Many thanks again to Tony, Mark, Phil and Derek! Things are coming along now and I've just got the first two buildings on the base as you'll see below!

As the first trial run in miniature house painting I decided to go for the trio of shops, mainly because they are off to the far right ‘off centre’ as it were, and also because there was more I could try out on them than the basic houses. Photo 1 shows the first of the resin castings, the ‘double shop’ in the process of priming with Vallejo Grey Primer. Photo 2 isn’t one of the shops of course but the Half Timbered House. This was one of the reject castings (because I couldn’t sand the base flat!) Other than that it was OK so I used it as a guinea pig to try out various combinations of window painting over a single primer coat. I tried various shades of grey for the window recesses (on the other walls as well) and different types of white paint for the frames, even painting a whole window in gloss white enamel and then using acrylic black ink to fill in the panes leaving the frames showing through in white – that actually worked quite well but in the end I decided on plain black for the windows with Mig Satin Black with Mig Matt White for the frames (second from the right on the bottom row in this pic). The next step was to give the shop walls a touch of colour as shown in Photo 3. This was the first problem – I didn’t have any suitable pastel shades of paint so the blue and green seen here was created from a darker shade of blue and green Vallejo acrylic mixed with the matt white. The problem is, I only made enough to paint the castings with a couple of coats, if I make a big mess later on I can’t simply ‘re-touch’ the base colour! (Mind you, with all the shell damage I can always add some more scorch marks!) The single shop is shown in Photo 4 with a nice ‘magnolia’ wall paint – or in this case, Vallejo Tan Yellow mixed with white. This one will be having a red tile roof (once my bottle of Vallejo Terracotta arrives), the double shop will be having a slate grey roof.
The trial window painting taught me a few things, first of which was I needed a new ‘best’ detail brush! My new set is shown in Photo 5 – a set of six ranging from 000 through 00, 0, 1, 2 and 4 (wonder what happened to 3?) The ones in the card don’t look very straight but they always do until they are straightened up in clean water before use. These were Ebay of course, just over £6 for the set, which is pretty good value considering how much they cost individually in art shops. My old ‘best brush’ is shown in close up against the new one in Photo 6, Old Faithful is probably 25 to 30 years old now, only ever used for water based paints and still gives good service – just not so good as the new one! Shown above the brushes is the first section of windows underway. The process is long and very delicate: first the windows are painted in with the black. Once dry, the outer white frames are painted in. Note the roof hasn’t been painted yet, this is because of the handling and resting on various edges that the windows require. The window frames have to be painted horizontally to avoid overshooting or smudging. The house is rested upright to paint the bottom frames, on its right side for the right hand frames, on its left for the lefts and upside down for the top ones! If I painted the roof first there wouldn’t be much paint left at the edges by the time I’d finished one wall! The inner ‘cross’ frames can be painted ‘right way up’ but with even more care required. Sometimes a repeat procedure is required, a splotched outer frame needs the black to be re-applied to tidy it up and if the cross frame goes wrong its easier to paint it out and re-do it once the black is dry again. One of the large walls on the double shop building actually went perfectly and no window needed re-touching, I was really chuffed with that one! As for the others – well we got there in the end! During my web searching looking for Frenchie looking shops I found an excellent pic of 1940’s era shop signs. Some blown up (I mean enlarged) examples are shown in Photo 7 with the whole page-full at normal size. As one of the doubles was painted blue, I decided to make it a fishmongers, (and I did remember enough of school French to know it wasn’t a shop for selling poison!) The others required a trip to the on-line translation. The ‘Poissonnerie’ together with a bread and Michelin advert are shown in Photo 8, one of the nicer looking signs turned out to be a Blacksmith’s which seemed a little out of place on the sea front! The green shop beside it became an ‘Epicerie’ or Grocer’s whilst the little single shop called ‘The Emperor’s