My Warhammer Townscape is complete

After a rather dismal failure involving a Killa Kan project last year I decided to cheer myself up by building the old Warhammer Townscape from foamboard and coffee stirrers. To be honest I did not think I would see this project through to the finish. But as of this weekend, I can proudly say I did. There I said it: I finished the Warhammer Townscape. Its also a bit more terrain than I'll ever need for a single game :)

"This is madness!"
"Madness? This is Frugelhofen!"

I built the buildings in orde of the pages of the how to assemble manual from the original Townscape book. For those of you new to this project. Click here for an overview of all my posts about the Townscape.

The manor is huge. As it should be.

Let's get cracking with the latest set of the lot. The last page contains thirteen buildings of which I skipped one. Tower. It is a silly box and I have better towers. I'll probably build one anyway someday soon as the completionist in me is already foaming at the mouth ;) Having said that. Lets go through the other twelve in order.

I have to wonder how much the people hate the aristocrat or merchant living here. The manor is essentially a half-timbered keep. 

26. Manor House
The Manor Hosue is basically a humongous box shape that dominates the entire village (as it should). Instead of green shutters I decided to try a (as far as I know) typical Dutch shutter painting style. I cut an hourglass template from a bit of cardboard and used it to quickly airbrush the shape on the shutters. Had I realized how my cavalier way to make shutters had turned out to most uneven shutters on earth, I wouldn't have bothered. I had to freehand every !@#! shutter to get it look sort of right (I still hate the sloppy effect). As I was about to paint the lot an even green my wife walked in and told me how much she loved the effect. Now I don't have the heart to cover the uneven shapes with a nice and decent green. I guess I'll just blame the fictitious village painter. Rotten bastard. As soon as I've assembled the running farmer from the Giant kit I'll name him 'Bruno the Village Painter'.

Someone decided to stick a dungeon in the house. To keep the rpg-adventure going it is at street level so the free adventures can discuss the upcoming jailbreak with their jailed fellows. 

I am very satisfied with the paint job on the wood. It was a very simple job of GW Dryad Bark drybrushed with Tyrant Skull (dry). I added a few pretty bushes with the flock to liven things up a bit. I also sprayed some green around the arrow slits and dungeon window to give the impression of an extremely damp basement.

As any realtor would tell you: this is a fixer-upper with near limitless potential.

27. Cottage
This is such a charming little house. It was easy to build and very easy to paint. Especially as I realized I should use a slightly stiffer bit of cardboard to stop overspray on a project of this size. What an amazing insight! And to think I've only been airbrushing for about eight or nine years and it already came to me! I'm a prodigal talent...uh oh, my cynicism-filter seems to have overloaded. Please stand by while I replace it....

Did I remember to keep silent about forgetting to put in the half-timbering around the window?

Here's the other side of the cottage. I discovered this building should've had a bit of half-timber added around the windows. I only found out as I was applying final layers of weathering on the walls. I decided to fix this by not to telling anyone. Please disregard the previous few sentences.

"Honey I'm off to bribe the local civil-servant....erm I mean to pay my customs duties of course."

28. Customs house

I love this building. The stonework is simple (cheap) airdry clay rolled onto foamboard with a texture roller. I took great care to paint a number of stones in different colors. It looks quite ugly in progress but washing and drybrushing takes care of that. In the end it makes walls look more believable. 

Ah the harsh combination of a daylight panel and bad camera. It's enough to put anyone (not in the 'Eavy Metal range of skill) off from posting tutorials. 

Here's a quick in progress shot of the same walls. The basic color is Stonewall Grey by Vallejo. I added a few random different shades of grey and some Calvary Brown to the mix. 

Great, more windows to paint! Couldn't they just go for security through obscurity? (in this case by not having any windows at all).

The biggest problem I had with the customs house was the joints between bricks not showing up. I solved this by applying multiple layers of (slightly watered down) Army Painter Dark Tone. I accidentally bought multiple bottles of this stuff and don't really know what to do with it anyway. The multiple dark layers really worked out in the end (I think).

"Another fixer-upper well within anyone's price range. And with a nice view of the wonderful Rough Inn. You can crawl home from there. No more expensive rides on the drunk cart for you mister!"

29. Hovel

I love this building. I have no idea what the people want to store in the half-open lean-to. Perhaps drunk husbands? I can already see a cowardly wizard hiding out in there during battle. Before drybrushing I took care to paint planks in different colors to make the woodwork look more worn down and ramshackle. Also the lesson I learned after building page one (break as many individual planks/coffee stirrers in two as you can), really paid of on making this building look worn down.

