The decking was "painted" just with Army Painter Strong Tone dip and I needed to dull it down and weather it. Added some lichen between some planks and used a variety of paints to weather it.



Cutting apart the spruces that the laketown kit came with, I noticed some distinct shapes that when put together would make a nice odd platform.



I am leaning towards buying two more houses and making a barracks.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Love the weathering on the decking, very realistic.

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My Miniatures Blog (covering LOTR/Terminator/Doctor Who/Warpath and more!):
http://cruciumgiger.blogspot.co.uk/

Nice work

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

Exceptional stuff, really inspiring!

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miniaturesofthenorth.blogspot.co.uk

https://www.edinburghminiaturecompany.com

I like what you've done with the scenery! Would love to see those barracks you're considering.

So would I

I have taken the pictures of the spruces off of GW website, enlarged the picture to approximately what the real size are and have printed them on thin cardstock so I can try different designs with the minimum of cutting and having to add additional parts. Having enough roof is the sticky point right now, really don't want to make a mold of it or make my own if I can avoid it.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

I loved the weathering. Seems very real. I'd love to get some more photos ansd updates. Keep it up Map!

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Well, I bit the bullet and ordered two more laketown houses to kit bash into a larger building. I think I have a workable plan on what I want to do to them.

Decided to make some more walkways but will wait until I build the building to do a platform for it. Also need to make a couple more angle pieces for more variation.

I enjoy texturing the walkways, mindless random putting on paint. I find my most important brush is my fingertips rubbing it in. I use lustrian undergrowth and stirland mud to fill in some cracks and next to the foliage I added and also rub across the boards and then dab on some texture paint and rub it across also.



Took the old LOTR scenery that I had and repainted it in a standard style vs the various variations I had done before. Think I will break a couple of them apart again and make a wall vs corners.

Anyway, some pictures of a sample layout:

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Received my order of lake town houses yesterday, had to try my idea of how I wanted it to look. Just taped together for now Happy with what it might look like, it met my criteria of minimal cutting (still have to do doors on short house and out on to the balcony) and no leftover house pieces. Undecided if I want to do doors out of the roof onto the flat parts or just put hatches. Will do railings similar to my existing house on the roof and balcony.







All three models together

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Man, that looks great! You've definitely taken these kits and expanded them nicely!

Very creative indeed!
Can't wait to see this project progress! You inspire me to do a similar project.

"Finished" the short house of the two planned, wanted to see how the bass wood would fit with the plastic of the kit. I had some plastic stone corners from an old plastic/cardboard scenery kit I had so added them to give it a little different look. Looking at it now, I will probably go back and add some greenstuff stone to even them out vs staggered as it is now. I was real hesitant cutting into the roof and ended up doing a row at a time to make sure I wasn't cutting too much off. I doubt I will add the same roof-line as the first house as I want to be able to use this short house other than laketown.

Not quite happy with the flat roofs of the larger house, so been looking at different roof designs before I start that one.

Will probably finish painting my first house before buying more wood and doing the long house and more platforms.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Fixed the stone corners, don't know why I didn't finish them before. As mentioned, wanted to keep this house more scenario neutral. Here I just stuck a Rohan shield on the door and it fits in with my Rohan houses I built before.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Ooh, yes it does. Maybe a nice Brelish countryside house too. Who made the minis in the photo? The young man looks like a great proxy for Bain.

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"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock." -Will Rogers

Figure on the left is the lake town militia captain with rohan spear and shield, figure in the background is a converted (sword vs weird axe) lake town militia swordsmen. I had taken the lake town militia and made them Rohan villagers.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Working on the roof design I needed a more stable base than masking tape and cardboard. Putting some balsa wood into the slots on the sides, rubber bands for stability and then putting the center piece on, I thought this might make a good gatehouse into the main lake town. Put a couple towers or wall on the flat areas and it might work.



Quick gate of toothpicks and tape.



Not wide enough for my barge though, so back to it being a long house/barracks for my Dale garrison.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

Brilliant conversion, please post more pictures as it progresses

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Harfoots-The first of the Hobbit people to cross over the Misty Mountains and enter Eriador.

Love seeing your progress on the terrain, top notch work.

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My Miniatures Blog (covering LOTR/Terminator/Doctor Who/Warpath and more!):
http://cruciumgiger.blogspot.co.uk/

Brilliant work!

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Backlog:
21/01/2015: still 319 Models to paint or 27,01%
30/12/2016: Somehow the backlog has risen up to 900+ models :/

Getting projects off my work table so I can go back to doing my lake town / Dale garrison project.

Haven't had much time to work on hobby projects the last two months so been doing a little bit here, little bit there. Finished my border statue between Gondor and Harad - part of my larger project in mind where I will do a Gondor outpost on the border with Harad.

Part of that project is to take the men from the Warriors of the Last Alliance set and convert them to a Gondor garrison. Being on the edge of the desert, I wanted them to have cloaks to beat the heat. Initially I was just going to cut the heads off the Last Alliance men and switch them with Warriors of Minas Tirith ones and switch shields also.



Then I remembered that as part of a bulk ebay purchase I had received some poorly painted and weapons broken Warriors of Minas Tirith and Warriors of Rohan figures. Thought I would use the Rohan figures with their cloaks to add some variety to my Gondor garrison. I really like the one on the far left in the back giving a final death blow to a fallen foe.



This is all I am going to do on these figures for now, have to figure out how many bowmen. spears, swords I will want. Still have a Gondor patrol to paint and then I can get back to my laketown houses.

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"Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer."