Russian Village Buildings (game report and new hut, 13 April)

[Remington]

Very nice start indeed... I am intrigued while planing a hostile takeover of your idea!

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Thank you for the update.

I have enjoyed reading your comments and seeing the new images.  I too will be stealing your ideas. in fact I have already built a larger Russian House following inspiration from another set of photos on LAF. A church maybe my next project.

As far as the Onion Dome is concerned - my favoured idea would be a Christmas tree decoration, maybe even in foam if you can pick one up in a craft store.  While the first one I ever built was a cardboard core wrapped with masking tape (to get a rough shape) and then paper soaked in iPVA glue to define, once painted it looked OK.

Tony
http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/

[Wirelizard]

Doing shingle roofs with strips of card - an enormous pain in rump. Pain in the hand, too from all the cutting needed. Still, the smaller front roof is done except for trim and looks good, and I'll start in on the shingles on the large (much larger!) main roof after dinner.

I need to head up to the local Michael's tomorrow and see what they have in the way of big wooden beads, leftover Xmas decorations and such for domes. I thought I had a couple of 1" wood spheres around somewhere, but can't find them! Assuming I can't find a suitable Christmas decoration, I'll go with milliput and a wooden sphere for the domes. The real church I'm using for inspiration has neat cupolas rather than domes, but I want classic onion domes for maximum Russianness, if that makes sense. Also, onion domes should be easier to fabricate than cupolas.

[Calimero]

Another possibility is to use the end piece of a curtain wood pole… they come in all kind of crazy shapes and sizes…

[Ignatieff]

Great stuff.  Anyone have a good source of pictures for Russian churches?

[Wirelizard]

Great stuff.  Anyone have a good source of pictures for Russian churches?

Google Image Search is your friend, I'd say. I used search terms like "Russian wooden church", "Russian village church", "Russian church architecture" and similar. I can't be more specific, because the week I did all that searching I was visiting family and using loaned computers the whole time. All I have are a couple of saved photos I emailed to myself.

Mark, cuprum and some of the folks who actually know what they're talking about might have better resources; that's what worked for me and got me the photograph on the previous page of this thread that I'm using for inspiration for the bulk of my build.

In other news, shingles are a pain. Yesterday I calculated that the main roof of this blasted church will require 80-90 3" strips of card, all cut halfway every few millimeters to get something like a shingle profile out of them. I currently have... about a dozen such strips prepped, but I've already done the smaller front roof in the same style, so I'm more or less committed to getting the main roof done that way too. Argh. 

[HPFlashman]

It may be possible to look at cupboard handles for the rough shape of the oninon dome.

The ones I`m thinking about is the turned pine ones, that would provide the general shape, but would need some sort of building up on top for the oninion finishing.

[Sterling Moose]

Useful for Gothic Horror too - very nice.

[Wirelizard]

Shingles and trim on both roofs all done, bases begun for both domes. Off to Micheal's in the morning for 1" wood spheres, finally, and I'll add details and shape with milliput. The "necks" are strips of light card I wrapped around a knife handle and glued.



The fit where the two roofs touch is extraordinarily tight. I'm actually going to have to trim a millimeter or so of shingles from the upper roof to make it easier to fit... I'd love to claim I planned it that way, but won't!

[Wirelizard]

No replies to my last post? Guess I'll just have to talk to myself.  

So I braved the rain and the moronic drivers to get myself up to Micheal's craft store after work today. They were out of the plain 1" wooden spheres I'd planned on using for onion domes, the random-wooden-shapes section was pretty well picked over, and a lot of it marked for clearance.

Instead I found a pair of "decorative rod ends" which really make much more awesome Russian-esque domes than the shapes I'd been planning on using.

Behold the domes of the Church of St Boris the Intoxicated:


Once again Captain Vodkanovitch provides scale, as he goes to pray for the cleansing of the Red filth from Mother Russia. Oh, and that the pounding headache goes away soon, please.

When I got the "decorative rod ends" home, I drilled a hole in the top and inserted lengths of wire, then used good, cheap terracotta milliput to form the upper surface of each dome. The putty parts will need to be sanded after they dry, then I'll skim another layer of putty over them to properly finish the job.

[Steve F]

This is coming along very well.  Please don't mistake silence for lack of interest: the problem with WIP threads is that it is easy to run out of things to say in response, but this is still useful and fascinating.

[commissarmoody]

Pretty cool dude.

[Argonor]

Good call with the rod-ends - I've been pondering about wargaming uses of such myself!

[Remington]

I like what you did there! They look great and appear to be sturdier than xmas decorations. Very nice indeed!

[dampfpanzerwagon]

My latest Blog post shows some Russian Church imagess that may be of interest,

Keep up the good work - it is coming along very nicely.

Tony
http://dampfpanzerwagon.blogspot.com/2012/01/architecture-of-russian-north.html