Lots of Difficult Angles and Curves!

Although I love emulating Ian Weekley's work, and have done so with my models of Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte, and Papelotte, these will be fairly basic wargame structures without a lot of minute detail.

However, this shot gives you a pretty good idea of the various and difficult kinds of cuts involved -- all done with a 2B artist's pencil (I like soft pencil lead), a metal ruler, and normal triangular X-acto "hobby" blade on one of those self-healing cutting matts. Oddly enough, I haven't yet chopped off a finger tip doing the curved gables. Why not is anyone's guesss!!!

You can just about make out the church tower at the rear left of the picture. It was a major pain in the you-know-what to get those diamond-shaped roof pieces cut just right, so that all four would fit together flush on top of the church tower. But Mr. Weekley published an article in Miniature Wargames years ago, featuring a couple of photos of a model representing a medieval Saxon church with this type of tower/roof line. I filed Mr. Weekley's methods and tips away mentally for use on my own structure 20 odd years later. Not too bad if I do say so myelf.

Comments

Anonymous said…

Those buildings will look pretty cool. Do you have templates for them that you can post?

6:07 PM

Bluebear Jeff said…

Seeing this angle, I like them even better.

For an idea, if you have any extra figures left over, you might want to erect a "statue". Either build a base for it; or make a "fountain" with the statue is the centerpiece. Paint as if bronze or marble.

Such objects make a nice "central point" in a town.

Just an idea for you.

-- Jeff

8:09 PM

Anonymous said…

They look very good Stokes.

Good work.

2:53 AM

A Little More Brushwork. . .

A little more brushwork on the first batch of (my version of) the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment yesterday (Saturday). Taking a different tack this time and addressing many of the details first before the white coats and other larger areas of uniform. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've painted the (dark) red stocks of the enlisted men. Always a difficult and frustrating item to paint, it made sense to paint from the inside out as it were and get that particular detail out of the way first rather than try to paint it in later after much other painting has been accomplished. Trying to reduce the need for later retouching of other items on the figures you understand. Hopefully, I will be able to get back to these later today after a second trip back to the Apple Store for help with a couple of new iPad issues and, following the return home, some revision of Google Slides for tomorrow's meetings with my students. -- Stokes P.S. And according t...

Basic Reds Done at Last. . .

S till quite a way to go with the current batch of 20 human figures and a horse (of course), but they're actually starting to look like something after all of the red distinctions. Quite a bit of painting in hour-long sessions the last week as and when time has allowed. Mostly applying the basic dark red to facing areas and turnbacks followed by the inevitable touch-ups to clean up wobbly edges and those misplaced, minute splotches of Citadel Khorne Red. They're looking like so many Austrian infantry regiments of the era at this point, but the eventual flags will turn them magically into the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment, more or less, of the AWI period. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. One frustrating point (ahem) of sad discovery. I've started trying to use those Winsor & Newton 'Series Seven' brushes (#1 rounds) purchased last spring, and the blasted things simply will not keep a point. Very frustrating since I have heard over the y...

It's Early Days Yet. . .

M aking some early progress with Batch A of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment over the last several days/evenings. Nothing terribly exciting just yet, but the basic black, brown, and flesh areas are done as are the green bases, and gray undercoat. The latter two areas needed some careful retouching early in the week. Next up, the neck stocks. I might just do these in red for the enlisted men although some of my source material suggest they were black, but I always look for an excuse to shake things up a bit. Any errant splotches of red (or black) can be covered with another application of light gray before I move onto the next step. "Giddy up!" as one Cosmo Kramer might have said. -- Stokes

The Grand Duchy of Stollen

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