After too many hours of painting tan Egyptian terrain, I decided to move onto some other periods and theaters. I decided to reach into my bin full of unfinished French and Indian War terrain. On the top of the box I had a number of Indian Longhouses and ancillary buildings. I have had these a very long time, just never got around to working on them. Well, the time has come!
Hudson Allen is a maker of foam cast buildings. The buildings are extremely well detailed (some of the best), plus they are made of light weight foam (I type of expandable foam). This means the buildings are very light and easy to store and transport. They are caste solid or semi solid, so they are better as area terrain and not so much if you want your troops to fit inside (there is a little space, but only for a few figures). I have a number of their dark age buildings that I have been using for decades for fantasy gaming, so these particular buildings are not a stretch.
I have three different styles of buildings that I painted up. Technically, these are used by different tribes, but work together to give some variation on the table. Probably, a stretch, but I am OK with that to get the benefits.
I started by spray painting all the buildings with brown camo Krylon paint. I then hit them with a black wash. After the wash dried, I hit them all with a dry brush of various shades of brown, tan and grey. I then painted the leather sections with GW contrast paints over the dry brush, which worked well to give a tied together look. A little flock on the one dirt based set and I finished up the painting, with a final Testors Dull Coat.
Love these buildings. Easy to paint, well detailed and easy to paint. Who can complain about that! For those of you that might be interest, they can be purchased directly from Vatican Enterprises online (the current owner). If you want light weight terrain, check them out!
- Manteuffel