This next set of builds I moved onto were some of the feature buildings. These buildings are some of my favorites. They are much bigger than the first run of buildings, but more importantly, they are corner buildings! There is just something I have always loved about those types of structures.
This first building is the Wells Fargo & Co's Overland Mail & Express Office. It is actually the first floor of Rogan's Bar and the Undertakers front door and roof. The second floor of the Undertakers I used in another building as you'll see in a future post. I repainted the outer walls with Army Painter Skeleton Bone and the window and door frames with Army Painter Goblin Green.
As with the other builds, styrene strips were added to the roof and porch overhang to give it a little more variety - and a stove chimney as well! Please excuse the five windows that don't have glass - those are in the process of being replaced.
Again, since this was originally Rogan's Bar, I really couldn't use those glass signs in the windows and I was having a time and a half trying to clean off the printing on the acetate. I have since used old figure blister packs to use for glass on all builds after this. These have worked out brilliantly as they are much more rigid than the acetate and way easier to work with in my opinion.
Next up is Buckeye Mercantile - "A Place Of Supply". I had bounced back and forth about having a General Store, Dry Goods Store, or something similar for a while. Mostly because I couldn't find a sign that I liked. Then I found the Buckeye Mercantile sign and I knew I'd found my next business!
This was also the first building I did where I used the old figure blisters plastic for the windows.
The last building is Rogan's Bar, renamed The Silver Saddle Saloon and Dance Hall. I was going to leave Rogan's as it was, but the more I thought about it, and the more I was coming across really cool saloon signs during my research, I felt I wanted to have something different.
Two "whiskey" signs draw attention to the front. The connection points on the front of the building were painted over with matching 4Ground base paints. Another one of the more "classy" establishments, the Silver Saddle has some lamp posts outside its boardwalks.
They are HO scale model train lamps I got on Ebay through an overseas seller. I think I got like 50 for around 10 dollars. I cut the wires off and sprayed them with Testors Dull Coat and they were ready to go.
Again, something small and simple like that adds a lot to the narrative. A couple of small "gambling" signs on both ends of the buildings add to that as well.
That's pretty much it. As always, thanks for having a look and more feature buildings to come!
Ivor
Hi, that Wells Fargo Overland Mail building is amazing, as are all of your DMH creations, but can I ask if you sanded down the old colours of Rogans Bar or did you just repaint over the top of it, if so did it take a number of separate coats?
ReplyDeleteCheers
Simon.
Hey Simon, thanks for the kind words 😀 I haven't looked at this post in years and honestly I think my work on the 4Ground kits now is light years better than what is here - here's a link to changes I made to the stable https://saturdaymornings13.blogspot.com/2021/08/4ground-millers-livery-stable-re-visted.html
DeleteAnyway, in regards to these two kits the color changes were done with spray paint right over the original colors, no sanding, no priming, simple 🤷♂️ but again I think I'm much better nowadays with my colors and weathering than I was when I posted this.
Good luck with your builds!
Hi Ivor, thanks very much for getting back to me, I’m really blown away by what you’ve do e to the original 4Ground buildings. I’m particularly jealous of the lovely signs you’ve been able to create for the renamed Rogans Bar as well as the Wells Fargo office, every time I try to find Saloon signs on Google it just throws up photos of actual saloons, not much good for printing out and using in my miniature world. Thanks for the link that you’ve included, I’ll take a look at that later. I’d love to see more of your work so please, keep posting.
ReplyDeleteSimon
No worries Simon, hopefully you can find something useful in the posts.
DeleteAs I linked above, I think I've improved quite a bit from these old buildings, here's another that I really like https://saturdaymornings13.blogspot.com/2020/11/4ground-samuels-garage.html .
I've got a really neat build with changes made on the 4Ground trading post that I'm super happy with and want to share - as soon as I can find some blogging motivation again 😀