Painting Blue Moon Boxer Rebellion Buildings/WIP (Jan. 28: British legation)

[War In 15MM]

I continue to paint the Blue Moon civilian Chinese buildings.  This group is the last.  My next posting will be Blue Moon’s Austrian legation building which I am using as my Hotel de Peking.IMG_2286 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2288 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2289 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2290 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2292 by Richard Garretson, on Flickr

[DintheDin]

I like your greens, especially in the first three pics. Also the mud red in the first.
You achieved great definition on the rooftiles, the bricks and the stonework!
Cheers!

[miltiades]

wonderfully painted ! I see it o on your "weekly progress" on your wall https://warin15mm.com/

[FifteensAway]

Richard, I have some Foo dogs that I might use in the place you reference but hoping to reserve them for a more Chinese use, perhaps a gate to the Imperial Palace which I just might extemporize as part of my convention game set up. 

I understand your choices but I'm still leaning strong towards a whiter/more beige theme for my painting.  I do plan to paint in unified groups for the civilian buildings but get my variation through a combination of a wash color matched to a roof color - and probably paint each of my six legations (I'm using the Austrian legation and generic walls for the German legation) to match a civilian neighborhood of in tact and ruined buildings, with one matching the Tartar Wall.  So, I should end up with six distinct looks to avoid too much uniformity.  Will leave my MBA structure as is to represent the Peking Hotel.  What I haven't decided is whether or not my matching legation and civilian neighborhood are adjacent or in different parts of the table - leaning towards the latter.  Any thoughts? 

And, hey, while you may be way out ahead on the painting front, I will have more civilian buildings than you!  Woo-hoo.    Okay, now you're going to go and embarrass me with all sorts of unexpected flea market deals, aren't you.     What the heck, as long as we're having fun we're doing it right.

While I will create a generally historical setup for convention games I will also allow for more 'artistic' variations of gaming. 

And I still want to create my scratch built Spring Palace of the Divine Concubine!  Hubba-hubba. 

edit: while doing some research, so called Foo Dogs are actually lions - which makes sense because they look more like lions than dogs to me.

[War In 15MM]

DintheDin, thanks so much for following along, and for the color comment.  I've probably said this before, but despite the dramatic size of the Blue Moon line of figures and buildings for the Boxer Rebellion, I haven't seen much work that has been doing... especially painted buildings.  So I hope that by posting mine, I can offer something that is currently missing.  I know that when I'm doing a project like this I look for what others have done to help me sort through where I want to go with my work... even if I don't personally like other things that I see, I like seeing how others have addressed it.

militades, thanks for writing and advertising my Weekly Workbench.  Much appreciated.

FifteensAway, I think you color choice is probably more accurate than what I am doing although my view on that is heavily guided by the movie 55 Days At Peking.  When I began this project I believe I was probably going to do the legation compounds in tans... once again the 55 Days At Peking influence.  But I'm going with grays and saddle brown.  It might be historically wrong, but I like the look.  If one of the several books I've read had given specific colors, I probably would have gone with that but lacking that I'm going with feels good. 

I think the MBA structure/beautiful building will be a great Hotel de Peking and your table space will allow room for that.  Mine won't so I've decide to use the Blue Moon Austrian legation building for that purpose.

In terms of the number of civilian Chinese structures you will have I'm all for it.  Only wish I could have seen your layout before mine concludes... always looking for ideas.  As things stand I'm not completely sure how I will be piecing my layouts together on the table.  I may have more buildings than I need or I may have to pick up a couple more.

Interesting that you mention the idea of a flea market.  This morning on my way to my weekly swap meet adventure I got to thinking about that.  I'll have to see what space allows.

I look forward to seeing where you take the project.  My only "imperial" style buildings are the few ceramic pieces I've repainted and will probably use that as background (if at all).  I really want to see what you do with the Spring Palace project.

Richard

[FifteensAway]

Richard, you do know you can find my work on my blog, yes?  http://steeplechasingzebras.blogspot.com
There are images on the main blog page and then more under the Boxer Rebellion tab above, nothing painted there except the MBA structure but some examples of layouts that may be useful.  Of course, as I'm sure you've discovered, rarely do two maps of the legations agree on layout so some license just has to be allowed.  Oh, and no updates on the blog because, for reasons unknown, I can't log in but I do have an old, test blog I'm posting to but nothing yet Boxer related. 

I did add a section of walls from Stone Mountain I will use, about 12" x 12", might be my variation of the carriage park.

