With the construction and assembly of the bell tower roof the South American church is completed. In due course I will complete a mission house and build it into a compound, but for now it stands alone.
Also completed is this, the sixth, Argentine battalion for the Paraguayan War wearing khaki tropical kit.
The church is nearing completion.
After completing the windows and doors on the rear of the buildings I textured that face.
When the modelling paste was set the whole model was painted with burnt sienna and then dry brushed white. The doors were painted a couple of shades of brown snd then washed with GW Nuln Oil. Along the edges of the detailing were I painted a fine line using Nuln Oil to provide some definition. The bell tower and porch assembly were then glued in place.
All that was to do now was to make the roof. I wanted this to be in Mediterranean tiles. Now in the past I have made these individually from epoxy putty, but this time I am going to use preformed plasticard that will save probably five hour’s work.
After fixing a thin cardboard over the roof areas and I then cut and fixed the plasticard. A crest was placed on the apex of the roof.
There was a bit of filling on the ends and when that was dry the whole surface was painted.
The last bit to do will be the roof to the bell tower. This is a really fiddly bit and may take another day to complete.
In the first part of this installment I worked on the arched panels that will form the arcades on either side of the model. To keep some continuity with the bell tower I glued two strips of card at the top of the piece - a 5mm and 3mm strip.
The whole face was then textured.
Then the pieces were glued in place.
Next the bell tower surface was textured.
Everything was then left to dry.
Next I worked the ends of the of the building, the front first. Again I used the strips of card to provide some decoration. I framed the windows and installed a door made from plasticard. The arch above the door and the cross were made from Greenstuff. Unable to work my usual modelling paste into the panels above and below the windows and in the space around the cross I achieved texture by brushing in some PVA glue in the spaces and sprinkled in some fine sand over it.
On the opposite end I framed up a three pane window from Greenstuff and added two doors made from plasticard.
When all this is dry I will be able to apply the last bit of surface texture.
In the 1950s a radio play called the Goon Show was aired in Britain and around the British Commonwealth. Written predominantly by Spike Milligan it featured, amongst others, Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Seacombe. It was half an hour of silly voices, ridiculousness and outright insanity as it drifted between the absurd to the sublimely brilliant. It ran for more than 240 episodes over ten series between 1951 and 1960 with such wonderful episode titles as “The Ghastly Experiments of Dr. Hans Eidelburger”, “The Great Ink Drought of 1902”, “The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler (of Bexhill-on-Sea)” and “The Great Tuscan Salami Scandal”. Re-runs During the next two decades ensured that the show had a fan base that was deeper than the original ten year run of the programme. For my American readers, who have probably never heard of this, it can best be described as the radio version of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and twenty years earlier.
So what is my point with this opening? Well of the many thousand lines of script that were written one stuck in my mind today. It is a superb piece of Milligan nonsense (delivered by the character Major Bloodnock voiced by Peter Sellers) playing on the name of Eartha Kitt, whose popularity as a performer was at its peak in the 1950s, and ran something like “...tropical kit...my God I loved that woman...” And still you are searching for my point, right?...well it is because the Brazilian infantry unit shown below is presented in tropical kit. I know it is a tenuous link to an obscure line from a 1950s radio play, but I am stuck at home alone in lockdown and having to deal with work problems on my unpaid day off, so my frazzled brain is making all kinds of weird connections.
So here they are, in their tropical kit, the second battalion of Brazilian infantry.
I really like look of these guys, but the white uniforms took a lot of work to get right.
Having constructed the two basic components of the building, the main structure along with the front assembly (the bell tower and the entrance) I started on the surface texturing. Because the two sides of the main structure are going to be inside arcades they have to be textured and painted before the arcade walls are attached, otherwise it will be impossible to get at. So I applied a coating of artist’s modelling paste mixed with fine sand. This provides a suitably rough texture and provides a bit more rigidity to the model.
These arcade areas also need a visible flagstone floor and this was made simply from a piece of 2mm cardboard to which I attached a piece of patterned plasticard. The whole space was then painted a rather grubby white and the flagstones a weathered grey.
The interior of the entrance also needed to be textured and painted before the bell tower and porch could be attached. The door was quickly made from some plasticard (since it is going to be pretty much hidden I didn't feel the need to spend too much time on this) and the door handles were added using some Greenstuff.
Next, when all that glue sets I will apply my modelling paste and sand mixture to the spaces between the bands and the porch arcade will have a flagstone floor like the side arcades.
There endeth Thursday’s efforts.
As the number of Great Paraguayan War units begin to mount up, I have decided there is a need for some terrain to fight over.
As always for me the first stop for terrain items is buildings, but from what I have read most of the actions were fought away from major settlements, but why should that stop me from making up some small towns, right?
From the few images I have managed glean from books and the web most of the structures were pretty rustic, in fact bordering on primitive with lots of thatch and rough timber. But I like rustic because it mean I can work fairly freely and that mistakes can be easily passed off.
The first thing any town needs is a church. I found a few images of churches of the region and most of the images show an ornate face with a rustic building behind rather like this one.
Other buildings I want is a signal station, rather like this one:
And some smaller structures like these images:
While I like the idea of these, I also have the idea of a something a bit more substantial, something that will be a a focal point in a game, maybe a Catholic mission with a church, a mission house and a school in a walled or fenced area. Using the first photograph in this post and this one below, I have worked up into the design that follows the photo.
Yesterday I completed unit number five of what will be eight Argentine infantry battalions for the Great Paraguayan War. Well the number will increase above eight if the Perrys cunningly release more Argentine codes like the Legion Militaire.
Well after 102 days of no community transmission In New Zealand this insidious virus that is damaging our world has struck again and we are back in lockdown...well to be precise the metropolitan area of Auckland is in lockdown while the rest of the country is under a lesser restriction. It is all a bit depressing really - at least the sun is shining today.
So it is back to working from home, queueing at the supermarket and the stupidity of panic buying.
On the painting front I have completed another Paraguayan infantry unit, number three so far.
And to close out the post here is a batch of photos taken at out last game (on Sunday). Keith at Bydand blog has written a full AAR here so I shall just post some add a few extra images, in no particular order.
