40mm Alamo - part 1

This latest project is a biggy but the deadline isn't until Salute 2013 which is in April. It feels like it is ages away but as anyone knows who arranges games for conventions the date creeps up very quickly.
Gringo 40 approached me earlier in the year to discuss this project as Ged wants to expand his 40mm ranges to include a range for the Alamo. What better place to launch a new range than at Salute along with an eye catching game showing all the figures off. That is the plan- a complete Alamo compound in 40mm scale to compliment Geds figures.
You can find out more information and keep up to date with releases by going to Gringo 40's web site- http://www.gringo40s.com.
Here is a taster of the range- the first release is a small diorama of the death of Jim Bowie-

This is the first of a number of posts covering the project. I will detail how I have done things but will keep it fairly brief as the game will be on Wargames Illustrated magazine stand at Salute and there will be a more detailed article in the magazine.

The compound has to be played over so we decided to keep it to an 8ft x 6ft display. That immediately means I had to scale the compound down a bit as if I did it in true 40mm scale (400mm to 6feet approx) then the compound would be about 15 feet long. I had a play with it and the sizes and decided to work on it in stages with stage one being the iconic chapel. It is certainly the best known image of the fight and one that needs to be prominent in the compound. I decided I would build this first and fit everything else around it.

Before I started I had a look at the King and Country 54mm Alamo chapel facade to see if I could get away with using it. The detail on it is wonderful but if it was true 54mm scale then it would be useless. Fortunately it has been shrunk so was just about perfect for me.

This photo is the facade straight out of the box with just a brown wash on it to bring out the detail for the photo. As you can see it is all there- it just needs a good paint job done on it. Once I had the front I built the rest from 10mm thick foam board and covered it in Daz Pronto clay.

the rear of the chapel

Once the clay was dry I marked out the stone pattern I wanted with a sharp pencil and then carved it out. This was the longest part of the job and by the time I had finished I was glad I didn't have any more to do!

you can just see the stone pattern on this photo.

While I was working on the outside I started on the inside with a ramp put in to get to the redoubt set up at the rear for some artillery. I also added some pillar details and plastered the walls. I needed to spend a bit of time on the insides as the whole thing was exposed as the building was never finished.

Once all the modelling was done all there was to do was to paint it. I used my usual palette of colours- an overall undercoat of yellow ochre ( both inside and out) washed with raw umber, dry brushed with Vallejo Dark Flesh, then again with Iraqi sand, again with a lighter buff and finally with a light dry brush of white to bring out the detail- in all 6 stages. Saying that, the very final layer was to add brown shading with raw umber- to highlight detail, add age and generally help with the weathering. The inside plasterwork was more heavily dry brushed with the lighter creams and white so it was considerably lighter than the stone work on the outside but still blended together.

The painting stages do take along time and sometimes it isn't obvious what effect some of the stages do to the model. Once it is finished then the effort is worth it.

The figures in these photos are from the Gringo 40 Mex American range so not directly from the Alamo but they were the closest I could get!
These first two show the detail on the entrance. It looks alot better in the flesh so to speak.

My favourite photo- the angle and the view into the chapel along with the light makes it difficult to work out how big it is.

Just to finish just a couple of vital statistics:

width of front 36cm (width at widest point 48cm

depth 50cm

height of facade- 22cm.

I would think there will be another 3 or 4 posts as the project grows along with a salute report and anything else that will complete the story. The next one will hopefully be before Christmas.