A Few Sneakpeaks at the Baltic German Town Center. . .

A tiny peak at the town center to be. . . 

Still not quite there with everything, but I wanted to share a few early photographs of the almost finished Baltic German town center after a quick trip to my local 'big-box' arts and crafts store midday where I found, in the scrapbooking aisle of all places,  12" square heavy (vinyl?) textured sheets the make perfect cobblestone mats on which to place the various town buildings!  Who knew?  Allow me to reiterate that I will never again sneer at the scrapbooking set. 

At any rate, there are various companies out there that produce cobblestone gaming mats in various sizes, but looking at them online, the colors seem either too dark, or the size of the cobblestones depicted seem too large for 28-30mm figures and buildings.  So, I thought that I'd take a gander at the dollhouse and scrapbooking aisles to see if I might ind reasonable substitutes  Lo and behold, there they were, the perfect randomly patterned, sized, and colored heavy sheets of whatever they are made of at 50% off the listed retail price.  I purchased six sheets with two extras for future use.  

The mats have some sheen, admittedly, but if you have ever observed a town square or cobbled streets anywhere, especially on even a slightly damp day, you will have noticed that so too do the real things after centuries of foot and wagon traffic have smoothed out their surfaces.  Add some light rain or mist on top of that, and the cobblestones have a bit of sheen to them.  One can easy slip and fall if wearing shoes with leather soles in fact.  So, my initial thought to dull the mats with a few shots of something like Testor's Dullcote will remain just that.  A passing thought.

Before leaving the store, I also stumbled onto large foam core sheets that have one side in non-reflective sky blue.  These will perform admirably as neutral backdrops for future tabletop photography exploits.  All of this is simply a round about way of saying take a look at the town center yet to come!  

Of course, I already have quite a few civilians, wagons, and cart painted up that can be used to populate the as yet unnamed town, but at some point in the near future, I fear there might be a "need" for a few additions from Black Hussar and Redoudt, both of whom offer quite a few suitable mid-18th century men, women, and children.  A few well-chosen additions to the collection can help clog the streets of the town center shown as well as smaller villages and settlements set up for future actions and battles.

Ok.  Enough talking about it.  Time to paint in the windows and doors on the final building and add  some surprise detailing to a few of the buildings.

-- Stokes

The almost finished Rathaus at rest.  Or is it?  What 'burgerly' intrigue might be at play inside? 

More of the town center, which has been placed on one of my recently acquired felt Hotz Mats, which will drape over hills more convincingly that my old Woodland Scenics mats. 

Once everything is done, I'll get out the Hotz fields and roads that I purchased last year, and set up some true tableaus, panoramas, and the like for your perusal.  Who knows?  I might even have to stage a solo game. 

The windows and doors are all done!  Now, it's time for a break (Supper and a walk. . .  It's a spectacular Saturday evening here in Mid-Michigan.), and then back to work for some touch-ups to a few things and those few small surprise details I keep babbling about.