Work in Progress

Musketeers WIP

Posted by Santi Pérez on 23 May 2021, 19:16

Another fantastically designed and executed building for your collection, Steve, even not finished. I admire the speed with which you are progressing in the construction, really incredible. :drool: :drool: :drool:

Best regards. :yeah:

Santi.
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Santi Pérez  Spain
 
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Posted by bothree69 on 24 May 2021, 06:39

what patience you have .....
I can't wait for you to complete everything ......
I'm curious!!!
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Posted by MABO on 24 May 2021, 08:15

I am curious as well. But I am sure it will be a fantastic district to play in.
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Posted by Peter on 24 May 2021, 10:38

I love that airplane stairs! Now you can enter, now you can't, now you can, now you can't...... :-D

Just joking Steve, you made a wonderfull construction! :thumbup:
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Posted by steve_pickstock on 30 May 2021, 15:51

Good afternoon all on a beautiful warm, sunny afternoon, hope you are all well.

Back to the Musketeers scenery and I'm trying to get these big pieces finished up, so that I can get back to the figures and some small scatter pieces.

The Convent.
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First coat of paint Games Workshop's Zandry Dust. The only pot of this that I still have is the air brush formulation, so this was the first coat, applied before the building was glued up.

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All assembled now. Window and door mouldings got a coat of Vallejo Pale Sand, and the lower part of the building dry-brushed with Vallejo Iraqui Sand.
At this point I had to decide what to do with the surrounds for the arches, cap stones for the steps and bands on the frontage. After a couple of days consideration, I ended up painting the second coat of Zandry Dust and covering the remaining stone work at the same time.
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After the second coat of Zandry Dust dried, I gave it a good dry-brush with the Pale Sand and then another even lighter one of plain Vallejo White. I extended that to the window mouldings as well. When all that was dry, I used a thin wash around all the windows and all the other mouldings.

In between all of that, I bit the bullet and got on with the tiling using styrodur.
Basically I cut a bar the dimensions of the tiles. Then I cut thin slices off the end until I had enough tiles for the roof. (actually I did this in batches a) because it's a cool technique but it is d@mned tedious! b] the UHU Pro only stays workable for so long - so the process is to cut a load of tiles, glue them, then repeat)
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I think it looks good, and I am glad I did it. But it would be better for a Warhammer/28mm scale building, it's too out of scale for 1:72nd scale.
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Since these pictures were taken I have repainted these rooves three times, trying to find something I like. I won't bore you with pictures of every step, but currently the rooves are a dark grey, which I will work over with lighter greys - to acheive the tile colours - and the sand/white combination to weather them.

I have also been filling the gaps where the buildings meet their bases and the ragged edges of each piece, prior to painting them and dark colour, which will effectively finish them.

I am still undecided as to whether I am going to add something to the top of the convent buildng - a little frieze or something. Stay tuned on that one.

Stay safe and be well, and if you can enjoy the sunshine.
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steve_pickstock  England
 
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Posted by bothree69 on 31 May 2021, 06:41

even if I don't comment much on your work, I am following carefully ... it seems that you are making a square .....
beautiful...
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Posted by Susofrick on 31 May 2021, 09:12

This looks great! I am following this (as most of the stuff at Benno's).
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Posted by steve_pickstock on 06 Jun 2021, 17:15

Good afternoon all, another sunny day on the shores of the Mighty Mersey.

With the buildings largely done I turned my attention to some urban walls - yes, yes, I know I'm doing walls in the Middle Earth build as well - it's wall week or something like that.

Because these are very simple, just a double thickness of styrene will be sufficient. They are not being scribed - just textured.

I used a ruler and cut some strips slightly taller than head height on a figure - the walls are designed - like the buildings - to mark the edge of the playing area rather than be a part of the game. They were glued together using UHU POR, and walked away from for a couple of days. I wanted some gateways to go between the buildings, so made some even taller walls and added buttresses which will get cap stones.
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These are pretty basic items, but the nature of the material - its thickness, and the effect when you texture it, makes them a good return for the small amount of effort that goes into them.

Once they were glued, the walls were attacked with a scrunched up ball of silver foil, rolling it over the surface of the styrene. This created a rough plaster texture (or a stone texture or whatever). They have also had cap stones added from thin unevenly cut styrodur.
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This second wall has had a horse trough built onto it, with a piece of u-channel Evergreen plastic pushed into the styrene to make a spout.

