Normandy Buildings.2.

I clearly needed more buildings for 1944 Normandy. Unlike for the Italian Wars, for this period the Wargamer is almost spoilt for choice with many manufacturers offering models in 15mm. However, many of these didn't really match what I was looking for. I'm not a fan generally of MDF buildings as they just look too sharp and unconvincing (without a lot of extra work) and many of the resin models seemed too small, badly moulded, lacking in detail or just too generic.

Online image searches led me to the excellent models from Tiger Terrain. I can't speak highly enough of these - they actually look Norman and the attention to detail, modelling and production quality are absolutely first class. The prices and service are good too and there is a wide range of models covering town and rural buildings.

The first ones I painted were these two bomb or shell damaged village houses. They came complete with a cratered garden to create a small diorama but I left them as three separate pieces to give extra flexibility in arranging the village layout for different games.

One thing I really need to do is find some suitable lettering for a name above the shop - every French village needs a boulangerie and a café!

Next came a farm. One of the good things about the Tiger Terrain website is a gallery of painted buildings, several set on scenic bases and this inspired me to do something similar. As well as the buildings, the walls are Tiger Terrain but the base is just a piece of MDF cut to size and textured with filler and sand, using the same methods, paints, static grass and clumps that I use for basing. The trough and pump were scratch built from card, plastic rod and wire with the water in the trough represented with epoxy glue.

One thing I really struggled with was getting the stone colours right. I tried to follow the recommendations on the Tiger Terrain website or to replicate the typically subtle colours that Simon Chick achieved with his Tiger Terrain models but my colours came out too yellow or too grey. In the end I found a balance that I thought looked nice, albeit more Cotswold than Calvados. 

I mostly used (relatively) cheap Deco Art craft paint from my local Hobbycraft. The base coat is Country Maple then a heavy dry brushing of Antique Gold - essentially yellow ochre. To break things up I dry brushed patches of Storm Cloud Grey and Sandstone then gave the whole a light dry brushing of a mix of Sandstone and Antique Gold to blend it in, finally adding some white for hi-lights.