Project: Victorian Baronial building

[Hammers]

I have been debating with myself whether I should make this project public. One becomes a tad self aware of one's short comings  when so many esteemed LAFers have let us follow the progress of their work. One can't but watch, stunned, at the apparent ease with which they make huge constructs with amazing detail. Aye, 'tis a fertile land in which to cultivate ones complexes, Workbench is. But on the other hand I have always maintained that it is nothing more than a hobby, this Great Thing of ours. We do it for fun, right? Right? Please say yes...

So without much further ado and well knowing that while I may have the skills but seriously lacking in time, I will show you how one of my current projects is developing.

I have long felt that my Duke of Nutherland Kennel Club of Monimasket deserves a club house; something grand, venerable and representative. While I am not a stranger to one off projects I am at core a practical man so I would not build such a beast with out seeing its uses for a variety of scenarios. For that reason it will be modular and parts of shall be customizable to a make the building suitable for an array off different settings. A Public Shool, the Institution for Esoteric Literature of Miscatonic University, Baskerville Hall, The Grenadier Guard barracks and, at a pinch, Balmoral castle. This is just to name a few.

For various reasons I have zoned in on a Victorian Gothic Revival architectural style called  (Scotish) baronial. My main inspiration is St. Leonard's Hall at Edinburgh University:



The reason I picked this is partly because it is size wise roughly what I have in mind. It also sprouts enough towers, crenellations, hoardings, machicolations, and loopholes to make it interesting. I will try to stay close to this style; I dislike the overloaded Neo Gothic styles which is so often seen in wargaming contexts (read GW).

I will use various techniques to build the various halls, towers, galleries, and courtyards which will go together to make the building. I have a collection cardboard tubes, plenty of foam board,  cork sheet and structured styrene. I also have purchased several different sets of Zvezda modular castle styrene sprues. These are great for this kind of project. They are intended for 1/72 scale but if one cuts new openings for windows and doors I know from previous builds that they work a treat. I have two large boxes of Tichy Train windows H and HO scale styrene doors and  windows for this purpose.

More later...

[Thunderchicken]

Yes please!

Pull this one off and I shall prostrate myself before you in humble awe.

[OSHIROmodels]

Oooo, looks very promising Hammers 

Don't let us down though   

cheers

James

[Silent Invader]

Yay!  I love the idea and look forward to following it. 

[gamer Mac]

Nice idea.
Will follow with interest.

[Hammers]

Thank you for your encouraging replies, I am sure  I shall need them.

There are two buildings of the complex already completed but I shall for now focus what I during the project face will call Colonel Stone Hall, which will be one of the larger pieces. The reason is because it is being almost entirely constructed out of Zvezda pieces.

I think Zvezda is mostly known as the Russian hard plastic model manufacturer of 1/35 vehicles, planes and military figures. They do however have a range of 1/72 soft historical and fantasy plastic miniatures with some hard plastic buildings to go with them.

The fortresses are made modular; the various pieces are engineered to make constructs very flexible. There are a variety sprues:
round and square towers, turrets, barbicans, crenelated wall sections, arches, walkways, gate houses with merlos etc... The various pieces makes it possible to do all kinds of stuff as dimensions are made so that various build pieces fit each other. Quite snuggly I might add. What oen has to work with is that it all may come out looking too geometrical, as if the whole think is drawn with a ruler. On the other hand the modular concept would not work if the pieces weren't symmetrical. Plus we need to use our weathering skills for something, eh?

A basic building kit of a square tower look like this:

[6milPhil]

Looking forward to this, but no usage of cork? 

[ballistic_bro]

Crackin' idea. Love the inspiration building. look forward to future developments.

[Hammers]

Looking forward to this, but no usage of cork? 

Of *course* there will be cork, my dear! Reams and reams of the stuff. I am currently bulking out a few walls in a gallery piece where the thinness of the styrene walls will otherwise too apparent.

[Wirelizard]

Looking forward to this progressing - I've always liked that style of building, and the ornamental bits make them daunting to contemplate in model form!

Those Zvezda buildings look like a good base, though.

More pictures! The mob demands more visuals! 

[Alfrik]

Magnificent undertaking!

[Chairface]

Magnificent undertaking!

Indeed. I can't wait to see the work in progress!

[Hammers]

Looking forward to this progressing - I've always liked that style of building, and the ornamental bits make them daunting to contemplate in model form!

It is not too bad if you look at various examples of the style. Check out Balmoral for example. Ornamentation is mostly in bow windows and balconies. The style is based on the baronial castles of Scotland, which means a rather austere look but with lots and lots off  windows. Other Gothic Revival styles of  Victorian times  went rright mad with gargoyles, statues, pillars and rosette windows.

Those Zvezda buildings look like a good base, though.

Well, it  is a start. I hope it will work, I think it will.

More pictures! The mob demands more visuals! 

And the magic word i-i-is...?

[Thunderchicken]

And the magic word i-i-is...?

Sizzling sausages?

[Hammers]

Here are some of the sprues I  am working with. As I've said before they come in various forms but fit with each other in many different ways. And if they don't fit they are quite easy to customize just by cutting of filling in with scrap bits.



The plastic is not very thick, around 3mm, but quite hard. Cutting out windows with just a carpet knife is quite tricky. Instead I am using one of these for my Dremel:



The cuts won't be perfectly straight but it matters little in this case.

As the windows provided on the sprues are all conform, arched and 1/72 scale I have gotten others. These are O scale window frames (Tichy Train brand) available from Antenociti or Tichy Train Group.



Here's how I used a few sprues. This is the east wall of the Colonel Stone Hall. It is put together with three square tower sides and three 2height enhancer" pieces. The bottom row, which will be the  basement gets to keep the  out-of-the-box windows and  grating
but the ground floor and first floor's got new window frames. They really should be somewhat recessed for for this architectural style but  for the sake of expedience I ignored that for this particular building. I will try to achieve that for some other wings. As you can see I already have managed to bust the bottom left panes. Also I have to go back and reposition some of the top row windows which have slid all wonky like...



The north wall of the hall, two wall sections wide and two crow-stepped gables. Normally I would fit two windows wide per section but I have left space for a passage building between this and another hall.



On the back side you of this wall you can see how the customized window openings work out. As you can see there are pre-moulded slots you can cut out for windows but I have cut out new openings which makes for taller floors and  larger windows which is more fitting the Baronial style.



Next I shall fit the four sides, and the S:t Mattias tower on  it. I am not a great believer in sub tectum wargaming but I will be fitting internal floors, one flagstone and two planked between the floors. The top one will be for practical reasons as it will be visible through studio windows.