I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be revisiting a number of the buildings in this last batch to add more posters. 

While applying flock I added extra bushes (iceland moss) to this building. It gives the sense that this is a rickety, overgrown house at the edge of town. It's there to tell travelers: move on, the good inn is a bit further up the road. I should remember to put the Rough Inn a bit further down the road from this building, or perhaps across the street. 

And here we find the stables. I forgot to broaden the base so I could add a midden heap to the building. Mental note: make a standalone midden heap to add to this building. 

30. Stable

The stables turned out quite nicely. I'm really happy about with the Dutch Door effect. And the stonework (from a Zandri Dust base) works out well as well. One of the things I should mention at this point is that the smartphone I usually use to take pictures had to be send back for repairs (don't get me started about my awful Pixel 3 experience (or the horrors of owning an iPhone (or anything Apple))) Anyway all these have been taken with the (not quite as sterling) camera of my spare (ancient) phone. Lets just say I had to throw out a lot of even worse pictures.

"The Sigmar cult? Bunch of end timers if you ask me. That arrogant lot claims the end of our world will hail an entire Age devoted to Sigmar!"

31. Temple 

I had a very pleasant time adding bits to this building. Painting them up took a bit of extra time. I do think it was worth it. I'm especially fond of the Stormcast shields depicting Sigmar's dual comet sigil on the front and side of the building. One of the major troubles during painting where the side windows. I kept forgetting to paint them. In the end I had to redo the inside with a metallic paint and, having completely run out of Soulstone Blue during the project, painted them Waystone Green. Now I'll have to start an internal debate on whether to replace the Soulstone Blue or live without it. It's not very good for painting gems, but it is excellent to paint ye'olde glass windows. I don't use it often enough to make it worth owning, but it is excellent to paint ye'olde glass windows. Etc, etc...

Painting stained glass: Take a copy of an old Mordheim window, add a bit of discarded screen door, use red and green technical paints (gemstone effects) and add a dab of black with a steady hand. 

On the subject of forgetting to paint windows. When the entire building was done (or so I thought) it turned out I forgot to paint the tower windows. As a penance I took extra care to make these pretty (and I think I succeeded). In all its quite a pretty building to start a quest-style battle or skirmish scenario from.

An escapee? Oh no! Now I'll have to go and build an old world version of Colditz.

32. Jail

The jail is one of my favorite buildings in the whole Townscape. I decided to go for a forbidding grey-green color, starting out from a base of Vallejo German Grey. I love how the doors turned out. I should've actually painted all the pins black to make it look more realistic. I did that at first but it didn't look quite as impressive as metallic. So I'm going for artistic liberty here. I'm also well chuffed with the blanket from the window shtick. Now there's another hook for a quest. 

About adding some posters to this batch of buildings....

I was a bit worried about the back of the jail. But painting it without any further adornments just made it look so damn foreboding. I decided to leave it as it was (I also completely forgot to add posters to this batch of buildings). The standard sized door (3.5 cm high, 2 cm broad) is wonderfully small in the humongous back wall. Don't offend the local magistrate kids. You might be taken to jail and unless you can climb down using bed sheets, you will never get out!

Finishing this blog and what do is see? I forgot to paint the hinges and door handle....will be fixing that someday.....or not.....let me finish my plastic, lead and resin pile first ;)

33. Gabled House

This was one of the last houses I painted in the set. Around this point I ran out of Dryd Bark (running out of paints is a risk with a project of this scope). I used Sylvaneth Wyldwood contrast paint to cover the half-timbers. If you have a chance: avoid using contrast paints on scratch built half-timber. It was not a pleasant experience. Contrast paint needs details to work. Also it needs someone not me to properly apply it. I also need my paint to obscure (most of) the sloppiness I displayed while building the building. Contrast does the opposite. But in the end with a bit of drybrushing it turned out well enough.

As much as I was loathe to build yet another half-timbered house, I'm quite happy with the overall shape of it.

I don't have a lot to add to the text above. But I wanted to show this picture. This forces my to put in a few sentences here. Oh yeah, I added an extra long bit of plastic tube to the chimney pushpin and I like how it looks. If I ever go ahead and build the Townscape again I'll....have to stop typing here, this is not going to happen (unless a mad millionaire somewhere out there takes this entire set of my hands ;). 

What are they working on in there? Is it true that good old Count Vlad visits every fortnight to check how the work progresses?

34. Work Shed

This building is crazy. It looks slightly smallish, but the door is to scale with all the other buildings in (my version of) the Towscape. My guess is they're building boats in there. Or maybe this is where the Sylvanian Serfs work on the frames of Mortis Engines and Coven Thrones. Whatever it is they build in here. It is big and requires a gargantuan door. 

I am very proud of this humongous door. Can't wait to figure out a reason to fight over it.

I actually selected a different picture as picture 2 for this building. But this one shows of the huge door a bit better. You can easily park a (classic) Greater Daemon in front of it and have room left over to move a couple of wizards past it. 

Here's the back door, its mostly used to pop out and smoke a quick pipe during the workday.

Moving back to the proper second picture. I'm quite happy about my 'exposed brickwork' skill. I think I can mention that one on my resumé. 

35. Tower

++++ Redacted by order of his most holy inquisition ++++

I would be happy to live here, it just looks so incredibly cozy.

36. House

The final real house in the Townscape oozes charm. My wife told me she'd like to live there (or at least have it as a vacation house). I briefly considered going for a charm 'coup de grace' by covering most of it in ivy. But despite following along online with some 'how to make proper looking scale model ivy' courses, I don't have the confidence to try that yet (and I really just wanted to finish this damn project).

I should've really added ivy to the building though.  

Despite refusal to go the extra 'ivy' mile (should I add an ivy-league pun here?), I'm still quite happy with how this little hovel turned out. 

There's an actual box-type toilet with hole and lid in there. It's that bit you can't see in the shadows.....This hobby.... 

37. Latrine

Have I ever mentioned the gear shift in the current Ork Truck kit? It was one of the first plastic kits I bought when I re-entered the hobby after about a ten year hiatus. The gear shift is topped with a skull wrapped in leather cords to affix it to its shaft. I carefully kept this part apart when I painted my truck. I applied highlights to the leather cords and washed the skull with a sepia wash. I glued the cool looking skull into the Truck. Then I glued the painted driver's hand onto the shift and stuck the model in the Truck. Then I assembled the rest of the half-open cabin and added the gunner. Long story short: the only one who knows about the painted shift with the cool skull is me (and every opponent who had the misfortune of fighting me while the Truck was on the table ;). The same story applies (sort of) to all the hard work I put into making a box with a hole to sit on and a lid to close it with. If you're wondering what I'm on about, check about halfway through this post for the WIP. 

I'm just glad I didn't follow up on my plan to make an almanac on a spike (in honor of Pratchett's witches stories) to hang next to above-mentioned box.

I decided the back of the latrine would be the fertilized to the highest standard. Ample reason to provide for extra flowers here. 

I'm still saddened that baggage trains are no longer a part of Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar. I know I should make my own rules, but it would be so wonderful if there were some plastic kits to scale out there...especially for exotic baggage trains like Orcs, Chaos or Skaven.

38. Tents

Painting the tents was fun enough to be rated 'therapeutic'. On the base I added a metal campfire I had lying around in a bits box I acquired through purchasing a lot (i.e. I have no clue where this came from). I tried to stay as true to the tent colors in the Townscape book as I could, playing around with a lot of yellows and oranges. I think it was well worth the effort. To give a bit of a hint that whoever is sleeping here has been camping for more then a day or two, I added dead yellow grass around the campsite proper. 

If you ever wondered what 37 buildings on a table would look like. Wonder no more.

And with that I wrap up my Townscape project. Here's the entire lot on the table with a standard 6'x4' battle mat beneath it. As you can see it is not possible to fight a normal battle on a regular (modern) table using the entire set. Back to the classic pingpong table format I say. I don't want to talk about storage. I have four and a half Ikea Billy shelves in use for the Townscape right now and two bridges and the tents are sitting on my painting table because they don't fit :). I'll think of something. After all: too much painted terrain is a good problem to have.

Despite not the best light in the world and my ho-hum camera I'd like to end this project with some shots of all the buildings together on the table. Hopefully I'll find the time to take more proper pictures with better lighting at some later stage. 

And with that I'm opening a celebratory beer. My Warhammer Townscape project is finished! Well I have nine river sections primed and ready to paint and decorate, and I should actually stop fussing and build the Tower in some form, but it's well enough finished to open that beer. First off I'm going to be painting some actual models again.*

* Honesty requires me to state that I already painted a couple of one-off models between buildings to get used to careful brushwork again. I'll probably show those off next time (especially as there are a few wonderful Tim Prow sculpts among those models).