Normandy Village- part 10- the last part.

This is the last part of the Normandy village series as by the time I finish this post I will have finished the project. All there will be to do then is post some photos of the whole table in action at Salute.
I left the last base of buildings just about built and ready to paint. I decided to make all the houses the same colour but add colour by making the woodwork on the houses different colours.

I started with my usual base colour of yellow ochre, then painted the wood work various colours followed by a wash all over of raw umber.I then started to highlight everything back up to get the colour back into the base.
As you can see from the photo I also added a street name plaque along with house numbers so it really started to look like something.
I then continued to weather it with more applications of raw umber to show blast damage, water streaks and things like that and finished with a dry brush of cream just to bring the details out.

The only thing that was missing now were the roofs. I have resin sheets of tiles so I cut them to shape added chimneys and painted them grey and it was complete.

The base was picked up once it was finished and then a couple of days later I got these wonderful shots of it in action

The figures have all been painted by Artmaster and the vehicles by Troop of Shrew so the whole table will look stunning when it is all out at Salute.It always looks better in the flesh than in photos so if you are going come and have a look at it. It is near the Battlefront stand- GL01 to be precise.

Normandy Village Part 9

There is still plenty of time to Salute (I wish) so starting the last module for the Normandy village at the beginning of February showed far too much forward planning. The whole game will be at Salute and will be show casing my work along with figure painting by Artmaster and AFV model making and painting by Troop of Shrew.
This last module is a row of houses to go at the end of the village, backing onto some hedges. The plan was as on this sketch:

The front of the base is curved to give a curved road when placed on top of a cobbled area. The base is made up of five small houses with back yards. Non of them needed to be higher than 2 floors and the two on the right needed to be ruined.
I first of all designed and cut out the fronts of the houses. I used 5mm thick foam board for most of it except for the ruined walls where I used 10mm thick foam board. I have some resin pieces that I had made of ruined wall that are 10mm thick so I needed the base wall to be the same thickness.

Once I had the designs cut out I then ruined the two that needed to show battle damage.

I then repeated the process for the backs and sides of the houses and then glued it all together and added the resin bits of damaged wall.

You can see that I had also added the windows at this stage. They are laser cut 1mm mdf that I have used on the previous Normandy modules.
The ruined bits of resin wall have been one of my favourite bits of resin I had made. I find them extremely useful and the effect is just what I am looking for. They look a bit odd in the above shots as you can see the join but it gets better.
The pavement was tackled next with textured plasticard with the edges covered in masking tape. I use the biggest sheets I can find to reduce the joins.

Once that had dried I started to render it with interior filler. It goes on easily and you can mix how much you like to the consistency you like.

The interior filler doesn't warp the foam board so I find you don't need to brace the walls with internal supports unlike when using Daz Pronto clay which save a a bit of time.
The next thing I did was to add internal walls and floors into the buildings that weren't damaged. The floors were necessary for putting in figures when playing but I add the walls to stop you being able to look through the house to the back. It seems to me to be very rare for you to be able to do that in reality so by stopping it happening in the model just helps making it look more real.

I also add floors and walls to the ruined buildings. The floors are planked as you will be able to see them. Before I do the second floor I add wall paper to the ground floor. This seems to catch the eye and just gives the whole thing a bit of colour.

The upper floors of the ruined sections I plaster as it helps cover up the joins with the resin bits and when painted makes it look really damaged.
Once that had dried I added more detail on the outside of the houses including shutters and drain pipes.

The final job that I completed this afternoon was to add the back yard walls.

I used 10mm foam board to make them look substantial.
I still have a bit of model making to do- adding the back yard ground work, texturing the yard walls, the roofs and adding general debris to the ruins. Once all that is done all that is left is to paint it.
The plan is completion by the end of February.

Normandy Village part 8

I have just looked at part 7 and noticed that I signed that off with a promise of another post by the end of September when I had finished the base. It is now the middle of September and I finished it 4 days ago so it has taken me abit longer than expected.
I must admit that I concentrated fully on finishing the base rather than taking photos so I don't have any more that explains what I was doing. The following photos are of the finished base and then to finish there are a few from the customer with figures in place as well as surrounded by other terrain.

