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.

Normandy village part 6

First of all sorry for the big gap between this new post and my last at the beginning of May. My back decided to play up big time which meant I haven't been able to sit down comfortably for any length of time so couldn't post anything of any use.
Enough of the boring stuff.....
I have just started another section of the Normandy village. The first 5 parts of the string of posts cover the making of the first sections. The aim is to build enough stand alone pieces so they will cover an 8ft x 4ft area so there can be a good sized village to fight over using figures painted by Artmaster and vehicles built by Troop of Shrew. The game will at Salute 2013 and should be spectacular when everything is done.
This new section is 28" long and 16" wide. This is bigger than the first section as we want a larger courtyard in the middle.
I started off again by sketching out on the base board the sort of layout we were looking for- there needed to be a larger court yard and we wanted a Town Hall type building at one end but other than that the brief was pretty loose.

The sketch gave me an idea of what space I had to play with and the sort of buildings I needed to design. The town hall is on the right of the photo and takes up a large chunk of the board. I was struggling a little for inspiration for the longer thinner building running along the bottom. I wanted to find something that looked a bit different to the other buildings I had made in stage 1. I went for Google and searched for Normandy building photos and trawled through them until I came across this-

As soon as I saw it I knew that was the one. If I can get the roof and other details right then it could potentially be the centre piece of the town. I had enough laser cut windows still around so before I knew it I had it designed and cut out.

The photos shows the first floor windows all shuttered closed so we decided to do the same so I sealed them off and only left the upstairs windows open ready to put in window frames. At this stage I haven't made the smaller wing of the building as I don't know exactly what space I will have as it will back onto the rear of the town hall so until I have that gap worked out there is no point working on this small extension.
Once I had glued the pieces together (I used my usual 5mm foam board) I started covering it in strips of balsa to resemble the timber framed pattern on the real thing.

the front

I have guessed the pattern on the rear, deciding it would be simpler with no pattern in it as it wouldn't be on show.

the rear

The above photo also shows the extra bracing I have added inside the house. This will help the model keep its shape once I start to plaster the walls. The plaster will go in between all the framing to give it texture and a better finish to just plain foam board. That is for tomorrow as I have left the model today to let everything dry so when the plaster tries to warp the walls it should all stay together and keep its shape.

At the same time as working on this timber framed building, the town hall has started to take shape. We originally wanted a 4 story building but it looked all wrong when I laid it out so we cut the top floor off leaving it as an imposing 3 story building.

Once I have the carcass of the building made I start adding mounting card onto it to make the whole thing more interesting. It makes rendering it more complicated but it is worth it. It gives you ridges to highlight when you paint it and just makes the model more '3D'. I have used black card to make it easier to show on the photo where I have used the card.

The next stage will be to render the whole building and then add a roof, a balcony above the main door and paint it.
That brings things up to date. The next few days will probably see me rendering and plastering both buildings but I want to start on the roof of the timber building as it will be a massive challenge to getting it to look like the real thing. Hopefully the next update will see some progress.

Industrial buildings part 2

I said last week that I would have more photos of the factories including an even bigger one. I have finally got round to the photography (I photograph outside using natural light and it has been a bit of a challenge to find a gap in the rain to do the camera work).
I thought I would also add a bit more detail on the models.
There are three in total so far, two of which have already been photographed but I thought I would show them again just for continuity.
The smallest one is the one story white factory unit:

This model has a footprint of 20" long and 8" wide and is 7" high at the roof apex.
The smaller of the red brick factories:

This factory has a similar footprint to the white building- 20"x9" but is 10" high to the top of the vent on the roof and the chimney is just over 12" tall.

The third factory is the biggest with an area covering 21"x 18" and is over 12" at its highest point.

The windows are all resin but I think when I do it again I will get them laser cut. The crane in at the rear of the factory comes from Skytrex's range of O gauge railway. They do a number of different ones and are well worth the money- it adds that special bit of detail that you would be very tricky to scratch build.
The rest of it was built in a similar way to the other units. The walls are embossed plasticard stuck onto a framework made from foam board. The roof is also embossed plasticard, to look like corrugated iron sheets.
The brickwork was painted using a raw sienna base and then washed in burnt umber followed by another wash of black. More washes may be needed after this depending on the look you are after. I then dry brush with a cream just to highlight the bricks and blend everything together. The final touch is to add water streaks and damp patches using raw umber and black if you are looking for a less subtle effect.

