So been to the eye clinic and they've said I need both eyes doing!
Basically, eyes done a week apart early May, 4-5 weeks for them to settle down, then I will need a new eye test. Allow a week or so for glasses to be delivered, means May and June could be fun. Doubt I'll be doing much painting then.
Happily, Amazon Prime is a bit more efficient than the Russian army as far as supplies go...
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| 100 sheets of card plus a couple of cans of paint... Should last a while... |
Though won't be doing any work tomorrow - appointment to check out appropriate work to do to sort out the cataract in my right eye, so vision going to be a bit blurry...
The project has stalled for a couple of days as I've run out of both card and spray paint. Both on order, so only a short hiatus!
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| Some still need painting, but generally speaking in the last week or two I've made 20 village buildings and a fort. Most of the village buildings have actually been made in the last four days. |
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| Two of the buildings have domes, another also has blue woodwork. They could be used as village churches and. possibly, a richer person or village headman. |
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| There are several slightly different variations on the common build, mainly to give - well, variety. |
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| It's fair to say they're quite crude, but in one area this is deliberate. Originally the intention was to give them two coats of paint but I decided that only having one gave them a bit more character/gave a better impression that these are basically hovels. |
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| When I was taking the photos I thought I'd also see how well they fitted in with the Airfix fort. The answer is perfectly... beginning to wonder now if I need the fort I made! |
So that's the current state of play. I won't be making any more of these for now - 2 village churches and 18 hovels would seem to be enough - but will start playing around with other building types - perhaps two or three stories, or with an integral courtyard?
10 of them for starters.
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| Very rough and ready, not sure yet how many I intend to make or about variants. |
In terms of cost, these things are costing me virtually nothing. The card boxes I'm using as the 'spine' have served their purpose and are surplus to requirements. Which leaves card, glue, paint and time. All of these are already available except that I've bought some extra card. I can't really cost the paint - suspect my white undercoat spray will run out before these are finished meaning another trip to Halfords. For the card, costs about 25p. per building or less.
Fort finished (unless I do more buildings for inside it) I thought I'd start work on a village to go with it.
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| The first two. These would be suitable for what amounts to production line manufacture. |
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| Domes were an Islamic feature so this type of building shouldn't (shouldn't...) be useful for Ancients, just pulp. I gather that domes were used more on religious/'official' buildings rather than village/town houses, so may only make a couple of these at most - this one would do nicely as a small, rough built village church. The blue colour is pure Santorini... |
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| Buildings in progress. Being village rather than fort I haven't tried to bulk up the walls with plaster. This also makes them easier to make! The dome is made from a polystyrene ball, easily obtainable from craft shops. I used these for teaching before I retired so again I have a number lying around. |
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| Instead of making these around wooden blocks, these were based on Weston business card boxes. I have loads of these lying around - when doing Garrison they were used to keep stock figures in. As a result, on closing Garrison I had surplus boxes that hadn't been used yet, plus boxes that aren't needed to store figures in any more. Not only are they the 'right' size, they could also be used in multiples to build more complex buildings. They're also lighter than wood! |
So this is a project that's going along nicely. Doing it purely for the sake of doing it - can't pretend I haven't already got enough buildings these days. But then, I tend to think that, in a hobby, doing something just for the sake of doing it is a major part of the fun!
Reposted from Bob Cordery's blog Wargaming Miscellany:
'Although I never met Clive Smithers, we corresponded over the years via email, particularly about vintage and 'old school' wargaming. He was an avid collector, and when he died last year, he left behind a huge collection of 'old school' figures that numbered in the tens of thousands. (It is thought that there at least 33,000 figures in the collection!)
Clive's brother, Gavin, has asked Hanson's the auctioneers to sell the collection by auction on 27th May.
As yet no catalogue of the collection has been printed, but judging by Hanson's normal practice, it should be available online about a month before the auction takes place.
An old friend of Clive's – Bob Kett – has asked a lot of bloggers to mention this auction, and I for one will be scanning the catalogue with interest when it is published.
Hanson's is owned by Charlie Hanson, a well-known auctioneer who has appeared many times on TV in such programmes as BARGAIN HUNT, FLOG IT!, and ANTIQUES ROAD TRIP. He has what can best be described as a very singular style of auctioneering, and always seems to be able to get the best priy something from Clive's collection!'
Having sorted the basic fort I thought I'd try my hand at a couple of buildings to go with it...
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| Usual construction of card wrapped around wooden blocks. |
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| I've added a door and roof trapdoor but no windows. |
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| The walls have been given a thin coat of dyed plaster. The door and roof have just been painted with Vallejo old wood paint - haven't bothered to add any further detail to these. |
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| The buildings (huts?) fit nicely in the fort but could also be used as the basis for a village. |
