'Home' from SidneyR: A Laarden Townhouse

For the themed round entitled “Home”, I painted up one of the fine Hovels buildings in 25mm from their Flemish range.  I felt this would be a simple, quick painting task to fit with my schedule, but it turned out to be a little more involved.  Resin buildings reward time and effort, but they can also be tricky to paint - almost like painting a very large figure in miniature.

One day I dream of having a dozen or so of these stately buildings, on a fully laid out town plan, surrounded by a low city wall for a perfect siege game.  I’ve counted this as my fifth (painted after about two years), so there’s some way to go.  It’s partly that idea which keeps me painting one every year or so, all with the aim of making a living, breathing (if fictional) 17th Century town for the regiments and battalia of Laarden to occupy.

'Home' from AdamC: Frostgrave Home

 Frostgrave is a rather nasty, cold bleak location with lots of dangerous things, rund crawling and even flying around, who would want to live there?   The answer is Wizards seeking to retrieve its treasures and secrets

Due to its isolated location most enterprising wizards seek out a location with in the environs of the ruined city that is still relatively intact to make a "home" for themselves and their war band.  Each Type gives certain advantages. 

 Mine is a forlorn and some what dilapidated tower built form card board cylinders I got from a cooking set we got for our wedding.  They stacked nicely.  The exterior is covered with that plastic cobble stone matting you find in craft stores around Christmas repainted gray.

The door to the tower was broken by looters long ago the War band has replaced it with a wind brake of canvas weighted at the bottom with some savaged lumber.

The roof has a bit of snow clinging to it I wish I had the time to experiment with some making some icicles but was worried bout ruining it as I have never attempted something like that.

With a tower the wizard gets a bonus on certain spells because he can get up high for a better view of the night sky.

I'm rather proud of this detail the war band has use some salvaged boards and canvas to make the second story secure. (do you know how hard it is to sew in 28mm scale?) The result isn't a tight seal but they are soldier explorers not builders. The canvas has a small viewing hole for someone to keep watch or potentially shoot out of.  I should probably add some windows to the tower at some point.  I only realized the lack as I was taking pictures.

The inside is has been left undecorated to facilitate placement of miniatures when this structure makes on board appearances.   All and all I'm fairly pleased with this project I think I may tinker with it some more going forward.

'Home' from AledC: Home on the Move

Hey everyone here goes with my terrain entry.

Having seen others do it I have taken my photography outside!

I'll admit I wasn't originally going to submit an entry for this bonus round, not really having anything to do and wanting to focus on the figures, but Paul O'G convinced me of the values of getting one done and inspired me to do it. He even went as far as getting for me this lovely tent whilst he was at CanCon because I couldn't attend at the last moment. (Thanks again mate!)

Whilst the lighting is better my skills are not :/

The tent itself is from Baueda wargames and, no surprises was really easy and quick to paint. I was not overly fond of the trim part along the bottom, unsure if it was intended to be ground or a fancy lining, I thought of trying to get rid of it but decided against it because it wasn't that much of a deal. The model was well cast with no faults, the 'door-hole'(?) was made quite thin so you would have the option of removing it with ease if you so wished.

"Oh no Ibn! Something is blotting out the sun! AAHHHH!"

I have based the tent with a bit more static grass than I would normally use, especially for my Arabs for whom it is to match, because I think that camp would probably be made somewhere closer to an oasis if possible so it should have more green.

Home done, now on to more figures and a look into the west!
Cheers,
Aled

'Home' from AlexS: Our Last Home

I had difficulty with this round. I could not think of a good idea. I tried to make a fortress, but I did not like this idea. I tried to make a tent - it's a soldier's house - but this option disappointed me.

Then I made a yurt - nomad's home. But I did not like and I did not even want to paint it.

And in the end I did it. Maybe someone my post seems a little depressed. But no. We may have many apartments, a lot of houses, but the last home is likely to be that way ...

'Home' from ByronM: Terrorist Base

When this theme round came up I had multiple plans that popped into my head, as I love making terrain.  A few ideas were a viking long house, a sci-fi apartment, a house from Normandy, and a few others.  I even started on two of those!

The total layout is pretty big at about 22" x 14"

However, after getting sidetracked on a few other projects and taking a full weekend off painting last week to go play games with Curt, I got stuck for time.  Enter something else I needed, and that I knew would paint very simply and quickly due to having done many of them in the past.  May I present to you my middle eastern compound, used by terrorists as their home and base for their nefarious plans.

