Friday 19 July 2013

Warbases Dark Ages Watchtower Finished

I'm afraid I rather abandoned the step-by-step approach for this last one and just got the tower finished.

The walls were washed with Gryphonne sepia then drybrushed back with Deneb stone and then white.

It was at this point the difficulties presented by having both roof and balcony in place really became apparent - but if you're going to render the walls I can't see a way around it - smarter modelers than me can doubtless find a way.
The wooden bits were largely drybrushed with an assortment of grays and browns and then washed with Devlan mud.

Finally the thatch was further drybrushed with Graveyard Earth and Bleached Bone.





What every Saxon Shore needs

The colour balance is a little out of whack on a couple of the pictures making parts of it look more orange than in reality.

Overall I'm very pleased with it. Yes the balcony is a little out of scale (it needs to be to fit a 20mm base on it) and yes it's not actually that tall and I'm not sure of its historical accuracy.
But for my purposes its just about perfect, cheap, gives effective results, doesn't take up too much space on the battlefield and most importantly says "late Roman Watchtower" to me. Scenery is representative for me and this one does that to a tee.

 Border Guard Duty

Keep those eyes peeled for Saxons...

Now to burn it to the ground!

13 comments:

  1. I like how you've went the extra mile on this instead of just painting up the MDF. Well done!

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    1. I think you have to put in the work with the MDF buildings, otherwise they look to plain and boxy.
      That said it wasn't that much work!
      :)
      Tom

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  2. An excellent looking tower! Well done that man!

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  3. Good looking model. I'm tempted to make a version of that myself.

    Regards,
    Matt

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  4. Excellent work! I really likee it

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  5. Very good work !!!

    Will you put it on a base?

    best regards Michael

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    Replies
    1. Thanks.
      I did consider basing but in the end decided against it.
      I may review in a while but for now it remains baseless.

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  6. Thanks all for the kind words.
    Was fun putting it together and painting it.

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  7. Superb - that little bit of texture/render on the tower really lifts it to a new level!

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  8. how did you make the roof? It looks GREAT! I'm waffling about buying this for my Dux Britannia game. Would you buy it again or buy some other manufacturer's product?

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    1. Hi Steve, it's just a black face flannel from ASDA cut into strips and glued down with PVA.
      Demo here:
      http://tomstoysoldiers.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/dark-age-house-stage-by-stage.html

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    2. I'd buy this, its cheap, goes together well and doesn't take up too much space

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