First four Warhammer Townscape buildings finished

I had an overtly productive weekend this weekend. It was actually too productive to fit in a single post. I'll just keep te WIP pictures with semi-helpful tips on reserve for later. Having built the first six buildings of the Warhammer Townscape (follow the link if you're wondering what that is) I decided it was time to apply some paint. After all I used some new techniques and I wanted to find out if they actually held up when paint was applied. Short version: I'm happy. Here's a group shot of my first four buildings.

Welcome to Frugelhöfen, we're still working on the rest of the village...

For the color scheme I tried to stick as close as possible to the colors used in the Warhammer Townscape book. I do occasionally veer off. For instance I want my doors to have a dash of color to contrast better with the door frames (and I got a bit creative making them). Also I really want to experiment with wood colors. Most of the wood in the Townscape book has a bit of a mahogany red color. So time to diverge there as well. Now less talking, more painting. Here are a few shots of building one, the farmhouse.

The farmhouse on the edge of town? That's the Whateley farmhouse. Strange people. They've just moved in from Dunwich. Seem to be ignoring the rest of the village though. 

As you can see I opted to add bases to all the buildings. It makes it look more a part of the world and the green of the grass contrasts nicely with the brown, grey and red of the building. I'll talk more about bases in a later post. I should also do a separate post on painting tile roofs. A lot of work and effort went into painting roofs the four on these buildings where all painted (and repainted, etc) in slightly different ways. The roof on the farmhouse was aibrushed VMC Cavalry Red I hand painted a few tiles with a darker brown and a few others with GW Typhus Corrosion. After this dried I thinned down VMC Anthracite and followed the contours of each tile lightly with the airbrush, giving the whole roof a nicely down and weathered look.

I should've more rigorously wiped the loose bits of flock from the roof before taking this picture. 

The woodwork on the siding was airbrushed VGA Beastly Brown. I also dropped a bit of black in the brown to make a few darker patches. Anything to make the color look a bit more uneven. I drybrushed all this wood with GW Karak Stone. This is a wonderful light greyish brown that makes the wood look more aged. To my surprise the wood grain in the coffee stirrers actually comes to the surface when drybrushing, making the effect come to life.

I personally rather like the way the Icelandic Moss looks on this base. 

The timbers forming the half timbered frame where painted with VMA Armor Brown or GW Air Dryad Bark. I switched these colors between houses and I've forgotten where I used which color. Both of these are deep dark browns and they work very well for timbered beams. GW Air works best if applied by brush because the idiotic (non-dropper) design of the paint pot doesn't get in the way of using it and these paints actually apply rather nicely straight out of the pot.

Always give a few cobblestones an odd color, it makes the rest of the path look more interesting.

Why did I put in so many doors? I've been struggling to paint them all as most of the colors didn't quite work out. I even tried some of my contrast paints (I still can't get these to work for me). In the end I settled on an old fashioned approach. I painted very thin layers of green over a brown base and added crude stripes to give it a bit of a highlight. Good enough (I hope), let's move on to building 2, the Gatehouse.

I was so sure I made a mistake building the gatehouse that I cut off the pointed part of the side with the door. I think that actually makes the building look better (and it will fit a mage or sniper now).

Getting the color of this building right was hard. It is most definitely white but not an antique brownish white, more a blueish/grey white. I started off with VMC Pale Blue Grey on a German Grey (dark grey) primer and worked with progressively lighter layers on top of that. The trick with these textured buildings is to refrain from washes and apply new layers slightly spotty from a Zenithal angle. I went back multiple times with the airbrush until I ended up with pure white in the cup. That's usually a sign that you're doing it wrong. In this case I like the way it turned out. The building has the right sort of worn down look (I think).

I am extremely satisfied with these exposed bricks. 

The Dutch Brick pattern by Green Stuff World works wonders on this building. I used VMC Cavalry Brown as the base color, adding drops of Burnt Umber for darker bricks and mixing with white for lighter tones. I spent quite a lot of time screwing around with GW Agrax Earthshade and Athonian Camoshade washes to lift out the pattern. That didn't really work. In the end a drybrush with GW Pallid Wych Flesh turned out to do the real trick. On this close-up you can also see the lightly applied, very thin spray of VMA Earth on the bottom of the building, for that 'splashed muddy look'.

Welcome to Frugelhöfen, we've not visited been attacked by the Lichemaster in at least six days, how nice of you to ask.

The side of the building without a door was rather boring. As I was watching movies on my monitor I printed the Townscape pdf for reference. This turned out fortuitous. I could cut out the nice Frugelhöfen sign that was part of the optional bits in the original book. I attached this with PVA to coffee stirrers, washed it with liberal doses of GW Seraphim Sepia and stuck it on. My town has a name now! And not just any name, the mayor should be on the lookout for lichemasters. The roof on this building was painted almost the same way as the one on the farmhouse. It did take three tries as the first two where rather hideous. On this building I started out with VGA Shadow Grey and applied a touch of GW Slaanesh Grey to different tiles. Once again this one was shaded with VMA Anthracite.

