Normally, I wouldn't...

 

I'll be showing photos of buildings that will form the small village of Plattzdorf, but would point out they're all unfinished.  It would be better if I waited till they were finished and landscaped, but won't manage to do that till next weekend.  And I want to keep in the habit of blogging regularly (though not as frequently as I'd intended!).

You can see from the figure that the houses are slightly smaller in scale than they should be.  This is because I want to keep their footprint as small as practical, to save space on the table.  Actually, when on their bases, the buildings will be slightly higher - but then so will the figures on their bases.

All the houses are from the Dave Graffam card range, and can be printed out any size that suits you.  I saw a tip somewhere that said if you thought the houses were too colourful, you can print out on your printer's lower quality output and they look more subdued and natural.  I'll try that.

There'll be 5 or 6 houses on a large base, with grass, fences, hedges, etc. That'll hide the uneven bottom edges.  The white fold lines will be coloured in, and the white underneath of roofs darkened.  The tops of the chimneys will be blackened.

Eventually, I'll replace them with 3D buildings I'll make but, in the meantime, I'm happy with the card ones.  I've mentioned before I'm a great admirer of Tony Harwood's model building techniques.  He self-published three books illustrating his methods.  Within the next couple of months, his new book on making Napoleonic period buildings is being published, and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

As usual, I managed to get sidetracked and made something not needed in the immediate future...

This is a lookout tower to be placed near a border crossing.  There's the signal fire to be lit when the enemy approaches.

And I also started on this...

You may think it looks more suited to the ACW than Europe of 300 years ago.  And you'd be right.  The card barn is new, but I made the rest for my Airfix armies which had just been produced - about 1967 if I remember correctly.  I've removed the original house and will tidy everything up.  Having been stored in an attic alternately freezing and hot, the fences have weathered nicely!  I'll leave it looking rundown, and will have to tone down the barn quite a lot.

I've been working on another field which - again - I stress is still to have a good few finishing touches...

Grass will fill in the gaps below the wall.  The lichen looks like - well - lichen.  I'll add flock to make it look as though leaves cover at least the top of the lichen.

Despite having more artillery than I can ever field, I've been recruiting...

These are from the AWI range,  As you can see, the Sergeant Major doesn't look too impressed and can't wait to get them painted up and ready for action.


As I said at the start, normally I wouldn't mention so much unfinished work but I'll not get anything finished before next weekend.  Showing it now will ensure I get things finished as soon as possible.