House’or ‘Maison Empereur’ is a Restaurant with delusions of grandeur, (the other side door says ‘Café’)! In Photo 9, the grey slate roof is finally painted in with Vallejo Blue Grey, in the photo the Grocer’s is basic grey whilst the Fishmonger’s has been dry brushed with a light grey mix to bring out the tile detail. Note also where the roofs are damaged up to the edge, I’ve painted the terracotta and its lighter version to simulate the damaged walls beneath. Now came the sneaky bit. The windows are moulded with frames, which have to be painted in, but the dormer windows in the roof are moulded flat and featureless (except for the Hotel dormers which are moulded in and I’ll have to paint those). This is where the good old white decal inkjet paper came in again. Using the ancient Corel Print House design program I made up a simple set of black rectangles with a white cross superimposed over the top. I then reduced the design down until it was the same size as the dormers on the models, this is shown in Photo 10 with a close up view below. This was printed out onto the top edge of the decal paper, allowed to dry overnight and then given a coat of spirit based varnish to seal the design in. In hindsight I should have left a slightly larger gap between them but never mind! These were carefully cut out with a safety razor blade leaving a thin border to provide the outer frame and then dampened with Humbrol Decalfix and then left on a scrap of plasticard to release from the backing as shown in Photo 11. When they were movable I slid them across with fine tweezers and gently picked them up to place on the dormer window faces as seen in Photo 12. The long awaited (actually it didn’t take long at all to come) Vallejo Terracotta is used to paint the red tile roof of the Maison Empereur Restaurant in Photo 13. Compare the ‘bare’ paint finish with the dry-brushed finished roof in the following photos, the detail brought out with the lighter highlights makes all the difference! The ‘Empereur’ sign is actually in place in this shot, but is very difficult to see at this angle. Photo 14 shows the latest addition to the decal collection, again using the Print House program, I created a set of different sized French flags to be waving from the liberated houses. I actually made a big ‘boo boo’ with this lot – I should have designed the flags with a mirror image down the centre like the British Ensigns and flags above but totally forgot! So now, instead of cutting the decal out and folding it at the flag staff end, they are cut out twice as high and folded over at the top. Doesn’t make too much difference fortunately and the finished flags are seen in Photos 15, 16 and 17. Note the missing top of the drainpipe on the restaurant (caused by an air bubble during casting) has been added in with stretched sprue, damaged and bent outwards for better effect. I took some of the unused figures from the damaged fret and painted them up to represent ‘civvies’, they can be seen on the pavements before the shops were added in Photo 18 and also one stood by the shelled window on the upper floor of the restaurant proudly draping a British flag out of the hole!
Finally the finished section is shown in Photo 19 with the civvies and buildings all in place. One thing I’m still considering is telephone poles! A set of them comes with the European Buildings set – they are over scale and the wrong shape as I’ve discovered looking at French telephone poles on D-Day photos but I’m still toying with the idea of scratch building some in brass rod and using EZ Line to add the wires – it might add a little more ‘3D’ height to the street scene. But we’ll see later!
In the next installment, its on to the two houses and hotel – I’m not looking forward to that hotel – not counting the dormer windows which I’ll have to paint, the ruddy thing’s got 108 windows to do!
Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Many thanks for that Tony!
A couple of hectic weeks just gone by, managed to get the flu jab appointments for Mum and me (FINALLY!) Fortunately due to Mum's age etc etc, we were able to get them at the local surgery as usual - those more 'able bodied' have been forced to travel up to Ivybridge instead - a nine mile round trip! The one mile round trip to the surgery in Mum's solid tyred, non suspension mobility scooter (affectionately called the 'Boneshaker') has finally convinced her to splash out on an upgraded version - pneumatic tyres, full suspension and a 30 mile range (as opposed to 10). Drive Envoy 4 (hasn't been christened yet) now lives in the garage and Boneshaker moved into the conservatory.
Anyway, on with the miniscule mansions!

