Building of the Week Sainte-Mère-Église by Leven Miniatures

This building is yet to be released but is due for release in September, that's NEXT month folks so not long to wait. This church is famous for the snarling of John Steele's parachute on one of the pinnacles during the para drops on Normandy the night of 5/6th June 1944. 

CHU08 so far does not have a price listed but it is quite a large piece with a length of 95mm and height of 60mm and whilst it has a fair amount hollowed out it's still has plenty of resin in it. Click on the link to see all the previews at Leven Miniatures. It's well worth popping over to take a look as he has some very interesting buildings coming, especially a giant of a model in the Borodino Church but that Spanish Church has MY name on it  ;-) The more mundane but very welcome wall sections are also listed there, another September release.

But I digress, as you can see the model has a lot of detail with plenty of crevasse's to challenge the painter. These were indeed a challenge in a few tight corners but were not so difficult as to reduce the look of the finished model. Just a speed bump but this detail makes the model so not complaining just pointing out.

I think this is the most intricate model to date that Leven have produced and I can see that Mike is growing more adventurous with his work. Having seen some images of future releases I am glad to report that he is not turning his back on the more simple buildings and he has me very interested in some of the future releases that will really add flavour to your wargames tables.

Having looked on the 'net for images of the church I decided to change style a little for this one and go for more obvious shading as the building seemed to have a lot more differences in colours, I think it came out OK but may take some getting used to.

I also decided to go with the normal Vallejo Black Grey windows but for highlight dropped back a shade to Dark Seagreen which is hardly noticeable in the pictures nor that noticeable in the flesh, just enough though. This was after looking at all the images and from the outside the stained glass looks almost black fro outside which when you think about it makes sense.

Lee and I was talking about the Leven buildings last night and agreed that their being that bit smaller than the usual suspects is not a problem and indeed the smaller footprint really works with the scale of the big battles better. We just need some more (lots more) 17th to 19th Century European buildings on offer. Given the amount of wars that span this period in Europe I am really surprised at the lack of choice out there at this point.