I added a sneaky skull to the gate on this side. It is Warhammer after all...

I used a Green Stuff World cobblestone texture roller to make a little paved road through the gate (before fixing the building to the base of course). Before washing this road with Agrax Earthshade I painted a few cobblestones in lighter grays and a couple of others in VMC Cavalry Brown just to make it all interesting. I used a q-tip to take excess wash of the raised cobbles. Next up was building number three, the Large House.

The odd grey flecks on the plastered walls are what I call 'a happy little accident'.

This one is more yellow than white in the Townscape book so I started off applying VMA Dark Yellow over the German Grey primer. I lightened the yellow up with the same patchy technique I used for the other buildings to a final layer of VMA Antique White. I am rather satisfied how the inlaid door works out on this building (although my cuts on the door itself could've/should've been neater in retrospect).

All flowers on the bases are made by Gamers Grass. If I keep this project up, I'll probably need to order more really soon.

The wooden top side of the house was painted in a basecoat of VMA Armour Brown. I used GW Gorthor Brown to hand draw lighter lines on this building. The odd greyish pattern on all yellow brown sides of this building was caused by something that was staining my paint station. I allowed the building to rest on the surface and discovered the pollution to late. I don't know what spill it was, but I'm filing it under 'happy little accident'. It looks like an amazing aging technique.

Grabbing a random shield doodad and adding it to the door was a good idea.

I used Scale75 Decayed Metal for the coppery bits on the door. Washing it with Agrax and then adding a drybrush of a random light metallic color to make it all stand out. Works for me. It took a lot of self control not to add (watered down) Nihilakh Oxide to the metals. I like that Technical Paint. The roof was painted from a base of GW Stormvermin Fur as it looked a more brown grey then blue grey in the Townscape book. I used a black wash to line it and spent a lot of time cursing and airbrushing to restore the tiles to their current state. Washing on roofs, not a good technique (unless you drybrush after). Anyway, let's finish by looking at building number six in the Townscape: the shack.

This shack has one excellent looking door, if I say so myself.

I promised to follow the numbering in the book for building the Townscape buildings. But this is the painting stage. I decided to follow my instincts when it came to painting. As this was a small building I started with it. At the very least I could get the hang of things. I'm rather happy with the way the 'built from leftover bits of wood' door turned out. All the different heights give you something to aim for when applying highlights.

I really can't wait to fight some battles over possession of this terrain. Who knows what this shack will turn out to contain over the coming years?

The windows on all buildings in this post have had their glass painted in with GW Soulstone Blue. I never really liked the way Technical gemstone effect paints work on actual gems. I do like them for these kind of effects. One of the main advantages is that these paints are rather viscous. For the Farmhouse windows I just glued a mesh (carpet underlay) in a hole, painted it black and globbed on Soulstone. If you look above you'll see most of the paint has formed small semi-translucent layers on the black mesh. Almost like actual windows. Where these layers didn't form you get the effect of a small broken window (or I could go back later (even with a different color)). In short, it works quite nicely. For the shack I just glued the mesh onto cardboard and globbed the Soulstone straight onto that. That works too, and takes a lot less effort.

Boring blank walls bothering you? Just add some posters.

I was screwing around with the prints of the Townscape anyway and the shack walls where a bit bare. So I cut out posters from my prints. I mixed PVA with Seraphim Sepia Shade and used this to fix the posters to the shed, adding an extra layer of yellowish PVA on top. It is a very quick, easy and effective way to add interesting looking posters to your scenery, and all it takes is a printer. The whiteness of the printerpaper is wiped out by the sepia in the PVA.

The old optional posters in the Townscape book are a nice touch, for those not of the Oldhammery ways, Bob Naismith is a sculptor who did quite a lot of Rogue Trader era models for GW. 

Yes I'm quite satisfied with this effect, and also with the texture on the walls of the building. This wasn't all I did this weekend. I also painted most of the Watermill, but the base is not finished yet, so I'll leave that to a separate post (along with the Wooden Bridge). Notwithstanding these two buildings still being WIP, I'm quite satisfied with my results. I now know for sure that my plastering technique for foamboard holds up. I've also developed a new half timber technique that's quicker than the one on the farmhouse and works (not shown, its on the watermill). Lat but not least I have tried a new way to paint windows and it looks quite nicely. Along with that comment section regular Lasgunpacker (cheers!) has kindly designed 3D printable windows for me. I have a line on a 3D printer nearby. If all that works out I should be able to speed up the next set of buildings I'm going to build. Now to finish the bridge and the watermill, add those to the blog (and some semi-helpful WIP pics from the above set maybe) and I can get started on number 7. Store. I'm loving this project.