Building of Last Week - Boutemont Chateau Gatehouse

Regulars will have noticed the drop of fin posts, this has been down to being away for the Bank Holiday, change of jobs and now the failure of my daylight lamp.

The break was great as I got to spend three days with a very good wargames pal and even got to play a game of ASL. The job change, well it's been in process for a few months but it's now full time change and needs to take up extra time as I build up the customers, such is the life of a humble salesman.

The light though is a real pain, serves me right as I should have got a few spare tubes months ago but as soon as it became unusable I ordered replacements and they should be here mid to late week. Here is hoping.

OK so onto the main feature, the building that was almost finished yesterday is yet another soon to be released Leven Miniatures building, this time NAP07 Boutemont Chateau Gatehouse. I did search the Net for other images to go along with the one I received for the model but nothing was better than the sent image. I have to admit that I could not manage to reproduce the intricate patterns on the roof and upper level walls.

It's another great looking building from Leven and again it's challenged my painting skill and style as it's somewhat different to the usual buildings I paint. I liked the mix of plastered walls and exposed brick and as usual with Leven it painted up reasonably fast with the mix of ink and drybrush as the surface dictated. 

The rear facing is almost the same as the front but the windows do not have the frames marked in the model so I took the opportunity to leave them as larger windows. The building has no visible doors, I assume these are in the passage that is simply blacked out on the model.

One great detail that had me a little frazzled before painting was the way the chimney runs up the side of the roof. It has the tiniest gap towards the top and so the tiles and the slates need painting in that gap. It all ended well with no need to go back and tidy up. It really adds an extra touch that could have been ignored if Mike wanted but he seems to push such modelling features in so many new buildings which is great.

The building is part of the growing Napoleonic collection but indeed could be used right up to the present day and I expect to see it on many a WWII table post D-Day.

As you can see it stands up well against the new Baccus Grenadier figures in their bearskins. Unfortunately this building is not destined to see much more of my figures as it's one of the ones I need to send on to Mike for his display stand.

Of course I will be ordering one of these for myself as well so it's not all bad. It will have to wait though as I have two rather pressing building projects. One is the buildings for Quatre Bras and on from there for the Waterloo game but also a 6mm track layout I have been about to get into in earnest for the last couple of months. With only one more building to finish for Mike I can throw myself into doing this. To say Mike has been patient is a massive understatement.