Building issues

 This project is going excruciatingly slow. Much more than I wanted or expected. But so is life and so are the things. At least there is some progress!

You may remember I finished the far side of the board, so now I could go into the central section. You can see it here, with the first piece of central elevation, where the future structure will be founded:

This is meant to be the main access to the upper levels

This plastic jar will serve as a tiny tower, the road will be surrounding it

But of course some work has to be done in advance

This is mostly the idea

 

When assembling this part I soon realised I would have to drop one on my very early ideas for the top. In the beginning I wanted to somehow use this bridge here:

But it doesn't look like a great idea now

Such a big monster will distract the eye from the rest of the structure, and that's not how I want it to look like. Besides, building the support for the other end of the bridge would inevitably bring some issues regarding the slope. So I'll have to let it go and replace that with a lighter structure.

But that's a problem for the future me. For now I have to focus on the central building.

This will be the facade of the slope

This is more or less the idea

Well, technically you can play in here, there's room for a hand...

But I'm not happy with this solution, you know. I want this board to look crowded per se, oppressive, rambling... But yet playable! This doesn't really allow me to develop proper movement of miniatures in there. So, as much as it hurts me, those stairs have to go away. I will change the access to that door extending the catwalk towards the opposite building, up of the slope.

So let's do some work on the slope first

You can see I used the same Green Stuff World rolling pin on DAS clay, then added some sand. The texture on the tower is mere wet DAS.

The whole structure and the facade on the slope

But then...

Oh, then...

THEN I WAS TEMPTED

The original idea was supposed to look this way:

Original sketch (look, I already removed the stairs)

But at some point I envisioned this other configuration:

And it also looked good to me!

It would be a complete shift of the original concept, extending the slope up to the left of the board and creating a wide open space right in the centre of the structure, which I could use as a two-storey bazaar.

I confess I spent a few days exploring both options and weighing pros and cons of each solution. But in the end I stuck to the plan. Attractive as it was to have a wide, open, playable space, the second option really got away from what I was going to create here, the little adobe maze.

So now that I made my mind up I could start working on the front piece:

Seriously, stairs are quite a pain in the ass to do

 I thought that an arch would look good down there, and then the real door could fit inside. I could have tried a more complex shape for the tower on the left, but I think it works as it is nevertheless.

I'm going to need a lot of putty to seal those open spaces

You can see I added the piece for the next section of the slope and textured the surfaces.

Now it all looks more or less in place!

First coat of colour

There is a little cobblestone floor in that arch area. Once I give a second coat of colour I can start adding details and stuff. I'm not sure of what can I put on top of the tower. My choices are an adobe demi-sphere or some antennae or things of the like, but I'm still undecided.

I have to repair the catwalk over the slope. I'm afraid that now that street is too open, so I'll explore my chances to add an arch at the very beginning of the street, giving access to the whole town.

I have not renounced to the two-storey bazaar, but now I project to place it to the left of the board. But first I'll have to finish the slope, to have a clear idea of the composition of the volumes. But first I have to finish what I have already started! Well, you know how this works :D

This is the current state of the board. I hope I can resume production anytime soon!