Well the First International Townscape Challenge is finished.
Bodvoc's Towerhouse
Merijn's ruined tower
Bodvoc was done first, you can see more about his excellent towerhouse here. Merijn also beat me to it, and his excellent ruined version of the tower is detailed here.
I spent the last few hours of August 31st painting in the windows of the Tavern, so now it's at least tabletop ready. I'll admit that I still have things to do before I'm really happy with the Tavern, but I was thinking a week ago that I'd have nothing more than an unpainted foam board box. This has been a learning experience as well as just producing some terrain in a friendly competition. It's the first time I've mocked up a build prior to making the model, this certainly helped me get the proportions right. The upper windows were a new technique too, and I'm very pleased with the results. I'll be looking out for different sizes of mesh to make more of these in the future.
I made the decision to dig out my airbrush for the undercoat, a wise decision, given the size of the build. I've never really got the hang of using an airbrush, I got it to paint the terrain when Deadzone was first released, and struggled to get a result I was happy with, so it got packed away.
Since then I've had a very helpful advice session from T'Other One (thanks), this seemed a great opportunity to put it into practice.
Undercoating done (a darkish grey mixed from my black and white surface primers), I decided to try using the airbrush to do the bulk of the painting as well. By now I was getting seriously worried about that deadline and hoped this would be faster.
First I painted the roof, with a base of Vallejo Model Air Mud Brown, then added in amounts of VMA Middle Stone and Flat Yellow and sprayed at an angle from above to catch the edge of the tiles. This sort of worked, but I think the effect (more obvious in life than on the photos) is too subtle. I'm also not keen on the base colour, the original model has a reddish/terracotta colour. I may well go back and repaint the roof at a later date.
Then I used the airbrush to paint the daub panels. This was much more successful. I gave each panel a good coat of VMA Barley Grey, concentrating on the middle of the panels to allow some of the darker undercoat to show round the edges. Then I gave the middle of each panel a light blast of VMA White.
I gave the stonework a coat of VMA Dark Grey blue, finally, while I had the airbrush out I gave each window a coat of black as a good base for the window leading, carefully masking the panels to avoid spoiling what I had already done.
Once everything was dry I carefully picked out the timbers with VGC Scorched Brown and some of the stones in a few different greys and browns. Once dry it all got a drybrush with a pale mix of the various greys on my palette and VGC Off White, nicely spoiling the neat job I'd done earlier painting the windows black, d'oh.
By now I could see an end to the project, though I knew I'd be revisiting it to do the final touches. I just wanted enough painting for it to look OK.
Next I 'reset' the windows in black, gave the doors a basecoat of Vallejo Extra Opaque Heavy Green and the chimneypots VGC Terracotta.
The doors were then highlighted with VGC Goblin Green, for this I used a very old brush with a few bristles quite spread out. This give a sort of woodgrain highlight effect that I think works well at this scale, and is certainly a lot quicker than my more careful highlighting. I painted the door furniture black, as Merijn has pointed out when he was building the whole of the Townscape, door furniture is usually rustproofed with a good coat of black paint.
To darken the stones I gave them all a wash of VGC Black Wash. This emphasised the mortar lines between the stones again, somewhat lost in the drybrushing.
The window panes were then dotted in in white (not as carefully as I'd have liked), and when dry a coat of Citadel Soulstone Blue was 'globbed on' to finish them off.
The front of the (currently nameless) inn
The back showing the arch with door and the kitchen door
A strengthened side door. This should stop those bandits, always wanting to put drinks on the slate.
Side view showing the barred ground floor windows and diamond pane upper windows.
The yard, and a better view of the inside of the archway.
Well, that's done, or rather it isn't. There's a lot more to do before I'm truly happy with it. As I mentioned above, I may well repaint the roof in a more reddish orange colour to match the Townscape original. I will certainly add some green ink algae staining as I did on both the 15mm buildings and the Bakehouse and probably some sawdust moss as well, especially on the roof. Speaking of the roof, I made a point of keeping the outside of the card uppermost, as the inside is rougher and tends to take paint differently (it also absorbs glue better, so is quicker to stick in place). However, I must have pulled a postage label off, roughing up the texture, you can see this especially at the bottom of the rear roof, that might have to be disguised with moss.
Other things to do; add shutters, especially now Merijn has mentioned half shutters to get over the embarrassing 'roof-in-the-way' issue at the front. Frames for the windows to define them within the timber framing and make it look like they could open. Make a gate for the archway. Finally, a name and a sign. I'm still not sure on a name. I'm tempted by Slann in Space, an option for the Townscape original and suitably daft. part of me wants to go with the Three Feathers, a nod to a classic WFRP scenario.
Eventually I'd like to base the tavern, or inn as I think of it. I mentioned my ideas of it being some remote coaching inn, so I'll also make some walls to protect the rear of the building, and I've noticed that the Townscape incudes a stables, ideal for the courtyard.
I've really enjoyed the FITC, and I hope Bodvoc and Merijn have too. It gave me the impetus to make a centrepiece for games, especially once I get the stables and walls built.
We've already discussed the SITC; given that Merijn has now completed the Townscape set we are extending the brief slightly, but it should still be very Oldhammer in style. Once we've finalised things I'll post the details, but it probably won't be until November at the earliest.