Hello all,
As discussed earlier on the blog, hobbytime seems to come at a premium these days and there's precious little of it, so I've been focusing on some smaller projects in order to see progress. Here I've completed some 15mm buildings.
Slyder House and Barn in 15mm
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Oh, there is it. In the black circle. Turns out it's near Little Round Top. Go figure. That reminds me, I need a Devils Den. |
I didn't take any WIP pics because there really isn't much to it. Here's how the buildings came out:
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| Slyder House and Barn |
The kits ARE very nice. These 15mm buildings are just smaller versions of the 28mm ones, so come designed that you can take off the roof to place miniatures inside. I'm not gonna be doing that for my ACW gaming so I just glued the roofs on in the end. Also, you use the instructions for the 28mm kits and these show the assembly of windows and doors, but in the 15mm these are etched on or part of the model, you skip these steps.
I spray painted the house and barn an off white. If you do light passes from far away the etched details on the MDF remain so it preserves the wood planking effect.
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| Rear of the Barn. Or maybe the front. I don't know anything about Barns. |
On the inside of the windows I glued a piece of navy blue card stock just so they wouldn't be open holes gazing into the nothing inside. I kinda like this idea. I'm gonna do it to my own house so folks can't look inside and see how messy it is. Madness or Brilliance?
On the roofs I added some of those paper shingles that I like so much. Which also took forever to do or maybe it was because I only got to work on these for about 15 mins at a time...
Overall I like how they came out. I'm sure that someone with talent and time could really bring these MDF kits to life (I'm looking at you Ivor) but I did a good enough job for the gaming table. It's one of terrain pieces that once it's surrounded by fields and fences it'll look even better.
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| Here's the house in real life. I find the stones in the wall kinda ugly actually but what can you do? |
More Fun with MDF
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The old Paint rack made of plastic disks would always get super messy and just didn't hold the paint stuff very well. So most of the time the paint just ended up sitting on the desk. |
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| The new paint rack is MDF that I purchased with a gift card that I got for Christmas. I got a rack that could hold 76 pots of paint because I couldn't possibly have that many. |
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| I like it better already. Much more organized. Turns out I had 83 Vallejo paints. Which seems CRAZY. I don't even like painting all that much. There's probably some colors in there that I've never used. |
Stew, really nice job on the buildings. On the first pictures, I thought they were posh manufactured jobs, you have managed to tally kill the MDF DNA, good result.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Norm. I think adding the card shingles to the roof helps disguise the MDF. 😀
DeleteSome progress is better than none and you have actually made good progress. Your buildings look great and your Slyder house is a close facsimile of the original. I like it! Always good to spruce up the painting area too. You make more progress than you think.
ReplyDeleteOh, I received vaccine #2 last Friday and was ill for the weekend. Had not even a sniffle in over a year.
DeleteThanks Jonathan! Any progress is good progress indeed. sometimes I have to remind myself that this is a hobby and there’s no such thing as not enough progress. Hobby time has always come in waves with me so these times of low ebb I try to focus on the small project so I get a feeling of accomplishment. 😀
DeleteI didn’t feel anything from the shots so once again I was lucky. I know several people who are much more healthier than me feel sick.
Lovely work. The house certainly looks like its real life counterpart. Liking the organised work space as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Simon! 😀
DeleteLooking more like the real thing is down to the actual model being based on it.
Time well spent on the stone pattern on the Slyder House--somehow jarring to see the air conditioning unit hanging out of the window of the real one. The window opens on Monday for me to be able to register for the vaccine--no telling when the appointment will be after that: it will be the single dose (J&J) version, so at least it should be a one shot deal ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks Ed! 😀
DeleteGood luck with your appointment. Hopefully we’ll get back to a new normal soon.
Those buildings look great mate. Even with a meh effort, you got a very nice result that will look great on the tabletop. Seeing them next to the troop stands though something initially seemed off - the troops looked a bit too tall, or the buildings were too short? Maybe a base for the buildings that is as tall as the troops' bases? Just a thought, more work I know LOL
ReplyDeleteThe paint storage solution is so cool! I wish I had space for that! (Not that 76 paint holes would ever be enough AND my paints are a big mix of every manufacturer and bottle size.)
No vaccines for me. Somehow, the government considers my classification to fall under the
"essential" title too, but damn, I think I'll wait and see how many vaccinated people end up sterilised, mutated, dead, etc as a side effect 5 years down the line before I dip my toe into that pond.
O and I have some big news to share - check your email in a bit.
Thanks Dai. I sometimes think about basing all of my buildings on a MDF but never seem to get around to it.
DeleteThere are two reasons why the figures might look off. 1 is that blogger always wants to make the pics square when they should be rectangular so I have to reshape them by guess and the image gets a little distorted. 2 is that the buildings are 15mm and my figures are 18mm on a 3mm base so are off scale. But probably close enough for gaming. 😀
I know no one who had I’ll effects yet from the shots, it’s not radioactive. 😀
Got your email and replied.
Nice work on those farm buildings, should be pretty useful as generic pieces, and obviously really add to the Gettysburg look if you are going for the whole town.
ReplyDeletePaint racks are a great thing, but I have way too many paint types... too much paint generally, which is annoying because think of all the miniatures that I could have instead?? (even worse when the pots dry up)
Congrats on the vaccination btw! Somehow I am essential enough to have to go to the office for work, but not for shots... someday I guess.
