Friday 25 March 2016

Painting 15mm Human Fantasy Buildings by Andy Jefcoate

Welcome to the third article for Age of Might and Steel by Andy Jefcoate a great fan of 15mm fantasy wargaming.  Andy has more articles to come which will feature on our blog and in this article he talks and shows his painting and use of our HOB1 Human Starter Settlement set of 15mm fantasy buildings.  If you missed his article last month on Zombies you can read that HERE and if you passed over his excellent first article on building a Goblin Army for Age of Might and Steel (AoMaS) you can see that HERE.  We hope you enjoy and all comments or emails are most welcome. Follow the links in the text to visit our website for the rules and miniatures mentioned. GBS


Painting 15mm Human Fantasy Buildings

When I first saw the set of 15mm Human Fantasy Buildings designed by Sam Croes I knew that I had to have a set. Having good scenery for whatever genre or scale of wargaming you're doing makes your games much more rewarding. 


There are 5 buildings in the set which can be purchased individually or all together as the HOB1 Human Starter Settlement (with a discount on the total price). Two of the buildings are hovels with thatched roofs and a more rural look, while the other 3 are stone built with tiled roofs and look more like town buildings. They look great together as a single settlement and are based on historical buildings so would be useful for historical games too.

Preparation
All 5 buildings have excellent levels of detail and  on the set I have there was no need to trim any flash. With the resin being of such good quality they probably didn't need any further preparation before painting but I did give them a wash with mild detergent to be sure that there were no chemicals on their surface that would stop paint adhesion. I then undercoated all 5 buildings in black matt acrylic paint and left them overnight to dry.




Rural Buildings
As there are distinct styles between the buildings I decided to paint the 2 more rural buildings first. These are HOB1A Small Hovel and HOB1B Big Hovel.

The thatch was painted in a light brown and the wooden framework on the buildings (including doors and window frames) in a mid brown before all these areas were given a brown ink wash. 

Once the ink had dried the thatch was given a heavy dry brush of yellow and the exterior walls within the wooden frame areas were painted in the same yellow.

Finally the exterior wall areas within the wooden frame were dry brushed in a bone colour, any metal such as door/window furniture or frame fixing plates were given a light dry brush in a gun metal colour metallic paint, and stone doorsteps were painted a mid grey. 





Stone Buildings
I then decided to paint the 2 smaller stone built buildings as they are also very similar in style. These are HOB1C Small House and HOB1D Tall House.

I started with the wooden areas and painted them in a mid brown the same as the rural buildings. If you wanted to make them look more like town buildings these wooden areas, especially doors and window frames, could be given a splash of colour but I wanted to tie all 5 settlement buildings together.

Next I painted all stone areas in a heavy dry brush of mid grey with the roof tiles and chimney pots in a brick red. Any metal such as door/window furniture was given a light dry brush of  a gun metal colour metallic paint, before the whole buildings were given a black ink wash. To finish off a light dry brush of light grey was added to the stone areas and a light dry brush of blood red was added to the roof tiles. 



Large Building
Finally I painted the largest building in the set, HOB1E Large House. As this is a stone building with a tiled roof but also has wooden frame areas similar to the rural buildings I used all of the techniques above. To start, the wooden areas were painted in a mid brown and the stone areas in a heavy dry brush of mid grey.

While the chimney pots were painted in brick red, I decided to paint the roof tiles in a mid blue to give variety. Next, any metal areas such as door/window furniture were given a light dry brush of  a gun metal colour metallic paint, before the whole building was given a black ink wash.

Then a light dry brush of light grey was added to the stone areas and a light dry brush of very pale blue (I added a tiny splash of blue to white paint) was added to the roof tiles. 

As a finishing touch the front door was painted in blood red. This house looks like it belongs to a wealthier person and this made the building stand out.




Results
I am very happy with the final result and have already used the buildings as objectives in AoMaS scenario's. Yes sometimes it's fun to just line up your armies and charge across the table but having an objective makes you have to think about what you're doing. Most battles in history have been one force defending territory and/or possessions against a force that wishes to take them, so why should a fantasy game be any different. 


The buildings can be used together as a settlement, or the rural ones can be used as a small village/farm with the stone ones as a separate small town. I can see me buying another set in the future to expand the possibilities. I am currently working on a human force for AoMaS to use against my goblin force and these buildings will play a big part in the first game. I'll let you know how I get on in a future article.

Thanks for reading.

Andy



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