A Silesian Churchyard

[DHautpol]

A Silesian Churchyard

By contrast with the church with its precise measurements, the churchyard was a much more "freehand" affair.

Radically, I chose to dispense with the iconic corner turrets. My reasons were that whilst walled churchyards seemed common, turrets appear to be a relatively rare feature and not having them would make the piece more versatile. Secondly, they are, in reality, rather small and a dozen men would be a crowd, so any attempt to represent them would be hugely out of proportion. This can be seen from the image on Google EARTH (Search: Lutynia, Poland). Zoom in on the image and scroll a little to left of the red Lutynia rosette. As you can see the turrets are about the size of a European saloon car. However, as a nod to the turrets, I rounded the corners of the churchyard walls.

My figures are based on 25mm squares, so I needed to allow about 30mm between the church and the walls to allow the figures to be placed easily. This gave me a platform base size of around 140mm x 100mm with a baseboard roughly 10mm beyond that. 
Finally, from a planning aspect, my recollection is that the churchyard is essentially level once you have entered through the east gate and that there is a slope up from street level to the gate on the outside of the churchyard. Both these points can be clearly seen in photos on the Der Alte Fritz Journal blog, where you can also see photos of his outstanding 28mm SYW collection.

So, I needed a raised inner platform, a slightly larger baseboard, walls, a larger gate with ramp and a smaller gate with ramp.  Simples.

The actual wall is about 7-8 feet high on the street side and about chest height on the inside. From this I felt that the walls need to be about 15mm high, to compensate for the bases, and that the inner platform needed to be around 6-7mm high.

This gave me a sketch plan:


I cut a piece of double thickness corrugated card 140mm x 100mm and rounded the corners using a 2 pence coin as a template. Taking a piece of card roughly cut from an eggbox, I cutout a rectangle 80mm x 40mm and then glued the piece of eggbox, minus the rectangle, to the corrugated card and further built up the lip around the cutout. This creates a shallow recess for the church building and stops it moving about on the base.


The east gate is quite a complex affair with a gate, a piquet gate and a blank wall with ogee decorations. By contrast, the west gate is a much simpler structure with just two pillars and ogee decorations to make the transition between the gate pillars and the wall. The measurements are shown in millimetres (Height x in the drawings below will vary depending on the height of the inner platform; in my case it measured 6mm).


I sandwiched a layer of 0.8mm plywood between two layers of mounting board (I had some offcuts to hand) and added some stonework (61 individual stone blocks, some cut to fit) to 'rusticate' the external façade of the east gate, although the original appears to be stucco. The 'sandwich' method allowed me to both inset the gates and reinforce the mounting board.


The gates were glued into position and the curtain wall added using corrugated cardboard (the photo shows the platform with the south wall still to be added). I held the wall in place with an elastic band and pins and, when it had dried, applied a papier-mâché layer to bind it altogether. The papier-mâché layer comprised small pieces of torn newsprint (tissue paper proved too fragile) stuck in place with PVA glue. I found it easier to apply papier-mâché to the north wall and allow it to dry, to strengthen and hold it firmly in place, before repeating the process with the south wall.

When the whole piece had thoroughly dried-out I glued it to a 1.5mm plastic card baseboard approximately 160mm x 120mm and extended at each end to accommodate the ramps (made from scrap Bluefoam left over from the Church). I then glued down the ramps and, once this had dried, I smoothed the joins with Tetrion filler which, this time, I had retrieved from the loft, and brushed over with a thin Tetrion layer to soften the surfaces.
Finally, I added a few bushes and undergrowth from Green Stuff to add interest.


The piece was now ready to paint and, unless stated, all the colours are Citadel. The walls were painted with Morghast Bone dry-brushed with Terminatus Stone. Individual stones were picked out at random with Zandri Dust, XV-88, Rakarth Flesh and thinned Jokaero Orange. The gates were painted with Rhinox Hide and the planking simulated with stripes of Mournfang Brown. The east gate façade was painted with Administratum Grey and the individual stones picked out with Corax White.


The base was painted with Dulux Tarragon Glory 2, and dry-brushed with Dulux Tarragon Glory 4 (or substitute). The areas of bare earth are Farrow & Ball London Clay, dry-brushed with Zandri Dust and Ushabti Bone. Finally. the bushes and undergrowth were washed with Athonian Camoshade and dry-brushed with Warboss Green, Elysian Green and Yriel Yellow.

Hochkirch maybe? (church by Total Battle Miniatures)

With my first attempt at the Churchyard, I had used 1.5mm MDF for the baseboard and glued the platform assembly and ramps to the baseboard before applying the papier-mâché and Tetrion coating.  The consequence of this was that it all became too wet and, as it dried out, the baseboard warped so seriously that I was forced to scrap it and start over again (the east end shown didn't warp quite as badly as the west end, but the ends of both ramps were about 4-5mm above the flat surface). On the plus side I was able to salvage and re-use the gate assemblies, ramps and greenery.]

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

That's brilliant

[Steve J]

What Will said !

[Techno 3]

That's worked very well !

[paulr]

Wot Will & Techno sed       

[DHautpol]

Thanks very much.

[Roy]

Excellent post. Thanks for sharing