Building the Chateau by Adam Dews
We're always on the look out for inspiration and Adam Dews (@F4freddieterrafirma) is one customer who has it in spades! Adam recently sent in this masterful adaptation of our classic Chateau.
Adam: So, recently Sarissa updated their World War Europe range with grey-board roof tiles to give us a much better realistic roof effect. When I had the idea for this build I had already built the new version in another project. This kit was the pre-grey board roof and tiles which I figured was a good excuse to add my own detail.
Building the Château
Following the included instructions, I built the ground floor, upper floor and roof sections.
I used the tried and tested method of applying dots of superglue to hold the parts together and once dried I used a white glue called modge podge, to add strength by applying this to both sides of all the joints.
Early in the build I decided to block the upper dormer windows which was done using coffee stirrer sticks.
The whole building was then sprayed with a white base coat, the window frames, door frames and shutters were fixed to masking tape (Mainly to stop them blowing away but also so no paint got onto the back surface that would be glued later) and sprayed separately.
The building had 2 coats of white just to ensure a good coating then, once the base coat was dry, I started papering the floors, walls and roof using printed paper (I used my own inkjet printer and a selection of patterns I found - Sarissa also have an selection in their Paper Resource collection).
On the upper floor section, I initially left the wallpaper covering the window opening to prevent the texture paint being over sprayed and getting onto the wallpaper inside.
I think the texture paint really gives a good spackle effect finish, I generally build the effect up over 2 coats allowing drying in-between. Once dry I used a fine file to pierce the paper covering the windows and simply file/cut the paper neatly away from the frames.
The ground floor was masked, and a grey spray was used on the lower two brick courses.
The roof was also coated in modge podge to seal the paper tile effect I used. I find the Modge Podge dries with a matt finish giving me a better finish than normal PVA white glue gives.
Stone effect spray for a spackled concrete effect with shutters added after it dries
Finally, the frames and shutters were glued on, additional supporting timbers and the sign board were made from balsa and spare mdf piece from the frame the kit came with. Sandbags (simple putty) were added, making sure I could fit in an MG team base, then the finishing touch of the “Casino De Ouisterham” sign.
The base was made from polystyrene, sand, grass flock etc but I've kept the building separate from the base, allowing it to be used on its own as well.
Some of Adams previous work can be found on our Facebook and other social pages including the recent Master Maker awards (read more about these here) - make sure you send in your work and we could be in touch with you next to show off more of your terrain top tips.
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