The compound is made up of three of the Middle East buildings and a set of walls that I designed last year for my MDF terrain side project (SG2creations).  There is a two story building, an L shaped building, and a garage.  I also added some extra bits like a few AC units and some extra brick sections on a roof top.

I didn't glue the gates so that I can move them opened or closed.

While they are all flat MDF laser cut wood, once assembled I coat them all with Liquitex medium to create a stucco like texture on them.  I also covered all the roof panels with sand glued on.  Once that was all dried I sprayed them with a light brown primer, then spayed the bottom half with a darker brown.  Once that was dry I coated them entirely from a high angle with a light beige.  Finally, I picked out all the brick details, the tile floors, the AC units, and the doors and window sills.

While nothing is super detailed, it is all meant to just blend in and fit with a ton of existing middle east buildings that I have already completed.  I have probably 15 buildings complete now for use my modern Spectre forces.  They can also be used in a pinch as Spanish or Mexican buildings, so will get a lot of use around here.

 

All of the buildings can come apart, so that you can get inside easily. I decided not to put stairs or ladders as I always find they take up way to much space to do them in any method that looks correct, and then they are way to big scale wise.

'Home' from ChristopherS: North American Blockhouse

The scene above is of a supply train trundling past a blockhouse bringing much needed supplies to a nearby frontier settlement.

Since I'm American I wanted to enter something into the "home" bonus round that gives an image of my home and thought a North American log style Blockhouse fits that bill rather nicely as it conjures up that colonial feel of the frontiers of North America.

A blockhouse is a small fort intended to protect against enemy that probably didn't have any serious siege equipment . If a blockhouse was upgraded to defeat siege equipment then it was more of a redoubt or fortress. Some were fitted with artillery, but all had some form loopholes or window ports to fire out of. It could serve as a small fort, barracks, store house, place of refuge or a guard post on the frontier.

This particular blockhouse is a typical North American log cabin style constructed of logs and boarding supported by a stone block cut base with gravel coating and the door is of reinforced oak wood. The window ports a large enough for defenders to lean out if needed to both defend the base of blockhouse or pour water on it if attacked by fire.

The model itself is from Grand Manor terrain which I happen to be a huge fan of and is quite a large model that is intended for 28mm. You can fit an artillery piece plus several figures in the model itself which is rather nice. It's a resin piece so some clean up is required, but wasn't too much trouble. I painted the model in mostly craft paints with some Foundry colors for the moss and a bit of Vallejo on the gravel. I also used a healthy amount of Mig pigments to give some weathering effects.

Well it's been a tough week as I've been dealing with a nasty case of man flu, but I'm happy I crossed the finish line in time to get this in for the bonus round as it was a bit dicey. Only the blockhouse was painted for this entry as the figures and carts were already from my collection.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Grand Manor

'Home' from ClintB: Wherever I Lay my Hat, that's my Home

Home means many different things to many different people. For a soldier in Vietnam for example it might not mean Home back in the "World" That might be really home. So I have created a home in the form of a bunker/fox-hole. Home in this instance means a place to rest when not on patrol beyond the wire of the fire base.THE WIRE marks the boundary of their supposed neighbourhood, and Home means a place thye can relax and feel some safety. It is their temporary "home" not where they live back with family and friends but where they can rest their head in some level of safety. Not proper safety but in country "Safety"!

The Model is 1/72nd scale to fit in with the rest of my Vietnam collection. It could equally be used for any Pacific WW2 game.

It does have a covered area with a slit for a machinegun A place at least dry in the storms and wet season. It Is of course hastily erected and in the next few days sandbags will e placed on the roof to protect from mortars. But for a few days this will suffice. Not perfect by any stretch of imagination but in country not to shabby.



It was a huge amount of fun to paint and drape with foliage and will fit my Vietnam collection very well indeed. As with all my bonus rounds it is done to play its part on the table and not as a static display. Nothing wrong with display pieces at all but I am a wargamer so I will get the most enjoyment playing with this and not looking at it in a glass case.

As a final thought.
Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America - not on the battlefields of Vietnam. Marshall McLuhan

So I guess it was lost in the homes of civilians.
Just My 5.56mm of input.

'Home' from EvanH: The Liche Lord's Trust For Homeless Undead

This is Stan. Stan is one of the partially deceased citizens of Felstad made homeless by catastrophic climate change.