Checked out your Weekly Workbench and saw your two legations and very curious on why you changed up the roof colors from the walls to the main internal structures?  Not wrong, of course, just wondering what drove the choice? 

While writing, if you look about my blog you will find a bunch of non-Blue Moon ruins that will be dragooned into my Peking set-up.  As you infer, table size is an issue for you while I'm assembling a convention game that will be a U-shaped 12' wide by 9' (maybe a bit longer) table with a 4' wide space between the uprights of the U-shape for player access - essentially the Jade River/Canal with some of that aforementioned artistic license.

Like the bridges - but are you going to do a wooden one? 

[War In 15MM]

FifteensAway, I haven't checked in on your blog because I thought you were away from the project due to other issues that were demanding your time.
 
The reasons for the different roof colors is that both the Japanese and the French inner/main buildings appear to have shingle roofs while the coverings on their walls and  gate houses are tile.  Not an issue with the Russian legation, and I haven't check the situation with the British and US.
 
I always like the idea of making use of items from other ranges.

I did two scratch built 15mm market places for previous collections: medieval and Aztec.  I may try for a third.

I picked up a wood oriental bridge at the swap meet this weekend... lucky find.  I'm not sure which bridges or how many I'll be able to incorporate... I'll be using the long end of the table for the canal so 7 feet.  While it is not historically the most accurate approach, I think I am going to look at using my large ceramic bridge (very oriental in appearance though not accurate) and two of the PetCo, but a lot depends on how things look when I do my practice set up.  That's why I have the third PetCo bridge and now the wooden bridge purchase this weekend.  We'll see.

I am going to hold to as many elements of an accurate layout as I can, but I will be fudging a lot... I hope to be offering the basic feel.  Again, we'll see.

I think between the two of us, we could offer a couple of very unique layouts... mine because of the two tables: one pre-siege and one siege, and yours by dint of its dramatic size.  As you well know, 15s do offer some interesting options not available/practical when dealing with 28s.

By the way, we just modified the Weekly Workbench section on my website so it comes up faster. The Weekly Workbench now reflects only the weeks of the current month.  The past Weekly Workbench postings are on the Workbench Archive by month.

Richard

[War In 15MM]

A little known building in the heart of the Peking legation district in 1900 was the Hotel de Peking. Unfortunately, Blue Moon didn't include it in its Boxer Rebellion range of 15s, but it did provide the separate building for the Austrian legation. Since five legation compounds plus Chinese civilian structures will already be hard to fit on my 5 ft. x 7 ft. table, I decided to use the Austrian building as my Hotel de Peking.IMG_2302 by Richard Garretson, on Flickr IMG_2303 by Richard Garretson, on Flickr

[FifteensAway]

Lovely job on that building.  Looks like your setup will have a distinctly red-brown tone to it - though perhaps much mitigated by ground cover.  I anticipate the unrevealed surprises we may see when you finally reveal the full set up.

[War In 15MM]

FifteensAway, you are right about the ground cover.  I will be using my tan indoor-outdoor carpets to cover both tables, but in places I will be using, but in places, such as within the grounds of the legation compounds, I will be using some Woodland Scenics Ready Grass (Spring Grass).  I've used it before with my Victorians and Gangsters (for the cemetery and park).  It's easy, and I like it. 

I'm still giving a lot of thought to your comment about scratch building some flea market stalls... probably will give it a try.  But the big thing that came out of that thought process was that I needed some Chinese (oriental) civilians seated on the ground.  And that reminded me that Peter Pigs' Vietnam/Range 1 includes civilians.  When I checked the Peter Pig website I found that pack #46 were seated peasants.  While Peter Pig is too small to stand beside Blue Moon, the seated ones should be fine.  So I went to Brookhurst Hobbies last night and bought two packs.  Once again you have planted a seed that is going to improve this project.

Another unexpected find happened this week when I did a random stop at my local model train shop to look at their bargain table... a long source of wonderful things at great prices.  I discovered a couple of different small buddha statues.  At first I rejected them because they are rubber, but I was drawn back to them because of their size (one inch tall/seated), the great detail, and the price (79 cents each).  I bought all four.  They painted up great.  When I post my French legation pics today or tomorrow, I'll try to remember to take pictures of them and post them as well.  They also had a couple of the Prieser HO Victorians for 79 cents each so I got them as well... more painting to do. 

Richard

[FifteensAway]

Just to clarify - my mention of flea market was about you finding buildings to use in your setup - or other appropriate items.  But market stalls sure work - can see them in many of the period photos of Peking. 

