Terrain- Building 7- Church

Church

This was a kit that I received for Christmas. It was part of a multi-pack from Game Cult on eBay which also included a large shop building, a 3 terrace row, a single terrace house, a cottage and a selection of walls. I've always wanted a church model and have been weighing up various kits from different manufacturers, but churches can be quite expensive because they tend to be large and detailed pieces. The whole pack from Game Cult came to less than £40, which you can be lucky to get an MDF church for on its own!

There's little detail on the kit, mostly plain MDF, which explains the price, but I wanted to play around with filler to see if I could get a decent texture to suggest stone. Once I'd applied some watered down filler, I dappled, stippled and teased at it with various brushes, sponges and odds and ends until I found something I liked and carried on around the whole model.

I tiled the roof of the church as I built it (and this was the build that prompted me to return to my earlier buildings and tile them too). Once complete, I turned my attention to the base/ graveyard. The entrance to the church can be used as a lych gate, but I wanted to use it as a sheltered entrance to the church proper because I had a plan for the graveyard walls and gate. These are resin pieces from Debris of War; drystone wall straights, damaged, corner and gate entrance pieces, plus a double gate for the front. A quick bit of maths suggested to me how big an area I could make for the graveyard with two corner packs, a couple of straight packs and a couple of damaged sections. The problem was the gate and the two entrance walls that flanked it- these upset the measurements. My answer? You'll notice a large bush on the right hand side of the front wall, pictured above, this hides a 4-5mm gap where the walls would not meet and just needed disguising... 

The gravestones and slabs are Debris of War too, as is the Large Needle Memorial.  There's a seafoam tree nestled by the back of the church tower and a couple of Javis trees in the corners where I imagined trees might grow. I made the noticeboard at the entrance from cardboard and MDF offcuts and the weathervane is a Warlord farmyard rooster placed on an MDF crosspiece. The drainpipe is wooden doweling, with a piece of plastic Lego tubing to make the opening at the bottom and the wall brackets are bent paperclip pieces. The stone details along the outside walls and the cross above the end windows are made from some of the MDF pieces popped out of the church windows.

I'm really pleased at how this model came out. I think I'd gained enough confidence from making my hotel model to want to attempt another largish kit. A church is a great focal point on a gaming table, so I wanted to do the piece justice, and I think I pulled it off, at least to my satisfaction. My only issue is getting a game in lockdown to finally get to use it!