Sunday, November 7, 2010

Finishing an old terrain project

So I've had the CNC Workshop church sitting around on my terrain shelf for like three years now. I bought it, built it, sprayed most of it with GW Roughcoat, and then couldn't decide how to roof the damn thing. After taking a whole pile of pictures with it for yesterday's battle report, I figured it was about time to finish it up. I had tinkered with thatching the roof, but I didn't think that'd make a whole lot of sense in the desert, plus I already had a bunch of wood slats handy. Here's how it started out:
Unfinished Project
Slat roofing is pretty much as easy as it gets, and I got lucky- the roof on the entryway was just the right size to fit nice and even without any overhanging sticks. This was pretty much the only part that fit that neatly.
Foyer Roof Complete
The tricky part about the roof was fitting around the belltower. With shingled roofing, like on my Flying Tricycle buildings, you have some room to fudge any minor fit issues, since they overlap. With the slats, everything has to fit at least close to flush or it'll look funny. I initially started laying slats from the top of the roof down, but as I hit the bottom of the belltower, I realized I was going to run into trouble, with the roofline under the tower being about half a slat out of the pattern. I ended up redoing it with a slat under the belltower edge, then working my way up and down from there, leaving a small gap at the top that would be capped off later. Throughout the process, I tried to keep the spacing fairly irregular, using slats cut to different lengths to keep it visually interesting.
Main Roof Complete
Checking ahead this time, I found that the tower roof was just a hair longer than an even set of slats, but since I planned ahead, I was able to use a bit of extra spacing across the whole section to eat the extra space.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/conspyre/5155945282/in/set-72157619404354418/
Starting with slats flush to the top and bottom of the roof, I started laying in pieces to fill in the middle, adding a tiny bit of extra space between slats in order to take up the quarter-slat of extra space.
Getting the Spacing Right 2
With the guides in place, it was a simple matter of filling in the gaps to finish it off.
Finished Belltower Roof
With the roof laid down, all that was left was to cap off the roof with one horizontal slat, to cover the peak of the roof, and deal with a few warped slats.
Warping Shingles
A few drops of glue and some patience (while watching a little TV on Hulu) got them sorted out. I like a bit of irregularity in the roof, but obviously the lifted edges in the photo are a little much.
With the roof done, there were still a couple of details to attend to. The kit is designed with a big crucifix on the back of the belltower. Given that it gets used mostly for Warmachine and Warhammer Fantasy, two settings where Catholicism doesn't have a whole lot of sway, something had to be done about it.
Original Belltower View
A quick trip to Michaels netted me a half-dozen wooden discs about 1.5" across, for the princely sum of $1.30. Craft stores are awesome, and these feel like the kind of things that may come in handy later.
Belltower Fixed
Belltower Fixed, 3/4 view
The other issue that remains is the windows. CNC Workshop likes cutting out windows. On their village buildings, that's not so bad, as they have interiors, but for my church, they either just look dark, or show off the tan table underneath the building. Once I get some paint on this thing, I'm planning on gluing paper inside the building, colored to look like stained glass. The last part I leave as a question to the gentle readers- What denomination is this church? Certainly not Sigmarite, as there is a beautiful GW piece for if I decide I need a church in the Empire. Menite? Bretonnian? Generic "Church of Happiness" a la Pelor in D&D? Let me know your thoughts!

3 comments:

  1. Just turn the wooden slate into a clock... turns the building into a generic place of worship with the added bonus of serving a useful purpose of time piece as well. If you wanted to get really creative, you could make the hands adjustable? No idea how hard that would be, actually, considering it's a wood disk and all.
    -Pete

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  2. Someone else suggested that tonight, Pete, and it's not a bad idea... It also turns it from being obviously a church into possibly also being a meeting hall of some sort. Definitely something to consider.

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  3. I like the slat roofing you did - I'm doing one of these at the moment and went for thatching instead, using a teddy bear fur method:
    http://tasmancave.blogspot.com/2011/05/saxon-church-wip-1.html

    Did you ever finsih it? If so I'd be keen to see some pics. Cheers!

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