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De-skulling the Warhammer Chapel

Nothing gets my procrastination reflexes going like DIY, and as such, it seems a little odd that I’ll happily spend hours fitting a nice bay window onto the front of a little plastic building.

There’s clearly something wrong with me.

And why was I putting a different window onto the front of the Empire Chapel kit? Because the original carvings are a) too ecclesiastical for anything other than a chapel, and b) too distinctive to be adorning the front of more than one building in a scenery collection. Witness the difference:

  
The window itself was made by splicing together two of the tall thin windows you get in (I think) the Watchtower set. Yay razorsaw!

My secondary objective was to reduce the number of skull-filled windows on the chapel kit, since I wanted this building to be more of a generic dwelling. If you’re wandering why I wanted to do that, then clearly the phrase ‘skull-filled windows’ doesn’t have quite the same effect on you as it does on someone without Games Workshop Skull Blindness.

Image taken from games-workshop.com for illustrative purposes only.
Namely, that of SKULL WINDOWS. Mmmm, skulls.

In an attempt to cover up the skull-arch-window-things on the side of the building, Mark and I teamed up. He built the extension on one side with parts of the wall you get in the fortified manor set, whilst on the other side, I filled in the skull windows with putty and in their place left a resin window wot I done bought from Antenociti’s Workshop. It looked a bit lonely on the wall, and conspicuously not the same style as the other windows on the kit, so an awning was added to help it blend in a little.


Finally, I filled in the hammer icons either side of the door in favour of a plain ol’ wall. Again, trying to make the building look less plush. Nothing quick and simple could be done about the rows of skulls on the first floor, but oh well.

Cutting out such a big section of a wall was something I’ve done before, with the bone-arches on the hilariously Warhammer-y Witchfate Tor.

Everyone knows you need doors halfway
up a tower, amIright?

It’s a big building, and very useable in-game, but admittedly makes no architectural sense whatsoever. Jeff has been known to rant about this kit at length, but I think it has a certain charm.

Now, which skull-filled bone-arches? These ones:


After I’d already glued these first panels in place on the ground floor, I realised that it’d be possible to remove the panels themselves. Sadly I had to leave them in place on the ground floor – having wide open arches big enough for a Norse warrior to clamber through isn’t conducive to top-notch security – but could still knock them out for the second floor, like so:


All you have to do is drill a vew holes at the corners of the panels, unclip the coping saw’s blade, and thread it through the hole before playing a violent version of Join the Dots.

Sadly, I didn’t have a coping saw when I removed the three carvings from the front of the manor/pub, which resulted in my attacking the thing with a power drill (essentially drilling a series of holes around the object and then getting medieval with some clippers). It was a messy, risky and inefficient process, and a thoroughly convincing advert for owning a ----ing coping saw.


~Charlie

Comments

  1. Replies
    1. Stay calm everyone, the poor man just has Realm-of-Battle-pattern PTSD.

      Delete
  2. BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!! SKULLS FOR THE THRONE OF SKULLS!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I would imagine that a throne of skulls would be really uncomfortable. Maybe if we gave Khrone a cushion or two he'd be less grumpy and skull takery?

    ReplyDelete

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