Monday 25 September 2017

The House of Bergat - Painted Scratchbuild


In my last blogpost, I shared the unpainted pics of my scratchbuilt large house, intended to sit alongside my other Helsreach-esque buildings. I kept on referring to it as a palace during the build and subsequently, but it's clearly anything but. I suspect it's more likely to be the abode of a relatively wealthy merchant - hence it is now the House of Bergat.



I also neglected to mention that the push to actually make the building, came from Asslessman over at Leadplague. We challenged each other to build some terrain at the same time - hopefully he's planning to show his finished item(s) off presently.

The House of Bergat is typical of a wealthy merchant's home, comprising living and entertaining spaces, private rooms and an integral storeroom. While not wholly fortified, the rear of the house can be isolated from the public spaces at the front, and guards outside doors and on terraces are a visible deterrent.

The tall, domed building holds a cool dining hall and a galleried entertaining space.
Note the sunshade over the side entrance, providing shade for residents and visitors.

Note the striking exterior decoration, commonplace in Helsreach.

The heavy storeroom doors are overlooked by a sentry.

Terraced areas make for good meeting places.

The rear of the house provides the private living quarters for Bergat and his household.

A small, but attractive courtyard is a private space for more discrete meetings.

All merchants maintain their own unofficial comms channels.

I painted the new building in pretty much the same fashion as the previous adobe buildings from various other sources - a basecoat of a sandy brown, drybrushed with an off-white (on this occasion, left over household emulsion). With the large space on the tall pill-shaped building, I decided to add a strong splash of colour with the ochre wall stripe. I wish I hadn't painted the door surrounds that orange though...I might go back and repaint them at some point. All the doors and window frames got hit with washes and the good old blister foam, while the white adobe had some washes to represent the dirt and grime.

There are some elements that were pretty tricky to paint - the interior of the courtyard in particular, but by and large the House of Bergat turned out OK I think (especially when I think what I started with!).

From this...

...to this!




I just need to start thinking about the next building I guess?!

32 comments:

  1. This is just wonderful, splendid idea and execution, shows us all we have no excuses not to do great stuff too !

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    1. Thanks! It was a long process (I suspect it took up 10-painted figures of hobby time or longer), but it was really enjoyable to try something different.

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  2. It really is quite fantastic Jon. Good old scratch built at it's best mate. Can't rain enough praise on you for this build mate, awesome!!!!

    When I'm able to, this will help motivate me to finish off my one's :)

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    1. Thanks Shane, glad you like it! It's been a real learning curve, but I'm really pleased JB pushed me to actually make it!

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  3. All round to yours then Jon. Superb stuff. Can't wait to see what's next.

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  4. Stunning work, I can see all the narrative games playing out in front of me already.

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    1. Thanks Stuart. I reckon there's plenty of underhand deals that the local enforcement officers need to put a stop to!

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  5. This is amazing! Such love in the literal world-building.

    It's a small touch, but the windows being so dark sells these as real-world buildings.

    That Guard-at-attention with the RT head, not seen those before. Are they the plastic troopers?

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    1. Thanks Curis! I'm closing in on getting a table-worth of terrain sorted I think.

      The Guardsmen are the metal limited edition Cadians at Ease with headswaps (they were basically rebadged concept sculpts and are a little smaller than the plastics). I've got another 4 that I want to do the same with.

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  6. Excellent paint job, that orangy stripe is perfectly suited for your merchant, and for whatever reason I like the stylistic angled bits you have in the paint, rather than just having a band around the buildings. The courtyard turned out nicely too, although I can imagine the difficulty in painting it!

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    1. Thanks very much! I really wanted to have the stripe make use of the whole side of the building, hence the angled part of it. I think it adds a rather nice touch :)

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  7. Brilliant piece Jon! I have a stack of boxes and foam core in my room waiting to be turned into buildings this winter. Posts like this keep getting me pumped for it. :)

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    1. Thanks Tom. Can't wait to see what your supplies become :)

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  8. Wow, it looks even better than I could imagine. Gorgeous. I may eventually need to (attempt to) replicate your work... ;)

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    1. Thanks Suber! Feel free to use as much or as little as you like - I'm sure the results would be excellent.

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  9. Superb mate - I love all your Helsreach buildings, but this one really takes the biscuit!! Bravo :-)

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    1. It certainly is the house to desire in Helsreach isn't it?!

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  10. Not only is it a fabulous addition to your evolving frontier, but you've written a quite compelling story about its use and hinted at some very interesting stories about the users. It's just the sort of structure I need to consider for my own next episode. I need a gubernatorial palace. I might steal some inspiration from you. A fine bit of inspiration it is, too! :)

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    1. I'm very much looking forward to hosting nefarious deals in the inner courtyard and back-stabbing assassinations of guests in the dining hall ;) I hope you have similarly entertaining episodes at your own locations!

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    2. Planning for just such an episode, stealing half an idea from the Governor General of Sector Six, is precisely why I need a gubernatorial palace, actually. Backstabbing shall occur forthwith. ;-)

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    3. Sounds excellent to me!!

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  11. Looks brilliant.

    I love scratch builds.

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  12. Great work axiom ... worth the wait! I don't have the patience to churn out such creative terrain works but then again I have your blog to get my occasional terrain-fix :)

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    1. Thanks very much! The advantage of terrain is that it's comparatively quick and easy to paint - much more so than figures. Of course, construction time can be much more involved ;)

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  13. Phenomenal work Axiom.

    It has been a pleasure wathing that pile of bits turn into a 100% plausible terrain piece that blends perfectly in with your existing Helreach.

    Fabulous.

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    1. Thanks very much cheetor! It was definitely a project that needed plenty of input along the way - using unfamiliar techniques and materials. I'm really pleased that you think the finished article ticks all the boxes :)

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