Detailing the Age of Sigmar siege towers (part 3)

Now this project went rather faster then expected. I planned to be working on it over the course of a few weeks, but I seem to have finished it within three evenings (and a few lunch breaks and a bit of a Sunday afternoon). Lets start of with the result just prior to painting.

"Where is the castle? Why didn't you stop when we passed that nice looking peasant to ask for directions?"

And a view of the back, with a brave Kairic Acolyte on top for size purposes.

Found me a wall to hop onto from my deluxe siege tower.

I started the finishing touches on the towers by taking the ladders of the masking tape. As you can see in the previous post, these were rather messily covered in PVA.

Yes that was a lot of glue, but my parts were not cut to any decent measure of precision.

This did not dry up in a neat way.

(pun alert!) Looks like I have my work 'cut' out for me (har har har)

So I replaced my scalpel blade and removed the excess glue (cutting myself in the process (blood for the blood god!)).

O think that looks good enough.

These ladders do not really look up to scale with the models using them, but I think slightly oversized bits here and there fit with the 'heroic scale'. It gives a bit of attention to those parts that require it. (For about the same reason I don't really like models scaled with proper size hands and feet).

This embodies how much thought and planning went into this particular project. 

Next up were some hardcore calculations on my very thought out and precise construction diagram (cough cough).

"They said there would be a siege tower for us to use, this looks nothing like a siege tower! Are we supposed to carry this platform to the wall and hope?" 

Using my cutting mat and some half-painted Kairic Acolytes as a reference I cut the top platforms to fit five models on 32mm bases in reasonable comfort. The mat has has 1cm x 1cm squares on it and I determined five acolytes fit in between an 8cm x 8cm rectangle (3.14 inches squared for you non-metric system types). The top of the tower is 6cm x 6 cm and the top platform needs to stick out on three sides, 8cm x 8cm will probably look good. Next up I made the basic square foundation for the top and tried the measurment again. Yes seems to work.

My recipe to fix stuff in place before applying copious amounts of glue: masking tape.

I fixed the platforms on some masking tape and glued in the wooden floors using coffee stirrers. As that had to dry I started working on the ramparts. I first used a bit of wood to determine how high these needed to be so my ancient models don't look like children (needing a crate to look over the low parts) and my new models don't look too exposed.

Yeah that's a lot of planks, its also about a quarter of the amount of planks I require.

I ended up deciding on 2.5 cm planks for the low ends and 3.5 cm planks for the high ends. I used 1mm x 5mm balsa planks for this as I want the top floor to look as if it's made from even sturdier wood. With this top bit it becomes very important to pre-weather the wooth by taking a scalpel to all sides of every bit (48* bits of 2.5 cm and 52 bits of 3.5 cm). I ended up with four woodpiles

*It turned out I only needed 44.

That's what 190 balsa wood planks look like after they've been individually weathered.

And a lot of wood shavings. Time to clear up the work area!

And there are the wood shavings of 190 balsa wood planks. One day I'll think of a project to use wood shavings in and then I'll regret throwing them all out.

As the work area was clear I could start gluing the wooden bits to the top floors.

The bottle propping up the floor is only there for photography purposes. Just hold these in your hands while applying the railings.

Luckily I remembered that no wood was needed to do the back sides of the top floor. As it was I almost ran out of balsa planks and had to upend the shed looking for 'just a bit more'.

The top floors are ready to be installed on the towers.

Next up was a final, but important, detail. The chains used for raising and lowering my (fixed) boarding ramps. I opted to drill holes in the tops of the towers, pulling a bit of chain from my bits bo through it.

Making holes and adding chain.

Then I grabbed a very soft round bit of balsa wood (I think it was balsa) and cut two bits of. I put the plastic rings that come at the end of every tube of the cheap-ass brand superglue I use on these bits as end caps (and to make it look slightly more interesting).

Improvising something to make the chain look as if its really used in the miniature world.

I added square sides from a few bits of spare wood and wrapped some chain around this, ending up with this mechanism. I think it looks nice, it could use a lever or something, but I think I'll pretend the lever is one floor down (and out of sight ;) ).

I'm rather satisfied with how this looks.

Next I found a few old shield decoration bits and used four identical ones (per set of four wheels) to mark the two towers by their hubcaps (so to speak).

(Using my Hollywood voice) "It was a time before light weight aluminum rims..."

"...it was a world where no wheel was safe!".

And that is where I'm at after a few intense hobby evenings.

"CHARGE! Wait, were are the others? *gulp*"

Looking down on the wall, ready to kill some defenders.

Braving the table (after the horrendous mess caused by scratch building was cleared).

Next step: painting these (and start wondering about a battering ram).