To start off the houses, Photo 1 shows the basic finish using my new Vallejo Terracotta acrylic. All the buildings were first primed with Vallejo Grey Primer applied by brush and then the hotel and the red brick house had all their walls given a couple coats of the Terracotta. The Half Timbered House would, I decided have a red brick ground floor and a timber and plaster upper story, which I painted in Vallejo Ivory to take the stark ‘whiteness’ away from the miniature. All the red brick walls were then given a dry brushing with Vallejo Brown Rose, which I actually bought last year to paint the Chindit’s lips with, but is a perfect ready mixed highlighter for the Terracotta base! In Photo 2, its back to the poor old guinea pig half timbered house. After trying out the windows technique it was time to try out various colours for the timber frame. On closer inspection of photos of the Normandy area, I realised (just in time) that there is a subtle difference between the Olde English Elizabethan Half Tmbered houses and those of Normandy – the French ones don’t have black timbers! Unlike the English frames which are always painted/stained/preserved black, the French frames are either just natural wood, a darker brown stained wood or else painted in garish reds and yellows. The photo here shows a test of Vallejo Tan Yellow which didn’t look too bad which was then stained with Vallejo Wood Grain which didn’t look as good as the undercoat on its own! After trying a few other schemes I finally decided on painting the frame in Vallejo Carmine Red, which I think gave a suitably ‘Gallic’ impression compared to the traditional black and white on this side of the Channel. It was then time to begin the windows. To break up the monotony of painting window after window, I have been painting my way through all three of the buildings, I know they’re all windows but changing the models at least reduces the finger cramps from holding the same thing dead still for ages! Even using my double layered reading glasses technique (or perhaps because of it) the extreme concentration needed for window painting only lasts for a few minutes before vertigo creeps in! Anyhow, by Photos 3 and 4, most of the two houses were fully glazed and the rear of the hotel was well under way – the upper end wall windows on the Half Timber and the top right window on the Red Brick have been re-blacked after messing up the cross frames! Photo 5 shows the completed model with the roof painted and dry brushed and the damaged areas of the wall highlighted with the Brown Rose. The dormer windows have been decaled with the same home made transfers and the arched windows down below have also had the same treatment with a dormer decal trimmed back to remove the side and bottom frames leaving the cross beams to fill in the window panes. Note the little half figure leaning out of the damaged window – another ‘de-mobbed’ ship’s crew to represent a civilian regaling his liberators with the traditional Normandy greeting “Mon Dieu! Regardez ma maison sanglante! C’est plein de trous sanglants! Qui va donc payer pour tout ca?” Now before gluing down the completed house, I wanted to add a couple of little trees to the garden. Photo 6 shows a bunch of plastic foliage I bought in the Poundshop three years back when I was trying to find something to make the oat plants for Frederick’s base terrain, (in the end I made those out of real grass seed heads with tissue paper leaves!) This item has been laying around the workroom ever since but now I’ve found a use for it. Photo 7 illustrates one of the tips of the foliage – the ‘twig’ is a brown polythene plastic which just push-fits on to the larger branch and is covered in what appears to be glued on tiny little round beads of green polystyrene. To make the trees I just had to snip off an individual clump with the micro scissors and ‘finger nail’ the excess beads off what would now become the trunk (I’m trying to save those beads – in this scale, cabbages? ) The resulting sprig was then painted with Deluxe Card Glue and dipped into my plastic tub of Woodland Scenics ‘Fine Turf Green Grass’. After tapping off the excess turf the trees were pushed into a slab of plasticene as shown in Photo 8, to let the glue dry before carefully drilling two holes into the resin lawn and cementing the trees down with the same Card Glue as shown in the final Photo 9.
So that’s three down and two to go! In the next installment, completing the Half Timbered house and proceeding on with the bigger Hotel (who now holds the record for the most re-re-painted windows)!
Until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Hi Robin,