Now here's a thought though not sure how to 'execute' it:  A sword wielding executioner with some headless victims, well, with the heads separated from their owners.  A bit gruesome but another element seen in period photos - and a certain movie.

[War In 15MM]

FifteensAway, while I like the execution idea, I probably won't go there, but your note reminded me that I have a third flea/town market that I made a couple decades ago for my 15mm Sudan collection, and it might just work for this project... if I can find it.  I'm having trouble posting pictures here right now, but I hope to resolve that soon and get the French legation posted, plus the little Buddha statues.

I got lucky.  The Sudan market stalls were just where I thought they might be.  They'll work great... the joy of recycling.

While hunting for the Sudan market stalls I remembered that I had also tucked away (for this project) some Two Dragons' peasant porters carry bales of something.  One of the packs (SAM/PES 9) is one porter with a pole over his shoulders carrying two bales.  The other pack has a two porters with a pole between them over their shoulders carrying one bale.  Nice figures... not sure how easy it is to find Two Dragons anymore.  The other thing I found (set aside for this long ago) were some Essex pack camels... just standing/heads in different positions but necks down.  I remember seeing pack camels in the movie 55 Days At Peking... hopefully they did their homework.

[War In 15MM]

In putting together this project I decide to use two 5 ft. x 7 ft. tables.  One table will represent the pre-siege legation district in 1900 Peking, and the second table will present the legation district under siege.  When Blue Moon put together its legations (French, British, Japanese, Russian, and US), for obvious reasons it did it for the siege period and consequently the legation walls were cast with firing steps.  In order to have the pre-siege version of those legations I scratch built walls using Evergreen and JTT plastic without the firing steps.  Because the different legations have complex main entrances, I decided that whenever possible I would use the Blue Moon gates with my scratch-built walls.  The exceptions are the Russian legation which has a separate gate and the British legation which as the main defensive position among the great powers has a main gate that is bunkered up.  Consequently I scratch built the British main gate as well as its wall.  The French legation uses the Blue Moon main gate and I hid the firing steps on the attached walls by covering them with removable scrubs based on a Lego skeleton/inner frame covered with Milliput and scored to look like scrubs.  The three pictures attached here show the pre-siege version without the hidden firing steps, the pre-siege version with the firing steps hidden by my removable scrubs, and the Blue Moon siege version.

I’ve also included a picture of my bridge options: one ceramic, three resin from Petco and one wooden.

The last picture is of some Buddha statues I purchase off the bargain table a my local model train store.  I really like the size and detail, but because they are rubber I almost didn’t buy them, but at 79 cents each I decided to take a chance, and they painted up just fine.
IMG_2316 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2317 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2318 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2331 by Richard Garretson, on FlickrIMG_2330 by Richard Garretson, on Flickr

[FifteensAway]

That wooden bridge came out real nice - has a very bamboo feel to it which is perfect. 

The French legation looks good - very brown which works well with the green tile tops to the walls.  And very nice job on the shingles.

Maybe part of why I shy away from so much brown in my plans is because my base cloth is a dark brown - though I plan to lighten it up with lighter colors so it becomes more of a brown background to a tanner topping, dry brushed on most likely - though maybe an overspray (pretty big space to cover).  Of course once my plans collide with the actual model buildings, we'll see what happens.

[War In 15MM]

FifteensAway, I'll be interested in seeing the color schemes you decide on.  This might be the first time I have painted a project this size without the benefit of seeing what someone else has done.  I probably should have ask you if you knew of any finished Blue Moon Boxer Rebellion collections that I could have looked at.  I looked, but found none.  That surprised me.  The other thing that surprised me was that it appears that the Blue Moon legation walls were made using the same JTT and Plastruct plastic I used to make my pre-siege legation walls... I could even see where they had cut the plastic with scissors just as I had done.  They used a wide variety of stone and brick, and in the end dealing with that variety of materials, my color decisions were probably driven by those different stone and brick wall facings and an effort to find colors that would work with the different wall top tiles colors I wanted for the different legations... four of the five legation walls are topped with tile.  I think only the Russian legation isn't.  My suggestion to you is look closely at the composition of the walls before you begin painting to make sure your color scheme works well with all the different stone, brick and tile you will confront plus the sand bags and wooden firing steps... look closely to see what is really there.  I sprayed all the buildings and walls with Testors flat black and dry brushed up from that.  When do you think you'll start painting?