From FrederickC - The War Lord and HIs Tower [Historical Drama] (58 points)

  Moving Southeast from the High Adventure studio, we arrive at Historical Drama. Years ago, I had picked up 28mm figures of William the Conqueror and his brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeaux, which then languished in a drawer for several decades until now. If I recall correctly, these are some early sculpts from Gripping Beast, but if anyone recognizes them, let me know. I am not planning on painting up a Norman army in 28mm as I already have one in 15mm, but plans can change. They seemed appropriate for the movie, 'The War Lord'.

 I mounted them on fender washers which are the same diameter as the Games Workshop cavalry bases, and then used some spackle to get a smooth transition between the figure's base and the washer. As with all my other figures, I glued some fine sand to the base with PVA, and then primed the figures black with an airbrush. I used Vallejo acrylics to paint them, along with some Citadel washes, primarily on the horses.

 

The War Lord from 1965

 

Bishop Odo of Bayeaux and Duke William of Normandy

Closeup (front view)

Closeup (back view)

 

   Unlike the 2D rocketship I used on the Sci Fi set, the tower in the photos for this set is 3D and was inspired by the tower that features in the movie. I had a thick cardboard cylinder in my terrain building hoard for years. It measured 5.5" high with a diameter of 5". I didn't think that was tall enough to be Chrysagon's tower, so it was augmented by three layers of 1.5" thick blue styrofoam, plus a layer of thick cardboard to form the floor at the top to give a total height of 10". I originally thought I would clad the entire structure with stones cut from more blue styrofoam, but it was taking too much time, and I only did as far as the top of the foundation, as well as the stones around the windows and the door. The rest of the 'stones' were made using self-adhesive address labels that I cut into smaller lengths and stuck on the cylinder with slight gaps in between. It's a technique I used when I refurbished a Vauban style star fort a few years ago. The floor and the door are coffee stir sticks, and the iron banding on the door is made from strips of thin card. Once everything was glued and pasted, the whole thing got painted with black latex house paint, followed by a dry brush with medium grey paint and a final dusting of light grey. I used acrylic craft paints for the brown on the floor and the door, and a green wash on the stones of the foundation. All in all, it was approximately eight hours of work to get it to this stage. At some point I need to build a dedicated ramp and/or bridge to get up to the height of the door, but that is a future project. If I build one of these again, I am going to get a Proxxon hot wire cutter first.

 

Towery McTowerface

An elevated view showing the platform at the top

 The points being claimed are as follows:

2 x 28mm mounted figures @ 10 points each = 20 points 

0.90 x Terrain cube @ 20 points per cube = 18 points

1 x Studio lot @ 20 points = 20 points

 

My progress so far

 

Minion MilesR: and here is Frederick's second post - he has been a busy beaver this week.  love the tower.  I highly recommend the proxxon wire cutter - it's worth the investment