CIX. The Wilderness Project vol.8

THE CHAPEL OF St. HUBERTUS -finished

 

The Chapel sub-project has reached its conclusion. Thank you all for your encouraging comments and interesting questions in the process. Without further ado, here it is:

The chapel has a belltower; however, during one of the particularly trying Hassanag invasions the bell was taken down and melted in order to be recast into a cannon. A small outdoor bell was installed around that time to take over its function. In the meantime, as the situation turned to the better, a new bell was put in the tower. The outdoor bell nevertheless remained as a reminder of that part of history.

The bell, as well as extra trophy posts with deer skulls were made and glued to the base way towards the end of the process. They would have been in the way when painting the ground floor of the chapel.

I mainly added the ropes with chimes to the back of the building because something was wrong with its silhouette from certain angles. I opted for this solution rather than building extra parts on the roof. I made the ropes by simply twisting two lengths of 0,6mm wire around each other. This can also be done faster with a dremel - a trick shared by Jordan Lee in his tutorial: LINK.

I flocked the base to match the rest of the Wilderness terrain. The rocks were rendered the same as well.

There is even a small surface of dry stone wall to tie it with the terrain pieces I made earlier.

Barrels. Remnants of the refreshments consumed by passing hunting parties.

The main entrance to the chapel. The year spelt out in Roman numerals on the heavily peeling plaster is in all probability the year the chapel was built. Another date is present below it - the year Waywodes had had extensive repairs done. The proud patrons of the chapel have put their coat of arms above the portal, supported by a pair of carved wildman figures. The skull and antlers of impressive size belong to a megaloceros, a species that has been hunted out of these woods centuries ago. Together with the shining cross mounted right above it it is a  nod to the legend of Saint Hubert's conversion (for those not acquainted with the tale - have a listen to this).

A few shots with minis. This time the Plague Doctor is sneaking around.

 In the end, just a few random WIP photos:

The very first step in the painting process - basecoats.

This is what it looked like after several washes and a bit of overbrushing on the roof.

The bell was one of the final details to be added. It's part Corpse Cart bits and part scratchbuilt.

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There are still a few more pieces I would like to add to my Wilderness scenery collection, but I think a little break from building terrain is in order. Therefore, next I will focus on making a small group of miniatures that accompany the Chapel and that will be used in scenarios tied to its location. 

The first of these creatures was the Wodewose I presented recently.  I have at least five others planned. 

CVIII. The Wilderness Project vol.7

THE CHAPEL OF St. HUBERTUS -the roof

 Part three of my chapel build. As the WIP photographs will show, I managed to accomplish plenty in the last two weeks:

I built box windows on the remaining three sides of the tower...

... and then the fun with roof shingles could begin. Starting with the smallest ones, I covered all the roof surfaces over the course of about a week.

Somewhere in between I put together a huge stag skull that will hang above the front entrance. I used bits from Mierce Miniatures and green stuff. Like the other skulls, it is not yet glued in place. They will be painted separately so that I can reach the walls behind them without difficulty.

The Countess inspecting the tiled roof. She approves.

There are close to 4.000 shingles in total, made of 1mm balsa and glued individually on the roof.

After that I finally decided to tackle the wodewose carvings above the door. I sculpted them with air-drying clay. There is paint on them in order to better see the effect. Not bad, but there is room for improvement. Perhaps I'll do better on my next project. I also put some peeling plaster on certain areas. These will later contain text.

The final bit I built was the very tip of the tower. It is removable for easier storage and transport, as the chapel is quite tall. The pyramid roof wasn't tiled with balsa; I rather sculpted the shingles with clay. The cross was assembled from jewelry elements.

So, this is it. I will most probably add more decorative bits here and there at a later point. But right now the chapel is ready for painting. You will also notice that I only have one trophy post - the rest will be crafted and added later as well. Much left to do.

What do you think about the progress so far? Let me know in the comments below.