Two Belgian Churches

Here's the second post showing the newly photographed Belgian buildings I made 10-12 years back. Churches today, houses and a Waterloo landmark to come. I made these to fit two periods that my friends were collecting armies for: the Marlburian period and the Waterloo campaign, but they would be fine for a broader period: the Wars of Religion in the 16th Century, the Thirty Years War and the War of Austrian Succession a century later. The brick or stone buildings such as these churches wouldn't be out of place as late as 1914 or the Blitzkrieg of 1940. In fact the central region of Belgium must have the sad distinction of being more frequently fought over than any other area of Europe.

Anyway, the first church is in one classic style of construction, the pleasing combination of brick with light stone "corners" and "openings". The model was almost entirely made from Wills plastic sheets: brick, tile and even the corner stones. The windows were my resin castings though.

The second church by contrast is built of whitewashed stone. Again mostly Wills sheets, plus my own cast parts for the windows, door and the steeple. Whenever I make some such building part I try to make a mould from it, even if I only want just the one I've built for the model in hand. That way I can cast a few of them when I'm messing about with some resin, and stash them away for future models. I have gradually acquired a sort of library of useful parts. 

When I'm feeling especially virtuous I immediately mould and cast parts I've just made, use the casting and keep the "master". Sometimes the master can be converted for some further part, and if the moulds ever got badly damaged I could remake them using the original master. To be fair however, I find soft silicone moulds used for resin casting hold up pretty well, the key thing being to make sure they are always stored absolutely flat.