Frances De (aka La Tour)

It has been probably six weeks since last I posted, so what have I been up to all this time???

Well, not that much really, but Jung-Tilly finally have their own musketeers and various other bits have been based and textured. I have also added a few artillery pieces and crews to my Thirty Years' War collection, along with a couple more generals - I will photograph and post soon.

One of my major focal points is the subject of this missive, however. Let me begin at the beginning....

I had a sofa.

It was a big, leather three-seater.

It was very comfortable as a seat, not to mention an occasional bed, but also found use by my smaller children as trampoline, bouncy castle, stage and various other play items.

It was looking sorry for itself, ailing more than a little, so had to go to the great sofa rest home in the sky.....

To get it to the hearse, it had to be dismantled, resulting in several wooden feet being removed, a spark of an idea forming in my mind as I "saved" four of these feet. They were all I had left of my lost, leathery love.........

The idea???
1) One foot to be given to each of my adult nephews.
2) The remit was to build a terrain piece using the wooden foot.
3) The finished terrain piece had then to feature in a scenario, either centrally as the scenario focus or just somewhere on the table.
4) I might sort out a small prize for the best....

Here is my take. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Frances De....(or Henri De _ _ d'Auvergne if you prefer).

G

Two shots of the source material, this second one showing the pronounced curve to two sides of the original foot.

The front aspect, with steps formed from spare plastic 25x50mm bases.

Guess where they throw the slops out...

Close up - the foot was glued to a thin MDF base and padded out with rough slabs of polystyrene. The tower is a stout cardboard tube with another tube (from a gravy container) glued inside to give a base for the roof. The roof itself is a circle of corrugated card, the trapdoor a 20mm square plastic base with card edging. The crenellations are laminates of card, bent slightly and glued to the outer tube. Cork bark was then glued to the basic landform, loads of filler used for both landscape and stonework (scribed with a cocktail stick), and the whole thing painted with various matchpots. The doors and windows are painted directly onto the tube, having first of all built lintels, mullions and door jambs from card and matchsticks. The green "grass" effect is Basetex. The door knob is a 5mm piece of brass wire.

The view up....

The view down...

But what of the scenario?????

That would be giving too much away!

G