Stan shambles aimlessly around the streets every day. with nowhere to go. He and his friends, Nick and Muuuuh, are just a few of those affected by the recent glacial retreat. They are attacked by marauding gangs of vitalist 'adventurers' who treat them as vermin. They now have no place to call their own, no safe space.

But you can help. Just two gold crowns a month will help the Lich Lord's Trust for Homeless Undead promote awareness of the plight of the partially deceased community.

Three gold crowns will help the Lich Lord's Trust for Homeless Undead fund the repurposing of a derelict mausoleum as emergency housing.

Four gold crowns will will fund the necessary magical infrastructure to maintain the unlife of  Stan and his friends.

Your generous donation of five gold crowns per month will enable the creation of safe 'undead-only' districts, where partially deceased or incorporeal citizens can unlive free from vitalist discrimination.

So please, give generously and help ensure that Stan, Nick and Muuuuh have a place to call their own. Remember, a nightmarish hell-state 'twixt life and death isn't just for Christmas, it's forever...

And now, back to your regularly scheduled blog post; this project is part of my ongoing efforts to assemble an array of terrain for games of Frostgrave. This one is the Mausoleum, a crucial piece of terrain for one of the scenarios.

It was put together on a Warbases terrain base, assembled from foamcore, brick- and stone-textured card, old Mordheim and GW castle doorways, and four old wedding cake pillars which have been stashed away in the garage since last century (hoarder or hobbyist? It's a bit of a grey area).

The body and roof of the building were sized with tissue paper and PVA glue to enable a layer of filler to be applied as stucco. Patches of the wall were given brick-textured paper to double as exposed brickwork where the plaster has fallen away over the centuries.

I've tried my hand at three different marble effects for the plinth, pillars and roof, and gone for a vaguely Romano-Etruscan finish on the stuccoed walls. I've never painted marble before, and it's certainly been an education.

Architecturally, it's a bit of a hodgepodge, but I still hope that a shambling horde of undead can one day call it... Home.

That's all for now - thanks for reading!

Ev

'Home' from GrahameH: African Huts

I wasn't going to enter this bonus but found I had a spare hour this afternoon so quickly knocked out some African huts.

Can't remember the make, sorry

 

Not great but they will do.

'Home' from GregB: A Humble Home in Hochland

A home for Hochland!

I didn't think I would be able to make it for this theme round.  I generally loathe painting terrain of any sort, and work in particular has become extremely busy, so it has been harder to get brush time in.  On the plus side, we also leave tomorrow for our little annual trip to visit Palm Desert in California, which is awesome, but does slow down the painting.  I couldn't even find anything that might count as "home" - clever or otherwise.  As Iannick warned me, "a Titan is not a home Greg, no matter how many people it holds..." I figured I would miss this theme round.

Out of the blue, enter Byron! We were getting together for our weekly game on Thursday this week and he handed me this little gem, created with a 3-D printer or something. "I've noticed all the Warmaster stuff you have been painting," he said. "So I thought you might like this medieval home as terrain." Wow!

Nice little staircase for the back entrance

So, here is something I want to call "A Humble Home In Hochland".  It fits perfectly with my Warmaster forces, and will indeed make for a fine piece of terrain on the table when the time comes for the gaming.  The texture of the material (a resin, I think?) was a little tricky to paint in a few places, but overall it took an hour or so to paint up.

"When is the possession date?"

I don't know the details of 3-D printing/additive manufacturing or whatever the f*ck it is called.  It involves IT stuff.  I have never once contemplated this hobby and said to myself "You know, I wish I could work some computer problems into this experience," so this is not something I'm about to look into.  I can't tell you how it works. But as you have seen in this Challenge, when these really clever and creative folks get hold of technology, cool stuff can happen.  Byron is one of the cleverest hobby engineers I know.  I have no idea exactly how this was created, but Byron can tell you, I'm sure.

A wizard tries out the yard...

However the magic happens, all I know is that I think it is great!  Thanks so much Byron!  Can't wait to have this on the table for a Warmaster game later this year! 

'Home' from IainW: Italian Wars Makeshift Camp

Home for many during the Great Italian Wars was either some sort of rude shelter made of thatch, a branch and sod structure or a tent. These I have done my best to model.

We have the thatch type shelter

The sod and branch type

The basic tent ( A Rendera model)

And the more upmarket tent ( The top is a Rendera bell tent)

These are the images I was working from

I ran out of time to do the fire and the shelter housing the barrels but they and a baggage train will follow in due course. The figures are from last weeks entry just to give some scale.

All the best
Iain