Skip to main content

The Baltic German Town Center on a Bright(-er) Day. . .

 A half-timbered, or fachwerk, house.

A delightful couple of hours spent this late morning and early afternoon tweaking the construction of my foamcore lightbox and then taking a slew of better-lighted photographs of the recently completed model buildings.  While some a re rather good, others need to be reshot.  I've tried three-point lighting, but that still leaves shadows and certain important details in the darkness, so a fourth source of diffused light, probably positioned behind the camera and  bounced off the ceiling of the lightbox, will solve the problem.  Stay tuned.  

By the way, the Young Master, who returned Sunday evening from 10 days visiting his grandparents in Seattle, approves of Dad's recent construction boom.  We're planning a very simple Featherstonian-type wargame this weekend using his soldiers that he received last Christmas.  A few of the buildings here just might make an appearance.  Can't wait!

-- Stokes

 Another half-timbered house.


The Duke of Brunswick Gasthaus.  No trouble figuring out what goes on here.


A better photograph of the sign hanging above the door into the pub and inn.


The more interesting front half of Das Heiligen-Geist-Hospital, or The Hospital of the Holy Spirit.


The local Latin school, or Lateinschule. 


Das Rathaus, or town hall.


Die Universität, or as we like to call it in English, the university.


Das Waisenhaus, or town orphanage.  And just what are those two ladies with the generous decolletage doing outside an orphanage??!!


Two more half-timbered houses.  The timbering on all four of these was done with a combination of magic marker, colored pencils, and crayon.


And finally, das Zollhaus or the custom house where duty is collected on all goods entering town, and paperwork is processed for all imports and exports.  It's almost Kafkaesque!

Comments

Paul Liddle said…
Good job Stokes, very good indeed!.
Der Alte Fritz said…
A mighty fine collection of buildings there. Amazing what you can do with marking pens, pencils and crayons RE the half timber buildings

Jim
You are to be congratulated on how this project has turned out ! , Tony
Wellington Man said…
What can I say? Wonderful! Thanks for posting, Stokes.
WM
Thank you everyone for your very kind and generous comments. I'm so pleased with the way everything has turned out, that I'm almost ready to have a go at scratch-building another half a dozen buildings.

Best Regards,

Stokes
Fitz-Badger said…
I agree, excellent work on the building project.
The buildings and figures compliment each other very!
Conrad Kinch said…
They look magnificent Stokes. Reminds me of a very happy time spent in Goslar, Germany.

Can a fortress be far behind?
Chris Gregg said…
A ver impressive and authentic looking collection. You have recreated the character one associates with those very early Grant buildings
Chris
Thank you, men! I think it's the colors (off white, tan, yellow ochre, and rusty brown-red), the underscale size, and perhaps the rooflins of certain buildings that call the original Grant structures immediately to mind. That, and the fairly simple door and window treatments. No matter. I wear my influences loudly and proudly, though I also hope that I have managed to impart some of my own vision to these models.

Best Regards,

Stokes
marinergrim said…
they are just such a wonderful back drop for your figures. excellent.
Stryker said…
A really superb job!
warpaintjj said…
Very attractive properties on display here, I should know - I sell houses in the UK!
So who made the burly barman & superwoman carrying 6 steins of pils?
Excellent work, enjoy your game.
Best wishes,
Jeremy
Stokes,
You should be very proud of your achievements, they are lovely buildings, well done.
Big Andy said…
Its no good I'll have to start building again!! I do like the style of those.
Paul Howes said…
You can never have to many good looking buildings, Bravo! BB
Anonymous said…
Fabulous building Stokes.
Simon
Duke of Baylen said…
Dear Stokes,

I do love the appearance of your figures and the buildings seem to set them off to advantage.
Those rooflines do look tricky but it's paid dividends.

all the best,

Stephen
Anonymous said…
they are just such a wonderful back drop for your figures. excellent.



โกเด้นสล็อต
สูตรบาคาร่า
Gclub จีคลับ
Anonymous said…
A ver impressive and authentic looking collection. You have recreated the character one associates with those very early Grant buildings

\
โกเด้นสล็อต
สูตรบาคาร่า
Gclub จีคลับ

Popular posts from this blog

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

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...

And We're Off!!!

  Arrrgh!  Gotta go back into camera settings on my iPhone to bring all of the frame into focus.  Blast! Painting is underway on the 60 or so Minden Austrians, which are slated to become my version of the Anhalt-Zerbst Regiment of AWI renown.  More or less indistinguishable from Austrians of the era really, right down to the red facings and turnbacks, but the eventual flags (already in my files) will set them apart.   I went ahead and based-coated all of them over a couple of days lthe last week of August, using a mix of light gray and white acrylic gesso, before next applying my usual basic alkyd oil flesh tone to the faces and hands.  In a day or two, I'll hit that with Army Painter Flesh Wash to tone things down a bit and bring some definition to the faces and hands.   As usual, the plan is to focus on about 20 figures at a time, splitting the regiment roughly into thirds along with the color party and regimental staff.  Depending on ...