Dark Ages or Early Medieval Buildings - 28mm Grand Manner

 

The wanderer returns!  It's been a busy few months but hopefully normality is back. The first thing I have done since my return is to paint some Dark Age buildings...or early medieval, as it now seems to be called.

My intention for doing this was primarily for using them for the 'Dux Britanniarum' Rules.  I had play tested them but without using any objectives and found this was not fair on the rules. It really needed something to add the drama and purpose to the combats.  Hence a village.

The buildings are by Grand Manner, and I have long coveted owning some of their fine models. Alas the price was always beyond me.  I am one of those wargamers who has always been happy to invest in troops but rarely on terrain pieces.  This is changing for me now, I am glad to say. However, I noticed several months ago that Grand Manner were selling unpainted resin models for a limited period.   It was an offer too good to miss!  So I bought 7 buildings of various sorts.

Building One - 'A' Frame House

I would not class myself as a terrain modeller. I tend to stick with model soldiers, planes and vehicles. That kind of thing is in my comfort zone. I have had a go at scratch building bits and have done some building painting, but I always considered it passable rather than good.

I wanted to make a real effort on these.  One thing that helped was the very clear definition of the superb casting.  I realised that with washes and dry brushing I could probably get a good effect.    I set about studying as many real thatched buildings and model buildings on line.  One thing that was  apparent was how cut wood isn't really brown. It is almost anything but, but I think we tend to be used to seeing shades of browns with our modern shed paints.

So following some minor de-flashing, and washing, I applied a Vallejo Burnt Umber undercoat and off I went!  My method really involved applying lighter and lighter shades and then an Army painter wash or several and then re-highlighting.  This proved to be very effective.  

I really liked the small details in the houses that can be seen inside. These are all part of the wonderful resin casting and not something that I have added afterwards.

Building Two  - Wattle and Daub Store Hut

All of the buildings have so much character and were great fun to try techniques out on.  This store hut looked like it had seen better days, so I tried to find ways of ageing it.

The Army painter washes were great to apply to reduce some of the whiteness and introduce decay  to it.

I'll post the buildings in several parts as I seem to have to post one picture at time or they all go in reverse order. There must be a better way of posting pics.

Anyway,  I'll leave these for now and continue shortly (without a gap of 4 months this time!)