Simple paint job.
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This one has also been glued onto a mounting card base for stability.
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They also had the bottom edges where they met the cardboard bases filled. Then all the walls will be weathered when they're ready.

The two walls with gates came next. One had a gate made from coffee stirrers and a gateway cut-out.
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The other had an archway added and the 'gate' was carved into the styrene.
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These need card bases and painting.

It occurred to me that I haven't really show-cased the fountain. I showed it on some pictures but never really dedicated any images for it.
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The fountain was quite simple, and a good example of how useful the sheets of styrene actually are. I cut a strip of styrene and bent it round a Pringles tube (I think, it might have been a tub of Mod Podge), holding it in place with masking tape.. Aftera couple of days allowing the styrene to take on the tubular shape. I came back to it and cut it so that the ends met around the form. Then I glued them into place on a disc of styrene, which was in turn glued onto a second disc to get the step effect.
I placed a third disc inside the ring, and glued everything tight.
I painted the inside a sort of watery, swirly green. Then covered that in gloss varnish.
I carved a column of styrodur (the blue stuff) added some details and some u-channels from Evergreen strip. The statue is an old Atlantic Greek, ripped from his idyllic life.
The water columns are strips of clear plastic put into place and coated with acryllic medium, the same was applied to the suface of the pool.
Quite pleased with this.

This has also been useful.
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It is a set of templates for notebooks, but I can see many uses in the kind of work I am doing at the moment. It wasn't cheap - about £20, took forever to get here - having advertised it as for sale the makers then said "oh we need to make them first", and the piece I really wanted - the long slots, for doing brickwork - the plate is bent. But I think there is a lot of use in it, especially for marking out arches and angles etc, and for doing decoration,

Stay safe and thanks for looking in.
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steve_pickstock  England
 
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Posted by Peter on 06 Jun 2021, 21:10

Excellent work again, Steve! And I like it how you made that fountain! :thumbup:
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Posted by MABO on 06 Jun 2021, 23:14

Amazing progress! I really love to look at the pics each time!
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Posted by steve_pickstock on 13 Jun 2021, 14:44

Good afternoon, on this deceptively warm Sunday afternoon.

Walls.
I continued with finishing off the walls.
Made sure they all had capstones, and were based. Then I mixed up some raw umber and some Vallejo Black as a base colour for all the capstones.
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Once that was dry, I tidied up the colour of the walls - a craft paint equal to Vallejo's Pale Sand, mainly because I was going through the Vallejo like crazy. This finished off the main walls and tidied up where I had gone over the lines.
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The capstones got a dry brush of ochre and then a light edge highlight of the sand colour.
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And this is how they look with figures.
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bothree69 wrote:even if I don't comment much on your work, I am following carefully ... it seems that you are making a square .....
beautiful...

I hope it lives up to your expectations,

I took a moment to put some of the pieces together to see how they look.
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And to be honest I am quite happy with this so far.

More figures to paint next, to start some new ones and finish some of the older ones, bases to do, and a bit more street scatter terrain.

I hope your team does well in the Euros ...

... but not as well as mine.

Stay safe, Regards,Pickers.
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steve_pickstock  England
 
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Posted by Peter on 13 Jun 2021, 16:32

You may be proud on what you have accomplished so far Steve! It all looks wonderfull! :thumbup:
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Posted by Konrad on 13 Jun 2021, 17:25

What do you want to build?
All of Paris? :-D
Great work. :thumbup: :thumbup:
My respect.
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Posted by MABO on 15 Jun 2021, 18:38

Stunning pictures, Steve. I like your city very much. :thumbup:
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Posted by steve_pickstock on 20 Jun 2021, 16:49

Good afternoon all, I hope that you are well and safe.

So this week as been a week of rounding up, getting ready to move onto finishing off the figures.

I spent time filling the walls where they met the cardboard bases. Tidying up the painting and dirtying the base of the walls. I painted the card bases, and then dry-brushed them in Vallejo Iraqi Sand and then again in white. This brought them to an approximation of the playing board (that the figures are normally photographed on. I also added tufts of 'grass' to some of the walls for a bit more visual interest.

