Whitewash City #7

Comparing two building plans side by side shows that the Grand Hotel seems to be drawn up to a smaller scale. The front door is quite a bit shorter, which in turn makes the ceiling/second floor way too low for 28/30mm characters. Might have to scrap my plans for a two story building at this stage.

Whitewash City #6

Beginning the Grand Hotel. Everything is cut out and I'm feeling happy.

The outside walls are almost done.

Fuck It! It's the wrong scale. I think I've printed the plans out at 'fit to paper' rather than 100%. Bugger.

Whitewash City #5

So I'm going to have to re-think the whole 'sign-writing can't be that hard' theory.

Whitewash City #4

I've made a start on the painting of my posse. Sure it's only the smallest of starts, but with my painting speed, any progress is good progress!

Undercoated and whitewashed the outside, ready to add some colour.

Being my test building, it's going to stay 'white', but after finishing the trim, I will be attempting the sign-writing!!

Of course, all three of the buildings I'm currently working on are essentially 'square' single story buildings - my good lady thinks I should try something a little more challenging. Amongst the PDFs I have, none come more challenging that The Grand Hotel.

Once I've managed to build this beauty, I'm thinking of converting the single story Whitewash City Hotel into the Whitewash City Whorehouse - just so Stu's whores have somewhere to hang out!

Whitewash City #3

Probably the smallest building I will make for Whitewash city - the Bathhouse!

Customised the design slightly, removing the back door and adding a ladder so that snipers can access the roof!

The Men in Black. No, not Will Smith, but rather my posse of evil doers undercoated in back, ready for me to start painting!

Whitewash City

Ok, so this is becoming a bit of a habit, but I've started another project before finishing the one I'm currently in the middle of.
A good friend has given me some cowboys to paint over Christmas, and I've ordered a couple of special characters from Dixons Miniatures to go with them.
Essentially we're planning on playing a bit of Legends of the Old West, so along with about 8 characters to paint, I figured I'd build a small town.
I managed to get some Whitewash City paper buildings, but being a sucker for punishment decided to use these as a template to build some using my spare corkboard.
The first building is coming along nicely, but I've already made one un-mend-able mistake.

Only time will tell if I can get enough down in time for regular gaming nights to kick off again in February.

Russian Propaganda Posters

A few years back I decided to try making a Russian apartment building out of foamcore. It turned out quite nice - not that there is really much to a Russian apartment building! But to make it just a little bit nicer, I found some Russian propaganda posters online and printed one out on my colour printer. Getting it the right size was a problem, as for it to be actual scale made it too small to recognise what was on it, so a happy middle goprund was reached with the poster being just a little larger than scale.

But the scale issue was one using preconceived notions that everyone made posters the same size. Looking at the picture above that I recently found in the book Absolute War, I now think my poster may have been way too small to be proper scale! Those Russians certainly knew how to make their point; with HUGE posters.

Carentan - A Litte More Progress

It's probably worth pointing out that my aims for this 'Carentan Project' is not to re-create Carentan in it's entirety, but to create some buildings loosely based on Matakishi's 28mm Carentan project.
For those who want a little more information than just the photos, I'm using 4.8mm Natural Cork Tiles - the ones you are supposed to use for flooring, for the walls and 2mm Cork Craft Sheets for the base. I gave up on using PVA after my first house and instead purchased a tube of Germany's finest glue, UHU - the glue I used to use in England as a youngster building model planes. The roofs are probably going to be made of card with some 2.8mm Cork supports.

Carentan - More Progress

Started the detailing on the second building.
And started to build the third building. Detailing on the first building will wait until I've worked out a few minor details.

Carentan - Progress

Building two is well underway, thanks to a relaxing day at home.

Scale vs Playability Part Deux

I've decided that I quite like the 'close to actual scale' size of the buildings, but after reading some comments on the Flames of War forums, I realised that I could increase the spacing between the windows and floors to increase the size of the building without having to upscale the door or window size.
Side by side you can see that the new building is a fair bit bigger and will hopefully look great on my gaming table.

Scale vs Playability?

So I've decided to get back on track with my Carentan project, but decided to try building something to 15mm scale, with the doors being 20mm high and 10mm wide.

Whilst this may be true to scale, the building itself seems very small for a 3 story townhouse.

Though technically there is nothing wrong with the size, it looks quite good with the figures...

...you can only fit one medium base in the building.

In comparison, my first building attempt looks way out of scale for the models, but has more room to play in/around.

So how should I proceed, true to scale, or a larger, more 'playable' scale?

Gaming Table

A quick test layout for my Flames of War gaming table. It will be interesting to see how the inclusion of rivers affects the gameplay!

January Challenge: Failed!

Technically I could still complete my January Challenge, but it would mean ignoring my family and my responsibilities for the rest for the day and going hard out painting and basing. That's just not going to happen. I'm confident however, that before my birthday rolls around, I'll have my airborne army complete, and will be eager to start a late war German army.

I did however purchase a storage container for all my finished scenery, but when i decided to transfer my previously completed pieces form the cardboard box to the new plastic bin, I discovered that two of them has not been given the grass treatment!

I'm happy with my progress regardless of the missed deadline, and am pretty sure I'll have a decent enough gaming table if we decide to play FOW this Wednesday, with a little bit of luck I'll even be able to introduce the guys (or at least my opponent) to a little something that we've never gamed with before...

Of course, there is plenty more I want to do for my gaming table, but they will be projects for the rest of the year.

Small Stand of Trees

Some shop bought trees, some MDF, paint and flock. Tutorial coming soon!

More Progress

Managed to finish detailing the buildings, now I've just got to finish the bases.






Camo done, next the boots then the webbing, backpack and gaiters. The end of January is getting real close....