18th Century Church

Finally finished a small project that had been sitting on the back of my workbench for a few weeks. I had, until now, been using a church building for my 18th century battles that I had scratchbuilt a long time ago for AWI battles but was a bit out of character for an Eastern European context. Having recently bought my little guy a HABA Russian Church wood block construction set for Christmas I noticed that the wooden domes in the set are ideal for 18th century/25mm buildings. So I liberated one of the "onion" domes and set it aside for a future project. (...all these projects eventually will be what I leave for my son when I pass on so I don't have too much guilt in reducing his toy block collection by one dome for the good of his future gaming! ;) I did a bit of internet research to find a few examples of mid 18th century eastern european churches...i.e. Rococco style with some Ottoman/Russian influences. I found a church called the "Wieskirche" located in Eastern Europe that provided some appropriate colors and hints at details that I just translated and simplified for a medium sized wargames building (of course in the "Grantian" old school style with a lift off/ruins inside feature we all enjoy!)


I used my loose drawn on detail approach (explained in an earlier post) to simulate moldings and depth on what is otherwise a flat basswood surface. The result I think is pretty cool and I can't wait to get a battle worked up around this building! The figure in the pics is an RSM 25mm Prussian Hussar.








The fun part about this drawing/building technique is that is produces an illusion of depth without the hours of building or painting that you would have to go through with a more elaborate model, at the same time preserving a nice "old school/The Wargame " quality in the outcome. Hopefully in the pictures above, you can see the surface of the model is flat... but it does not appear that way on the table. The overall approach is "loose" without too much worry about precision...more of a "freehand" look....and the total cost of the structure was just a few dollars and some "quality time" sitting in front of the TV with the Mrs. to do the drawn details. If I had to add it up, the most costly element was the dome, which required the purchase of the entire HABA Russian church (50.00 USD)...but my little guy is using the rest of the set for his clothespin soldiers, so perhaps, in my case, it's a good deal all around!