Tuesday 2 July 2013

Early Church Finished


So finally, well over a year after first starting, my Early Church is finished.
Intended for games of Dux Bellorum, Dux  Britanniarum, Warhamer Ancient Battles and SAGA (when they get round to the supplement), mainly to be raided by hordes of hairy Anglo-Saxons - specifically Angles in my case.

It's intended to represent a Late Roman or Romano British or Sub Roman or whatever they're called these days church from somewhere small and on the very fringes of the Empire. Somewhere like Elmet. Given the absence of much evidence of churches of this period in Britain it's largely speculative (or made up if you prefer), but I did want it to have aisles up the side and a great big curvy apse. I love a big curvy apse.There aren't many images on the net to go on, but I took some inspiration from the drawings on the Early British Kingdoms site. As its intended for a backwater it is thatched rather than tiled and I imagine, beneath the render, that it's mostly wooden, which goes some way to explaining the lack of archaeological evidence for such a church. Conveniently.




 Look at the apse on that!




After the last stage I applied a wash of Gryphonne Sepia to all the walls before drybrushing back up with Wilkinson's Crushed Almond. The thatch was overbrushed with Khemri Brown then drybrushed with Bleached Bone. The wooden parts were Charadon Granite, overbrushed with Graveyard Earth then a few random daubs of various browns to give a wooden effect before a final wash of Devlan Mud. Finally the Chi-Rho was painted on freehand with Scab Red.



That's a Musketeer Late Roman for scale next to the model. You can see it's actually got a pretty small footprint, but I like my scenery that way and prefer it to be small but convey the idea of a church rather than be to scale and eat up huge chunks of the playing surface.

Overall I'm very pleased with it, and my regular opponent is very much looking forward to me trying to pillage it the next time we play Dux Britanniarum.

If you want to check back over the (lengthy) building progress here are the various stages
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

8 comments:

  1. That came up a treat in the end didn't it? Nice work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I lost faith a bit when the render first went on but the paint job (though very basic) rescued it for me.

      Delete
  2. It has turned out very well. Nice job!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lovely stuff - and so much faster than my builds!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. To be fair Mitch I started in March 2012.
      I reckon you've got another twelve months and you'll still comfortably beat my build time.

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. Thanks mate,
      You must come and raid it sometime.
      :)

      Delete
  5. Very, very nice! Great looking church!

    ReplyDelete