I have also taken a few shots of the buildings together. I was very short of space so not the greatest but they give you an idea of how they look together.

That is it for this project for a few weeks. I do still have quite a few more buildings to make but these are the biggest. There will be more updates when I have built a few more.

Pegasus bridge- part 2

One week into the project and things have moved on. I started on the buildings straight away as they will probably be the most time consuming things to make, other than the two bridges. Also, once the buildings are made I know exactly what space to leave them on the board.
The first post showed you the three buildings I had chosen to copy and all three models are just about recognisable as those structures.
Cafe Gondaree is nearly complete except for the roof and painting it. This is the third or forth time I have made this cafe and I have lost count how many times I have painted the 20mm resin version from Ravensthorpe miniatures but I think this latest version is the one I am most happy with.

I have had the windows laser cut to match the real things, I have some good looking louvred shutters and I think I have got the proportions of the model just about right. I also took time getting the brick patterns as close as I could to the original. It is great what you can do with imaginative cutting of brick plasticard.
The detail doesn't show up too well on the photo as I haven't started painting but it is recognisable as the cafe.The model is about 10" long.

The smaller, more decorative structure was great fun to make. I again had to use some imaginative cutting of the brick plasticard as there is quite alot of decorative brickwork on this house. It also has an interesting little protruding room at the side which makes it a bit different. This is now complete except painting and the roof.

I have used laser cut windows again, but in a different style to the cafe.I think this one will look pretty good when it is finished.
The third building, the town hall, I think, still needs some work doing to it. I am in the middle of rendering it's walls but once that is done it will just need painting and the roof adding.

This is the largest building of the three but probably the least interesting. I think it's size will be the eye catching feature of this one. I think it will be a key building in the game.
The boards have also been started but not by much. The wooden carcasses have arrived and I have filled them with polystyrene. They are stacked and drying for a few days ready to be worked on. This picture shows just where they are in the process but it really isn't the most inspiring piece of photography I have ever done!

That is week one complete and I am just about where I wanted to be. Next week will see the bridges complete (just about), the boards sculpted into shape with maybe the beginnings of some texture on them. The buildings won't have moved on much as they are ahead of the game. I don't expect to have had any paint brush touching the job until the week after. So far so good I think.

Trostle Farm- the last installment

This is just a quick one.
I have downloaded some photos that Bob Jones took using the farm model. Bob is a wonder with the camera and he has a great eye for composing an exciting diorama.
I don't think there is much else to be said, other than what reason do you need for lots of eye candy!

Pegasus Bridge in 28mm-Pt1

This is an exciting and time sensitive commission. I have to get Pegasus bridge and its surroundings done and delivered for a re fight on 6th June- 68 years to the day of the real action.
The finished board is to be 8 feet long and 4 feet wide with Pegasus bridge as the centre piece but with the river bridge as well along with room for a German counter attack.

This was the original map I was working to but it seemed the right thing to do to extend it to take into account the Orne river bridge.
In 28mm, it is impossible to do more than just a few buildings to represent any built up areas so we decided on just 3 in the end. I had no choice but to make Cafe Gondaree

This is such a well known landmark for anyone who has an interest in the D Day landings that it would be a crime to leave it off.
The other buildings were harder to decide on but in the end I went for these two:

Both buildings are still there (these images come from Google maps) but they were both around during the fighting so in the end were obvious choices.

I may find that once I have layed out the table then there may be room for more structures but I doubt it.
The two bridges are very functional bridges but I love them. Pegasus bridge itself is just a straight forward iron girder lifting bridge but I just love looking at it.

 This is a photo of the bridge as it was in 1944. Since then, a new bridge has replaced it and the original has been moved to the museum just to the right of where this photo was taken.

the bridge in the museum today

The Orne river bridge is less complicated but has an interesting girder pattern supporting the road way. I am getting this laser cut as the more precise I can do it the better.

The rest of the landscape will be planned as I go although the river bank will be raised a little and the final board must be suitable for it to go to wargaming shows with participation games run on it- so robust but eye catching.

To finish off this first post covering the development of this project, here is the promotional leaflet the club has designed:

I expect another 2 or 3 posts to cover the project with a final one full of photos from the game itself.