Project Round Up – Easter Monday

Well, the Easter holiday is nearly over, at least I have managed to get some model work done each day. Today was quite a busy day model wise, with the sun shining down and ‘Big Finish Doctor Who’ audio book CDs playing in the background I got quite a lot completed.

Castle Ruins – Castle Entrance.

The left hand side of the entrance has now been completed, leaving only a small part of the roof near the murder holes to be completed before I start painting.

Castle Ruins – Partial Room.

This is the last piece of the castle ruins that I had originally planned, and I had the polystyrene skeleton cut out for a while now.

This piece gives me a partial room with a doorway, on a higher level, with a set of steps leading up. The steps have been built from odd pieces of polystyrene, glued in a spiral set of steps, once covered in wall filler these will be much sturdier than they are now.

I have reinforced the top level join with a couple of cocktail sticks inserted into the top step and the main body piece. 

Today I started to cover the first couple of walls then decided that the whole thing was too box shaped still so broke out two lumps from the remaining sides.

I think this will give a better result in the end. These odd pieces will be made up to be small wall fragments for general placement on the overall layout.

Coffee Stick Ghost Town.

After looking at the paintwork from yesterday I decided that the models did not need a second coat of burnt umber before I added the lighter shading, so I started today with a 50–50ish mix of Wilkio’s Burnt Umber and Americana’s Desert Sand.  Both are acrylic based paints. I picked up several different bottles of Americana paint from a recent clearance sale at the local branch of Hobbycraft. (I try to pay regular visits to as many hobby shops that have clearance bins, as you never know what you might find.)

I lightly coated the two models with this lighter brown mix, then once dry I dry brushed with the same acrylic white I bought at the local pound store which I’ve been using on the castle ruins to give that aged weathered look to the wood work.

These two models have come out a lot darker than the original two coffee stick buildings I made; I actually prefer this colour scheme and will probably keep to this when I make a few more of these models. I think the town needs a few extract smaller models to go along with the three large ones that dominate the one smaller model at the moment.

All these models have had their windows painted black; this is quite a neutral design so that I can always add additional effects later.

After, I gave all four of the coffee stick ghost town buildings a quick spray with Games Workshop’s purity seal. The other two have been waiting a while over winter for their spray, as I try to do this outside when the weather is better.

Project Round Up - Good Friday.

Had one of those odds and ends days where I gathered up a number of the projects I’ve been working on over the last few weeks in a bid to try and get some of them finished off.

Castle Ruins – Castle Entrance. I’ve now got the front entrance brickwork and the right hand side brick work finished. I did this today out in the garden with the sun quite strong for this time of year. I found that the wall filler was drying off faster than I could get the side covered. I had to work in smaller sections  to be able to carve the stone effect into it before it dried too much. If it dries too quickly the stone effect becomes a bit crumbly when it is dug into. The best thing in hot weather is to work on smaller sections at a time, but because it does dry quicker you can get more area coverage in the long run.

Castle Ruins – Walls. I got the paint job done earlier in the week, so today these pieces were given a spray with ‘Purity seal’ from ‘Games Workshop’.

Coffee Stick Houses . There are currently two being worked on. One had a few missing pieces added on to it, the smaller one has reached the stage for undercoating. As I was working outside I took the quick fire approach and sprayed with ‘Chaos Black’ also from ‘Games Workshop’.

Log Cabin. This is a test piece using home grown canes.  I’ve added some cane pieces now to two sides, once the glue dries I’ll clean up and see what it looks like. I did find that a couple of the cane pieces had fallen off from the first attempt, but I’m not giving up yet. I think this will work.

Castle Ruins - Ongoing work

Another weekend with only a few hours spent working on the models.

First I’d like to say a big thank you to all those who have promoted my blog on their sites, your support and encouragement is much appreciated as well as any comments left. Speaking of comments...

Luckyjoe asked about murder holes for the entrance way to the castle ruins. I admit I forgot all about those small holes in walls and ceilings where defenders could pelt invaders with rocks or pour down boiling oil. These were a very vital part of a castle’s defensive measures. To really do justice to them is a bit late now, as I’ve already lined the entire entrance with the filler, but there was an area along the top where a square shape on the original polystyrene did cry out for something a bit extra to make a feature out of it.

Using a metal rod I managed to break through the wall filler and make four suitable holes in each corner of the square. These will be turned into some murder holes, but I will be making an additional piece for the entrance later so I’ll make certain I give more thought to the forward design.

Cheers Luckyjoe now who ever GMs using these has an extra weapon to use against the players, guess I should start writing my own adventure. (BigLee beware, you think our current GM is EVIL – sign off with manic laughter...)

I also realised that there were no window pieces either, so in the other curved section I was working on I cut out some small window shapes this time before I added the wall filler.

Up until now I’ve been using plastic coffee sticks to cut the stone shapes into the wet wall filler, but they don’t actually last very long and soon snap.

So I’ve given in and bought a new small chisel blade to use for the stone work – a quick trip to the local hobby shop this weekend.

This wall and the flag stone tile effect I’ve put on to the top of the entrance way were carved out using the new blade, I don’t think you can tell the difference.

I’ve only got as far as undercoating with black acrylic paint this weekend – I’m going to try and get the grey colouring done during the week if I get a chance.

Castle Ruins - Tunnel Entrance and Layout

Time has been against me again this week when it came to model work, but with a sunny Sunday afternoon here I managed to get a couple of hours in the garden to work on the castle ruin entrance tunnel.

You might recall when I first got hold of the large pieces of polystyrene I said to look at them from every direction before cutting them up.  During my examination I noticed a section that would make a great tunnel or passage way.

Using the  hot wire cutter I removed this section. This gives me two sides, with pillars, and a roof. You might notice that the original packing had taken some damage – this happened when I was trying to get the polystyrene home last November during a blizzard, gripping hard onto the large pieces trying to escape in the driving snow my grip broke some chunks off. Anyway it will all add to the final effect.

I’ve now managed to cover the inside of the tunnel (sides and roof) with filler and I’ve carved the stone work in. Over the next couple of weeks I hope to get the outside finished and then painted.

Working outside today I got the first chance in a while to lay out all the finished pieces made for the castle ruin set so far. Here are a few pictures of just one configuration of the pieces.