stakes.  The axle is a provided 3mm round toothpick,so the hubs in the wheels are round rather than square cut.

Also up is a much more standard basic cart by Warbases.

Carts are like wolves, I tend to throw them in the shopping cart whenever I buy from a company that has some I don't own yet!

[FreakyFenton]

Lovely buildings and if I may as I missed it before, the effect with the light through the window is very clever and looks effective.

[Cat]

So, it's midnight on Boxing Eve and I'm cutting and splitting tiny firewood.

Had an early evening cup of coffee with desert, which was a good help with staying alert for the drive home from New Hampshire after a lovely family dinner, but means I'm still quite wired now.  Eyes aren't up to reading or any fine modelling though, so it's a great time to work on the woodpile.

The central feature of the Killians' Cabin is a big honking fireplace, so a good sized woodpile outside will be a nice detail.

Last week, I gathered the twigs.  Sprayed them with industrial vinegar and let that dry, then gave them a good cooking in the microwave to sterilise them to make sure nothing grows on them or crawls out of them later.