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| The watchtower on its hill with the gateway in the background |
City Gate
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| A wagon train approaches the gateway |
The fortification gate was designed to represent
a simple wooden wall with rampart behind and earth bank in front. Its centre
would be a large double door and for aesthetic appeal this would be set between
two pillars looking like they were made of stone blocks.
I started by cutting a base from 3mm
MDF about 1ft long and shaped so as to fit neatly across a table corner. I used
kebab sticks to make the wooden wall at cut these to length, with some shorter ones going across the top of the gateway and a few more smaller ones each side of the
front of the entrance, effectively put there to hold the earth bank in place. Each stick was roughly sharpened at the top with a modelling knife. I used two
offcuts of wood, about 1cm square in cross section for the stone pillars and
glued these in place, then glued the cut kebab sticks and set the whole aside to dry.
Later, I attached another wood offcut to
the rear of the wall to form the foundation for the rampart so a few figures could be placed here to defend the fortification.
When this was thoroughly dried I used a
lot of filler (mix of PVA, water, Polyfilla and builder's sand to create the
earth bank and fill in the gap beneath the rampart. In hindsight paper mache or
polystyrene to build this up first might have made more sense and would
certainly have made the finished piece lighter!
The door was made in the same way as doors
for the Saga terrain, by sticking strips of cardboard onto a piece of card and
cutting to size when done. I made four doors in this way, two for each side of
the gateway.
I used Milliput to texture the pillars
and imprinted this with the shapes of stone blocks using the tip of a small
screwdriver.
Finally I textured the top of the
rampart with PVA and chinchilla dust, and the base itself as normal for my 28mm
figures, using filler/PVA/sand mix and topping with a sprinkling of chinchilla
dust.
When completely dry, I painted wood
using a dark brown and stone in medium grey, and the top of the rampart a light
sand. The earth bank and base were painted as normal for my figure bases, using
Crown Cappuccino highlighted with a dry brush of Crown Brown Sugar. Finally,
the whole finished piece was very lightly dry brushed with Crown Biscuit.
Once painting was completed I used some flock in patches on the earth bank to finish.
Border Tower
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| The watchtower, used without the hill |
To give the option of the tower being sited on higher ground, I
made a separate hill piece that the watchtower could be used with if desired.
I cut a rectangular base from 3mm MDF for the
watchtower, allowing some space on this for the scaffold that would reach the
door. I cut a second piece about the same size as this for the top of the hill
(see below) and a larger base for the hill itself, as well as a square piece of
MDF to use as the base of the building's roof (cut very precisely to size - see
below).
I first made the hill on which the
watchtower could stand. I took the MDF piece that would be the hill top and
glued this on a couple of blocks of polystyrene in the centre of the larger
hill base. When this had dried, I built the basic shape of the hill around this
using paper mache. Once I was happy with this I textured the hill with
PVA/filler/sand mix, ensuring the top of the hill was reasonably smooth, with a
few large stones set around the hill for aesthetic appeal. I tried to made a
sort of obvious path up the hill to where the watchtower entrance would be.
Once constructed, I painted the hill in Crown Cappuccino highlighted with Crown
Brown Sugar. This was finished with some patchy areas of flock.
The main body of the watchtower was
made from the box that came with a nice bottle of whisky. These are typically
made of very good quality card that does not warp when wet (like beermats) and
so are very good for modelling. They're also not corrugated inside so don't
require filling around exposed edges. I cut this to the desired height and
glued it to the watchtower's base.
I used an offcut from the whisky box to
made an inset floor to use in the watchtower's upper room (I assume the
watchtower only essentially has this one room and that this is reached via
internal ladder within the tower). I textured this floor with paper strips to
represent floorboards and a trapdoor made from strips of card, and glued it in
place.
I used wooden stirring sticks (readily
freely available from many coffee shops) to make the timber frame of the
building. For rustic effect the sticks were each split lengthwise and I
selected the most appropriate ones to put in place. I stuck these in position
roughly in the same pattern as my pre-painted resin buildings. I made four
windows for each side of the watchtower using cut matchsticks and small slivers
of MDF, and stuck these in place. They would probably have been just as
effective if made from card, to be honest.
I used filler (an air-drying modelling
clay on this occasion, in fact) for the stone foundation of the building. I
won't be using this material again as it shrinks significantly on drying and
required repair works (though I kept a couple of the cracks that formed as they
look plausibly authentic. Would have been a lot better using a thick PVA/filler
mix instead, or possibly Milliput. I textured the edge of the clay when almost
dry by gently tapping with the handle of a small screwdriver. The overall effect
is more "Hammerite" than stone block, but is reasonably effective and
this looks fine from a distance.
I made a door from card strips stuck to
card, cut to shape and glued in place, and constructed a rough wooden scaffold
to allow access to the door from a variety of wood offcuts from matches and
coffee stirrers. After some fiddly and frustrating gluing and a reasonable
amount of swearing I ended up (at last) with something that was the roughly
right shape and size and looked good enough when glued in position.
I textured the walls of the building
between the timber framing with a very rough plastering of PVA/filler and the
base itself with PVA/filler/sand mix.
The rampart for the roof was made from
cut matchsticks glued together to make an even arrangement along each edge. The
MDF base for this roof fits inside the rampart edge (hence making a lip that
sits neatly in place on top of the building) so must be quite precisely cut to
size. The best way to do this is to build the rampart sides first, then cut the
base, then glue it all together. But it's no more complicated than that and is
very satisfying when constructed and sat in place. I added a trapdoor made from
cardboard to its floor for added aesthetic appeal.
I painted the watchtower as follows:
Vallejo Ice Yellow for building walls, quite heavily darkened with a thin black
wash (after trial and error this was a reasonable match to the walls of my
pre-painted buildings); a dark wood colour for the building timber and rampart,
window frames, scaffold and inner building walls and floor; black for the
insides of windows; mediium grey for stone foundation. All of this was then
thoroughly but lightly dry-brushed with Crown Biscuit to soften colour tones
and highlight edge details. The base, as usual, was painted Crown Cappuccino
dry-brushed with Crown Brown Sugar.
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| The watchtower on its hill |