Thanks Laz! I got the whole Kickstarter bc I was thinking of having the town of Gettysburg on the table but might if bitten off more than I could do. 😀
DeleteAll of my paints are Vallejo do it makes storage kinda easier. I didn’t mind spending the gift card money on the paint rack versus figures since my figures pile is quite large enough. 😀
Good luck on that other thing. Strange it wouldn’t be offered through the employer.
Great stuff Stew! The extra effort on the Slyder house really paid off, that painting on the stone work looks absolutely fantastic 😀
ReplyDeleteI know how tedious that kind of work can be but definitely worth it. But of course, now you've set your own bar pretty high so you're going to have to do that with all the rest, and if my Gettysburg memory serves, you've got quite a few stone houses in your future - stay positive though and keep telling yourself at least they aren't 28mm 😀 Can't wait to see them all!
It's always nice to clean up the painting desk - it's crazy how many paints we acquire over the years isn't it lol
*I really like your idea of putting the dark card stock on all the windows of the house, I may even glue a couple of select doors shut too to keep people out as well 😂*
Thanks Ivor. Yes, there are a lot of stone houses around Gettysburg. Sigh. I think I managed to walk the line of getting a nice result without too much effort. Not like painting stones is hard but as you say; kinda tedious. The shingles are too but it looks nice. 😀
DeleteSplendid house, looks just the part and the painted stones whilst slow looks excellent. I can’t be bothered to sort my paint desk out, it has a familiar chaotic feel which i like 😀 it is only slightly annoying when I bought some new dark green to find I already had some.😢
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt! The chaos of my hobby desk comes and goes. I like it to be organized at the start of a project and of course during it the whole thing becomes a mess. 😀
DeleteWell Stew, I am impressed!I have never been a fan of MDF "puzzle" terrain, but you made this house look good. The paint on the stone work pops and the extra effort on the paper shingles really pays off. The navy card in the windows is a great idea. Might I suggest a step further and cut some clear acetate from buble packaging to put in front of the card. Then your windows will reflect the surrounding table terrain, as windows should.
ReplyDeleteI bought two of these MDF paint racks, but with a portion of the holes larger. I only use the one shaped like yours. The corner one is stored away. I have so many large bottled I had to build a corner rack with all large holes out of pegboard scrap. The Villejo paints I keep in small boxes, 6 to a box, with splotches of the colors on the box. Saves a lot of room.
Cheers
Vol
Thanks Vol! That’s a good idea about the clear acetone. I’ll have to do that for next time. 😀
DeleteWhen I started wargaming someone told me Vallejo paints so that’s all I’ve ever bought besides some large tubes from Michaels for terrain projects so it’s easier for me to store. Least now I can find a color without picking up several bottles while searching. 😀
Acetate, not acetone Stew. With acetone you're liable to melt the barn haha. I meant the clear plastic used to package stuff so you can see what you're buying. I cut the flat sections from the packages and store them away for later use in buildings, starships, etc. When I used to do that stuff. Not much call for it now. I still use it to protect the labels on the underside of my ship bases.
DeleteVery good work alround Stew. The buildings look superb and how dare you get your paint desk organised😂.
ReplyDeleteThanks Carlo! I know I have a lot of nerve to organize the paints! But I’m one of those guys who likes a clean desk; at least at the start of a project. 😀
DeleteNice work on these buildings Stew. Several of your comments made me laugh out loud, so much so, I almost explained to my wife why I was laughing about the comment of using card on your real houses Windows....almost, but not quite...I imagine she would have just rolled her eyes and sighed...no sense of humour, the fairer sex!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kieth! I think your name is Kieth. Glad you enjoyed the post.
DeleteBut yeah, don’t bother explaining to the wife. It’s not that they don’t have a sense of humor it’s that we just stop being funny. My wife USED to think I was hilarious and now she just does the eye roll. 😀
The buildings look great! Very close to the source material, in fact. We might make an obsessive modeler out of you yet! ;) Congrats on getting a vaccine too. I'm young(ish) and non-essential so I'm still waiting for the opportunity to even sign up for a vaccine. It seems to me like things are lagging behind where I live so its good to hear of others receiving their vaccine.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jeff! Who would call you non essential??!!
DeleteThe buildings being close to the real thing is down to the model actually being based on the real buildings. But I’m not gonna worry about becoming obsessive; I don’t have the time or the talent. 😀
Great looking buildings! Nice application of minimum effort for maximum gain, in a good way ,there was me thinking wow,nice circular paint rack,that's neat and then you said you replaced it! I've just got an old wine box filled with different paint pots and chewing gum pots filled with paint, yours looks much neater!
ReplyDeleteBest Iain
Thanks Iain! That was a nice way to describe my building process. 😀
DeleteThe big problem with the circle racks was that the paint didn’t fit snugly inside them, so became messy too easily. I’m liking this rack much better.
Great job on the Slyder Farm, Stew! Adding shingle strips was well worth the effort. Can't wait to see the rest of the buildings!
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot! You did a very nice job with the kits. I’m very happy that I joined the KS.
DeleteI’m hoping in the future you’ll have more 15mm ACW buildings. 😀