54mm Blackrock castle

Earlier this year I completed a rather large commission for a 54mm castle. The piece was to be based on Blackrock castle in Ireland. This is a standing today but the current structure was not built as a defencive building so I had to add a few bits, such as a gatehouse to make it look more medieval.

It is an interesting structure with one large turret dominating it along with a number of smaller turrets that are dotted around the wall. It is also perched on top of a cliff overlooking water and it has  a water gate opening up into the overlooked water. I was hoping the contrast of the shiny water and the grey of the castle walls would complement each other. It all worked out in the end.

Overall, the job took about 4 months to complete and hours spent on it added up to about 250 over those 4 months. The castle was set into an oval base about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide. The castle needed to have space around it for the enemy to be displayed so overall the castle was probably 5 feet long and 2 feet wide. It was over 2 feet high at it's highest point.

It was made from mainly foam board very well reinforced along with balsa wood and some laser cut circles for the insides of the turrets to make sure they were circular.

Once I had the structure built everything was covered in air dried clay- Daz Pronto and once it was dry I carved it all to look like stone. By the end of it my fingers were a little sore!

I now had a red castle so I started painting it with a dark grey and slowly worked up to a lighter grey. I then washed it all over with raw umber and once that was dry I dry brushed the whole thing 'up' again with a series of greys and a final going over with a bit of white.

The final touches to painting the castle was to weather it down a gain a little with raw umber just highlighting areas and adding water streaks and things like that. This is one of my favourite parts of the job as it usually comes alive at this stage and the castle was no exception.

You can see the water as well in the is photo. I covered the water area in filler, covered it in PVA glue and then painted it until I was happy with the look and varnished it with gloss varnish.
The final touches were doing the rest of the landscaping, adding doors and a ramp to the main gate and that was it.
This was probably my most ambitious project ever being so big that I had to higher workspace on top of where I usually work. It wasn't just big though- there was lots of detail and the water just seemed to make the whole thing into something spectacular. I just wished I had some figures that I could have used in the photos as that is when it would really come alive. Anyway, these next photos of it finished will have to do:

That is it for this one. If anyone wants a castle building please get in touch as I loved doing this one.

20th Century buildings.

Last year at Salute I delivered 3 large factories to a customer. They were designed to be able to be fought over anytime during the 20th century in and around Europe. I did do a post about them but here are a photo of each as a reminder.

These were all pretty big structures so I now had to deliver another 10 smaller structures that would go with them.
I had used alot of accessories from Skytrex so I did the same again. The guttering and most of the windows were from their railway range and along with other bits and pieces such as chimneys I was able to make alot of details common to all the buildings making them look part of the same community.
I used plasticard sheets from South Eastern Finecast so again using the same sheets I got common a common brick look.
Each of the buildings were different and that became a bit of a challenge to come up with the different designs.

white washed walls added contrast and variety for the layout

factory and offices. The horn by the top of the door is a resin piece.

a 3 level building and flat roof.

straight forward rectangular workshop.

These first four buildings were all brick and industrial but I wanted to have a couple of buildings that looked like flats. I had done some Stalingrad apartment buildings in the past (Pavlovs House) and wanted to do something like that.
These were very plain buildings so added a couple of fire escapes on the end to add more interest. The roofs and floors come away so lots of opportunities for snipers and house clearing games.

fire escape railings are plastic but stairs are from Skytrex.

windows are laser cut

I then did a smaller building and wanted it to look very run down and as if it was built from concrete slabs. I cut up sheets of cork tile and distressed the edges. Cork tile makes very convincing concrete flooring so I thought it would do the same on walls and I was happy with the result.

roof is plasticard painted grey and then washed brown and dry brushed.

doors are from Skytrex.

The final two buildings I decided to make ruined and design them so they could stand alone or be combined into one large ruin.
One of the buildings had a large door at one end and the other had a furnace with tall chimney. Both had a ruined open end. The windows and wall colours were the same on both and so they matched each other.
I had to add debris as well as some internal details so lot of cat litter and bits and pieces of industrial debris from my spares box made them look suitable ruined.

windows are laser cut

pipes and cogs always look very industrial

rust effect on the pipe done using Delux rust coating

I also had a couple of resin lathes and drill stand. I thought they would go well in here so in they went looking very sorry for themselves.
Finally, on one of them I recreated a burst pipe. I made a stream of water using Woodland Scenics water effect and then once dry stuck it on the end of the pipe and arched it so it touched the floor as if it was a stream of water coming out of the pipe. I then added a puddle of water using two part resin mix from Delux.

the ruined drill stand on its side

water gurgling out from the pipe

the two joined together

the rubble

The final piece I made for this commission was a supply dump. I wanted to something a bit different that would be interesting to fight over.
All the bits came from Skytrex range of extras for their railway line. I had great fun laying them out so there was space for figures to hide behind. I hope the layout is interesting enough to have a good game in.

this is about 30cm long and 25cm wide

corrugated fencing is sheets of plasticard cut to shape and bent to show distressed bits

all piles are from Skytrex range- very useful.

That covers the completed commission. I hope to get some photos of them all in action. If I do I will post them as they should look pretty good with all of the buildings together.
This was another very enjoyable commission and the hardest bit was keeping period detail off them as I was very tempted with adding graffiti and that sort of thing which was a real no no if they were to be used in different theatres and times during the 20th century.

54mm ruined house

Here is another quick post. One of the November jobs was a 54mm scale European house that would go with First Legion's Napoleonic buildings.
It ended up being very ruined as I designed it to be able to get into all the rooms without taking off any roofs or floors.
The chimney stack is carved out of Daz pronto which give the bricks an old worn look. I paint the bricks and then wash over a coat of buff paint which gets into the mortar lines and once I rub it off it leaves uneven but effective looking mortar.
The tiles were put on individually and made out of plasticard. The wall paper on the ground floor is from a dolls house supplier. I find the splash of colour the wallpaper gives the insides is really eye catching.
The final size of the house is about 14" long, 8 or 9" wide and about 12" high to the tip of the chimney.

The front

Inside detail- lots of space to place figures

A good view of the chimney stack

The rear showing the 'extention'

Chimney stack from inside