Empire Buildings

Below are two very different Empire builings. One sterotypical of the imagery of a hybrid fortified tower. While the other reminds me more of a Rohan building from Lord of the Rings. Original commentary by Andy who, as of a few days ago, now works for Black Library is below with my own thoughts in purple italics...

After yesterday's influx of emails and pictures of hobby from around the globe, I began to wonder about what hobby gems might be lurking closer to hand. A handful of quick phone calls to the Games Workshop Hobby Centre's within driving distance, and I'd uncovered a whole bunch of promising stuff. So last night Rob and I took to the road in search of great hobby. We photographed all the miniatures we found and best of all we also found a whole bunch of other great conversions and painted miniatures stashed away in stock rooms, cabinets and figure cases that we hadn't expected to. Over the next few weeks I'll show you a selection of what we photographed, for today here's a look at what Games Workshop Derby has to offer.

I spotted this converted building while poking around the store's stock room. James Hawke is working on this as a change from painting miniatures and has used parts from the Fortress Tower, Watchtower kits and Chapel kits. Notice the effect James has achieved on the smooth wall areas by stippling Dheneb Stone over Khemri Brown.

Do you see what I mean? The staff wanted this Chapel to have a more rustic feel to it, reasoning that with it being sat on the edge of some woods it would be more likely to have a thatched roof. They made the roof by gluing a piece of teddy bear fur (it's less gruesome than it sounds - coming in sheets and not requiring the maiming of anything fluffy) over the original roof. Once it was firmly fixed in place they painted several coats of watered-down PVA over the fur to create the thatched effect. This reminds me of a tutorial in a old White Dwarf issue where they make some Rohan buildings.

Disclaimer - Images taken from the Games Workshop website. They will be removed if requested.