The Italian Job

 I never much liked the Michael Caine film, and I certainly don't like puns, so I really should have thought have something better to call todays post.

This will pretty much wrap up showing you the models I made at Hertford Uni. I had decided I was going to massage whatever task we were given into something relating to wargames terrain. So when we were instructed to "do a period of work experience with a modelmaking company", that became doing a range of  buildings for one of the (then) many manufacturers of resin buildings. The company was based near Hull in Yorkshire, but to my shame I cannot remember what their name was; though it involved a very nice chap called Nick something(?) whose day job was as a firefighter. It was agreed to master a range of specifically Italian buildings, in fact central Italian buildings, because they are different again in the South and in the Northern plains.  The company marketed my efforts as generic "Mediterranean", and it was later sold on a couple of times. I don't think these are commercially available now.

The range comprised six structures, a tower house, a palazzo-style city building, a house a farm, a barn and a church. I only got the first one painted up properly. All six were given a basic paintjob and "thumbs" taken for the website, only that of the palazzo surviving. One shot of the tower house was in the first blog post here, which was something of a trial run.

Part of the deal had been that my pals Adrian Hussey and Mike Siggins got a set of the castings each as reviewers for Miniature Wargames and Wargames Illustrated  respectively. I got one set and the masters back, but mostly cut them up to incorporate in variant buildings which never got done. I suppose I would have the means to make up villages if my wargames interests ever took me to the land of the poplar tree.

The masters were made of foamcard with cast "bits" added. The roofs are sheets of proper "Roman" pantiles which I sculpted and cast.