So here are the buildings
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Walls with gates
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Free-standing walls.
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Which is basically most of this stuff done.

I then sat down and looked at what was painted of the figures I have done so far.
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Muketeers - mostly done.
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Cardinal's Guard - quite a bit to do - hats, hands, boots atc.
Gentlemen and Ladies
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Need to finish some and re-work others
Cardinal and Rochefort
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Still a bit.

There is other stuff as well, items that will go on the streets - carts etc.

Stay safe .
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steve_pickstock  England
 
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Posted by Kostis Ornerakis on 20 Jun 2021, 17:39

MABO wrote:Stunning pictures, Steve. I like your city very much. :thumbup:

I second that! :yeah: :-D
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Kostis Ornerakis  Greece

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Posted by Santi Pérez on 20 Jun 2021, 19:47

Kostis Ornerakis wrote:I second that! :yeah: :-D

And I second that too. Your project continues to advance at a good pace , steve_pickstock. :winky:

Santi.
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Santi Pérez  Spain
 
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Posted by Bluefalchion on 21 Jun 2021, 01:14

The Musketeers, their friends, their foes, and their town are coming along nicely. Keep the pics coming.

By the way, I tried out you baking soda and super glue trick, and boy howdy.

As we say in the Colonies, er, States.
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Bluefalchion  United States of America
 
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Posted by Peter on 25 Jun 2021, 20:37

As Aaron says, keep them coming! It all looks wonderfull! :thumbup:
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Peter  Belgium

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Posted by steve_pickstock on 27 Jun 2021, 17:07

Good afternoon all.

So after a look at what needs to be done to finish things off on this project - that last set of pictures was a review of part painted figures and figures that need to be painted - I decided to press on and actually get some ready and slap some paint around.

I needed some more thugs, "bravos", "roaring boys", "blades", etc - ie neither the King's nor the Cardinal's factions. In fact, if Red Box are listening - another box of precisely these sorts - non-fction figures - would be really nice, please? Thank you!

I went back to one of my favourite books.
Eduard Wagner's European Weapons and Warfare 1618-1648,
https://www.amazon.co.uk/European-Weapons-Warfare-1618-1648-Eduard/dp/0988953250/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Wagner+European+Weapons+and+Warfare+1618-1648&qid=1624558322&sr=8-1
Mrs Pickstock bought me this for a Christmas present all the way back in the 80s before she actually became Mrs Pickstock, and it is a book that is generally no more than an arm's length away. It really is very useful. Wagner based his illustrations on paintings he observed all over Europe.

One of those illustrations concerns fighting techniques.
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The images a), b) and c) show what I'm interested in - a cloak draped over the left arm, used in defence (as padding) or offence (to trap the opponent's blade and disarm them}.

Image c) shows the fighter also using a main-gauche or left-handed dagger. Which was useful as the only available - non-tabarded - figures are equipped with main-gauche.

It was a simple enough task, roll out some Green Stuff putty very thin and drape it over the arms of the models, working in folds and getting it to 'drape' correctly.
A decent cloak is a bulky item, and you need to arrange it with the bulk, the folds, in the right place, so that it doesn't inhibit the movement of your arm, but also so that you can toss the cloak forwards, if the chance presents itself.
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I'm no great shakes as a sculptor, but these wll do nicely.

When it came to painting I broke out the wet pallate again, put in a new sheet of baking parchment and topped up the water.
A couple of hours and a Grand Prix later:-
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Quite pleased with these, I think they have come out okay.

One of the first figures that I painted from this set was Cyrano de Bergerac "the greatest swordsman in all of France", as per the film with Gerard Depardieu.
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The film covers de Bergerac's service with the Gascon Cadet regiment.
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Once the initial figure was painted it was my intention to add some of the cadets to the collection to accompany Cyrano (not that he needed it, what with being "the greatest swordsman in all of France" and all)
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Further to my remarks about regimental clothing elsewhere, I kept the uniform coats from the film, and leather work such as baldric/sword belts and scabbards as being issued from a central depot, but breeches, hats and boots are all down to the individual choice of the wearer. The white sash, or scarf as it is more properly known is common to French armies at the time.

Thanks for looking in, and that you all stay safe,
Cheers Pickers.
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