So I have done more work on the Chapel. The roof casts came out well (still need some cleaning) but I was happy with them, and when painted they should match the original. I added wood around the frame using balsa foam. I tried to carve them to match the existing wood, but looking at it later I see that I added a little too much ‘squiggly’ to the lines. *shrug* I’ll see how it looks once it is painted up. I think that once I add the nails, and knowing it was an addition after the original construction, I think it will be o.k.
This photo is pretty overexposed, but I just don’t have time to re-shoot it. I’ll probably re-shoot it next update anyway. It doesn’t show all of the tiny details very well.
After I started slapping on windows and wood, I quickly realized that I had made an error. The original building has so many 3-D elements added to it that the addition was looking very, very flat. 🙁 I have some plans to address that, but the first thing I wanted to incorporate was a band that compliments the original.
I used my Silver Bullet die cutter to cut out some symbols that match the feel of those on the original building. However, they are a bit larger. So after some thinking, I decided to stick with them, reluctantly. My wife said they were o.k. and I respect her opinion. 🙂 That meant I needed to create a frame for them and I used some styrene strips. I noticed that on the original there were lots of little rivets. I broke out the Nutter, and popped some rivets on it. The only solace I have in the size discrepancy is telling myself that when the addition was added the builder wanted to bling it a bit more than the original. I will say the symbols came out fantastic. The sun has such tiny points on it. Really nice. I added a griffon head among them to give it a slightly different flair.
I shot a video of this progress and right away I got comments on the roof join to the original building. “Won’t the water pile up there and cause leaks?” *sigh* It is a fantasy world after all… But one suggestion was adding some down spouts or flashing. I’m going to give that some thought, but I have bigger fish to fry. Bulking out the walls with some depth is going to be a little tricky since I didn’t give myself much room. I will be adding brick pylons to the bottom, and I will be extending them up over the edge of the bottom wall so they will be semi-buttresses. That will help. A window or similar that boxes out a bit might be all that is needed after that.
The long wood lines of the edges bother me. I was going to cut them to allow for the symbol runner to run around addition without a break, but that presented more work I didn’t want to deal with. 🙂 So, plans right now are to add steel strapping from the runner that wraps around the wood. I can match them to the straps on the original building and it will really help to break up all that wood. The pylons/buttresses will break up the bottom lines as well, so I feel o.k. about it at the moment.
After I get some of these things fixed, I will be carving a chimney for the new section. I can carve it from balsa foam and match it to the original. I’m actually looking forward to that part, and I’m holding off on it as a reward for dealing with those walls. I really wish I didn’t slap those windows on so quickly. But they are soaked with CA glue, so there is no going back unless I grind them off… Which I am not going to do. 🙂
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