Excellent detailing as always. WTG




Regards
delboy271155
(Derek)

Hi Robin, just catching up.

Excellent work as usual, those window frames must have took a very steady hand.

Mark

Grateful thanks as always to Tony, Derek, Trev, Mark and Roy! (Hope your problems are sorted soon Tony!)

Before carrying on with the next house, Mark’s comments about a ‘steady hand’ struck a chord so I thought I’d start with a quick explanation of just how I’ve been painting these buildings! I unfortunately used the hotel as the example (as that one comes in the next installment) but it’s bigger and easier to show on the photo!
So, Photo 10 illustrates the position of the buildings during the ‘window work’. The miniature is being held at about a 45 degree angle, with the bottom rear edge flat on the work mat. The heel of the hand and the thumb are also resting on the mat which essentially results in a ‘tripod’ grip which is rock steady (except during a sneeze!) At the same time the paintbrush is held as shown in Photo 11, again, the heel of the hand is resting on the mat and the only movement to control the brush stroke comes from the thumb and forefinger grip. You have no idea how difficult this pic was to take! My digital camera is a Konica Minolta D’Image Z10 – a camera designed purely for two handed operation, held in the left hand and clicked with the right. This is ideal until you try to take a photo of your own right hand! This shot was taken with the camera held upside down with the forefinger button pressed with the left hand thumb! With the miniature in this position I painted all the white lower sills. To paint the upper frames the building was held upside down, and the side frames required the model to be resting on it’s side edge! (This is the part you have to watch carefully that the paintwork on the corner of the wall doesn’t get worn away!) I’ve since bought another new detail brush for painting the inner cross frames, this one is a 4-0 or 0000 (about £3.60 on ebay). As you can tell from these shots, the roof gets quite a bit of handling (and resting on the mat) hence why it is not painted until all the wall painting and detail work is completed. And finally, Photo 12 shows the ‘paint pallet’. This is a piece of backing card from a section of self adhesive vinyl. The waxed card prevents the Vallejo or Mig acrylic from drying out too quick or soaking away as it would do on ordinary card. Each ‘blob’ is just a single drop of paint squeezed from the bottle into which the 00, 000 or 0000 brush is dipped (actually more like just touched’ before offering the tip up to the model.
Anyhow, that’s how I’ve been doing them! Back to the Half Timbered House then and Photo 13 shows the house with the windows all completed and the wooden framework painted with Vallejo Carmine Red. This has been given a very fine shadow line up against the wall with the 0000 brush and Citadel Skaven Brown Ink Wash (used virtually neat). The test fit of the house into the garden is shown in Photo 14 and before starting the slate roof I added some wooden colouring to the damaged parts of the frame. The roof was then painted in Vallejo Blue Grey and dry brushed with a light grey before adding the burn marks in dry-brushed black (mainly round the other side in Photo 15) and finally applying the dormer window decals as on the other houses. The final effect is shown in Photo 15 up against the traditional penny for size!
And finally, finally, the completed house is glued down in position in the garden along with the previously made (and miraculously undamaged) greenhouse in Photo 16. (I said those polystyrene micro balls would make good cabbages!)
So that’s all the smaller building done now with just the ‘biggie’ to go. And fortunately, that one’s almost finished – just got the roof to complete and then the balcony railings with maybe a few civvies for good measure. That’s coming next so until then, stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.

Robin

When you see these houses against your hand it brings home just how small they are which makes the fact you have painted in all that fine detail even more amazing.

You gave made a fantastic job of your little houses as they look precise in shape and scale.



Things this end quite difficult at the moment as my dear mum passed away 2 weeks ago. I am 57 and never married.

Lived at home for years first looking after dad who went 7 years ago and now mum.

I have no close friends and just a brother, ex sister in law, niece and nephew. I must admit the quiet in the house at the moment is very difficult to cope with.

Its thanks to sites such as this that is keeping me going to be honest.

Hoping to get back to my builds soon. I have a write up to do on the spitfire and had the next set of lambourgini parts arrive.

Sadly my Harley was charged but chasing up the parts they are telling me they are waiting stock. I know they have had big problems with this one hut with just 2 packs to complete it i will be so disappointed if it all falls apart this close to the end of the build.

Sorry for “hogging” your build diary Robin.

Kind regards to you, and thanks for helping me focus with your brilliant build updates.

Tony

Great work as always Robin love the green house and those cabbages



Regards Phil

That is some excellent work you’ve done Robin.
Looking forward to your telephone poles.

Mark

This such an amazing build Robin! Remarkable!

Regards,
Phil W.