Here is the whole thing finished-

You can see the town hall type building on the right with a fancy timber framed building along the bottom that will be a hotel backing onto a number of small town houses. The corner timber framed building finishes off the base. This is the same style of another building in the countryside so helps to tie the whole table together.
All the buildings are surrounded by pavement so the base can be placed anywhere on the town board creating roads where ever you want them.
The large timber framed piece was a very complicated piece, especially the roof so I ended up tiling it with individual tiles instead of using the sheets of resin tiles that I normally use.

The town hall could have ended up as a big ugly building but I was pleased how it ended up in the end- just enough windows, the balcony works and the coat of arms added a splash of colour (the coat of arms is completely made up from Games Workshop transfers I found in my painting table!)

The row of town houses were an interesting mix of houses. I varied the height, roof style, colour of walls, shutters and distance from the road making a potentially dull row of houses into something alot more eye catching.

The guttering you can see all comes from Skytrex Models. The windows are my own laser cut supply and the shutters are also my own metal ones that I had loads made of years ago. I also added wire running along the outside of the houses going into a box on the front of each house. The boxes were from my spare box of plastic kits so I have no idea what they should have been but they look good as boxes on the side of houses!

The lampposts are plastic kits from Miniart. They are 1/35th scale but fit perfectly with the house models. They are beautiful designs and very eye catching.
The whole base had a back yard. The original idea was that it would be bigger than it has ended up being. It is no long and thin, probably wide enough for a small armoured car but nothing more.

That is it for my photos but I have saved the best to last. These next 6 photos are from my customer. He has added figures as well as putting this new base next to the other two bases I have done earlier for him (have a look at earlier in this series for more details) and some landscape. The vehicles have been painted by the Troop of Shrew and the figures are done by Artmaster. You can see that the finished game will look spectacular so look out for it at Salute next year.

That is it for now on this project. The plan is to do one more base that will go at the end of the town and the idea is that it will blend the town into the countryside. That will be done next year before Salute and will finish the whole thing off perfectly.

Normandy village part 7

I have been working hard on the latest base in between the Olympics. If it wasn't for the radio commentary I wouldn't have got anything done for 2 weeks!

Progress has been steady but I would have hoped to have got a bit further than I have by now. The timber framed building has seen its roof take shape. Here is a photo of the original building.

The roof is a bit complicated with the dormers so I knew it would be a challenge. Normally I would use resin sheets of tiles to make the roofs but the detail was so delicate on this roof that I decided to make the roof structure from card, so it was easy to cut to the exact shape I wanted and then tile it with individual tiles made from plasticard.

I started by making the basic shape of the roof and then once dry adding the details.

The process of doing the roof was just to do one thing after another and don't get put off by each stage. It was going to come good and would be worth the effort.

The last step before tiling was to add the small roofs on the dormers. I now needed some painting to do so started on the building itself. A base coat of yellow ochre all over, washed with raw umber and then two heavy dry brushes of buff for the plaster. All the wood was then painted black followed by a dry brush of black grey.

The last thing I have done on this building was the tiling. It took hours but was worth it. Seeing the painted version will be on the next post.

I cut thin plasticard into small rectangles and then use super glue to stick them on to the card. Start at the bottom and work up to the top row by row.

While I was working on this building I began work on the row of houses that would back up onto it. I had about 15" length to fill so I went with 4 narrow houses with various roof styles and number of floors. I designed them, cut them out, added laser cut windows and glued them together into one row.

I wanted to have a couple of them painted quite brightly so went with a yellow and sky blue. I thought these would add a little contrast to the rest of the subdued pallet. Once I had rendered them with plaster the paint job looked like this

You will notice from this photo that I have also been working on the town hall. I have painted it with a base coat of yellow ochre, a wash of raw umber and then dry brushed with a cream, and then a buff and finally a very light white dry brush.
The roof has also been built and again I have decided to tile it with individual tiles. The roof has a hollow top ready for an AA gun which you can see from this photo taken before I had started painting it.

The board is now looking pretty full

I have got further than this but I realise I haven't taken any photos for a couple of days so will do another post, part 8 in a couple of days with a final one next week (or maybe the week after) when it is finished.