Blast from the Past: Celtic Monastery (Part 2)

My scratch-built 28mm Celtic monastery with finished beehive huts and church

So, I wasn't quite done with the beehive monks huts on the last update. I still had to paint the doors, and then I found one other things I felt needed to be accomplished. The doors were easy, though. I did a base coat of black, then two dry brushes -- one of Camo Brown and the other Colonial Khaki. I used Howard Hues acrylics for my drybrushing because they are such thick paints. I followed that up with painting the clay rings that would be the cut stone base. I coated them black, did a dark gray wet brush and a final Rebel Gray dry brush. I wasn't sure if I'd made deep enough grooves in the air dry clay to be picked up with dry brushing, but I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

The finished beehive monk huts for my Celtic monastery

However, when I set the huts on top of the rings, something just didn't look right. Sure, they fit like a glove -- better than I was hoping, actually. I'd thought I was going to have to do some kind of magnet inset into the clay ring or similar to hold them down. The door as the notch and the clay ring doorway as the groove worked perfect. What didn't look right was the two different tones between the cut stone foundations (Hirst Arts block and the air dry clay ring) and the dry stone walls and roofs (Woodland Scenics coarse gravel blended gray). Even though I'd added a dark wash to "blend" it all together, I still thought the differences in tone were too noticeable.

So, I decided to use the same Rebel Gray dry brush highlighting that I did on the cut stone work on the dry stone. I really liked how it tied the look all together. It was the final touch that made it appear like it all belonged together.

The flocking begins...the first layer of medium ballast

The last step will be the flocking. In the above picture, you can see stage one of my flocking. I painted the entire surface with a mix of white glue, water, and earth red paint. While it was still wet, I poured Woodland Scenics medium ballast over it. This smooths out the different levels a bit and roughs up the ground texture. Next up, I paint the ballast with the same water, glue, paint mixture and sprinkle on sand.

My scratch-built 28mm Celtic monastery with finished beehive huts and church

I'm thinking I need to come up with a new method to flock large terrain pieces. My "new" method of applying ballast, sand, and then grass and shrubs is fine when I do something small. However, it takes a l-o-n-g time for 9"x12" areas. The bigger the piece, the more unwieldy it is when you're pouring the various flocking onto the base and not trying to spill it all over the desk. I have a large plastic tub I keep beneath the piece while I do this, but it is still a pain. Maybe I need to go back to trying Liquitex modeling paste for bigger pieces. We'll see.

View from above of the sand and turf flocking

As you can tell from the above soul-searching, stage two of the flocking of the Celtic monastery was frustrating. I think the end result looks okay, but it took more than an hour to do this. Maybe I just need a bigger brush or a new technique or two, but I am not looking forward to stage three! I also noticed that the sand appeared lighter colored because I did not have a solid earth red color on the base. I should have added in this step and hand-painted the ground that color. My mix of glue, paint and water was obviously not opaque and dark enough to provide the customary darker, earth-reddish color that it does on my miniature bases. To fix the lighter tone, I sprinkled quite a bit of Woodland Scenics brown "turf" over it to darken it down. That, mixed with stage three's grass should do the trick. I guess I just have to realize that doing things like this is a learning process. All the more reason to be doing a tutorial, eh? Maybe my missteps will help others doing similar projects.

Anyway, I'll let stage two dry for awhile, then spray it with dullcoate. After it dries, I'll add the grass either later tonight or tomorrow.

Close up of the upper area of the monastery

So, did I screw up the end game? Look at the photos, and you be the judge. I was actually happy (if not giddy) with how the monastery came out until I saw the photos. I think I really messed up the flocking. At the last minute, I decided it would look cool to have gravel or stones peeking through on the dirt path leading amongst the beehive huts and up the slope to the church. I put them on top of the flocking, and then didn't bother toning them down with a wash. I thought I could fix it by simply sprinkling a layer of Woodland Scenics "Turf" over it. When the gravel was still was too glaringly bright, I put another layer. And then when I dullcoated the whole thing, that flocking blew up and dusted the door of the church. It doesn't show up as much in person, but it sure does in the close ups of these photos.

The interior of the church of my scratch-built 28mm Celtic monastery

No, I'm not going to hurl it against the wall. However, I am rating this build beneath the graveyard and well below the Saxon church. A disappointing end to something I invested craploads of time on. I've learned my lesson to not rush things, and most of all, not be lazy and skip steps.

Another view of the Celtic monastery

The beehive huts of my Celtic monastery

The images of the saints I used for the walls (downloaded from various images on the internet and resized)

 Author's Note: Okay, here I am, years later, thinking I have no idea why I considered this a disappointing end to the build. I think it looks nice. My apologies for whatever snit I was in as I finished it that caused me to leave out description of the painting the interior of the chapel. I hope you enjoyed the step-by-step description of how I built this...!