Many thanks as always to Mark, Tony, Phil and Roy for those lovely comments!
Things are progressing at an ever increasing rate now! All the vessels are in place and the main wave effects have been added in which, despite my anxiety went really well. I'm now in the process of adding extra wave details (wakes and bow waves etc) and painting in the foaming surf (not very easy with all those flaming ships in the way!) I've just discovered that Mig produce a Matt Aluminium acrylic so am now awaiting that next week (what better for the silver doped barrage balloons - at least I won't be waiting for better weather to spray the things outside like the first one!)
Anyhow, on with those telephone poles!
Firstly, there is not a single ‘French’ telephone pole! In fact they come in a great variety of shapes and sizes including the type which comes with the Skywave European Buildings Set. Some are like the typical British poles with a single cross beam carrying the ceramic insulators, some have a double cross beam like the kit and there is even a cast concrete hollow beam type too. Photo 1 illustrates some of the types with a wooden ‘A’ frame version on the left and a series of multiple types on the right (both photos taken from Sword Beach). Diagram 2 shows the type supplied in the kit and the version I’m going to model instead. Now, theoretically I could have just cut off three of the ‘arms’ from the kit poles and job done! Unfortunately, there’s a couple of reasons why I chose to scratch build them instead. The first reason is that they are a little ‘over-scale’ when it comes to the thickness of the poles and beams but the main reason is that comparing the kit items to the photos I managed to get off the internet, they are too short as well! The Skywave poles come to just above the top story of the houses whilst the actual examples seem to be as high as the roof tops!
When I finally add the telephone wires, they’ll be made from the Uschi elastic thread I bought for the rigging on the Sopwith Pups. Whether I use the standard or fine thread will depend on whether I can find out what the heck I’ve done with the standard reel!
As the thread will be elastic and under tension, (I know its supposed to have a sag in it really, but keeping it taught is far easier), I don’t want to run the risk of making the poles in styrene and then having them bend or twist unrealistically under the strain so I’m going to construct them out of brass tubing for rigidity and strength. Photo 3 shows them under construction. The main poles are from 0.8mm tubing with the single cross beam from 0.5mm tube. The two parts are soldered together and to get a good solid joint it was necessary to fix the cross beam into the pole by drilling a 0.5mm hole into the tube. This is almost impossible without first providing a ‘key’ for the drill bit to grip into (and I tried without one first! ) The key was provided by the triangular, diamond dust file seen on the left. I first marked the tube with a pencil at the location and then placed the file with a sharp edge resting on the mark before lightly filing into the surface of the brass. Only a tiny depression is required to allow the bit shown in the micro-drill to gain purchase enough to drill a hole into the tube. You can just make out the hole in the left hand tube. The little 0.5mm piece of tube was then inserted into the post and the two parts soldered together as seen in the other two brass tubes. I had intended to form the insulators out of a tiny blob of solder applied to the cross beam but the first attempt showed this was virtually impossible, enough heat to allow the ‘blob’ to bond to the brass was more than enough heat to keep melting the original solder joint. After the pole and cross bars were soldered together I then used the rotary tool with a diamond dust grinding bit to grind away any excess solder attached to the pole to leave a nice neat finish. After thinking about using a small drop of epoxy glue and a cocktail stick to fashion the insulators, I eventually used a sewing needle with a tiny drop of Woodland Scenics Water Effects – you’ll be meeting this stuff later, its what the waves will be made of!
Photo 4 illustrates three out of the four stages of painting the poles. From left to right, primed with Vallejo Grey Primer, painted with Vallejo Mahogany and then stained with a slightly diluted wash of Citadel Skaven Brown Ink. The stage not shown here was the insulators, which were painted with a needle tip’s worth of Revell Aqua Colour acrylic White. This is much thicker than my Vallejo and Mig Whites and is used to build up the height of the insulators whilst painting them. I made a total of six poles (just in case) but only need four as shown by the white asterisks in the long shot in Photo 5. I nearly put a fifth one on the corner by the café/restaurant but then thought ‘Its such a short distance, why would they bother?’ Finally, Photo 6 was put in more to show the little civilians on the hotel balcony from a better angle than anything else but if you look carefully at the telephone pole at the boundary of the house and hotel you can just make out the white insulators on the cross beam! I tried to take some close up photos of the poles in position but the flaming auto focus thingy keeps looking past the poles and focussing on the ground or building behind it! Some of the poles are a little ‘drunk’ at the moment as none of them are glued in. They’ll all be fixed down nice and straight (I hope) after I’ve done the wave effects and got all the ships and some of the landing craft fixed in position at the same time.
So in the next installment, it’s a life on the ocean wave time!
Until then, Stay safe and Happy Modelling to you All!

Robin.