Wednesday 29 July 2015

Medieval Chapel, Tabletop Workshop

I received this model was a gift from a regular reader (cheers Derek) but as usual it has taken me quite a while to complete it.

This model depicts a small chapel which I feel is more appropriate to skirmish style games rather than a larger church model (said someone who made a castle great tower) and as such it will eventually form an essential focus for a scenario based on a real life event that took place in the 1432 and directly involved Lord Dudley and few of his retainers (or henchmen, it depends which side you were on).



The interior of medieval churches would often be a riot of colour as can be seen with a rebuilt medieval church such as an example at St Fagans Wales [here]. A smaller version can be found [here] but because I'm lazy I have left the interior plain.
Interior detail
Interior detail
Corner detail showing filled in location holes
Although the model is perfectly acceptable straight out of the box, regular readers probably won't be surprised that I couldn't resist altering it in some form (I was about to say 'improve' it but that's a matter of option) I wanted to give the impression that the church had been rendered and whitewashed. This is a feature rarely seen nowadays mainly because, ironically, the Victorians tended to remove it in an attempt to make the churches appear more medieval. To achieve this look I used Milliput to roughly fill in the gaps on the exterior walls but leaving just enough of the original surface detail to show though. I used Milliput rather than greenstuff because basically its the same stuff and a lot cheaper. Milliput is made from the same materials as greenstuff but has been mixed with chalk to bulk it out.

I made the model so that I could remove the roof and two walls. This was relatively easy. I initially glued two of the walls in place and then filled in the location holes that were visible from the outside. I didn't cut away any of the location pegs but I did covered the location walls on the over walls with thin pieces of greenstuff. 
Wargames Foundry Friar
shown for scale reference.
Unfortunately it appears that the manufacturer, Tabletop Workshop, no longer trades but it looks the model can still be bought online or possibly from old fashioned bricks and mortar stores if you're lucky.

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