Château de Bissy-sur-Fley

Going through the old holiday pictures still, I found some more of a very interesting château we visited in Burgundy in 2012. It is at Bissy-sur-Fley and is the oldest looking château I have ever seen. It was begun in the 15th Century and completed in the 16th Century and nothing much has been done to it since.  In fact, it was, in parts, in need of some repair! It is commonly known as Château Pontus de Tyard, after its most famous inhabitant, who was a renowned poet of the late 16th Century and the local seigneur at that time. It is now in private hands, but there is an organisation dedicated to its restoration. I have always felt that it looks like a true medieval French château and certainly nothing like the modernised great houses of the late 17th and 18th Centuries. Very atmospheric and certainly worth using as an example to model.

Images of Burgundy

While I work on getting my wargaming stuff sorted and ready to use, I acquired a more up-to-date computer from my son-in-law - my old one dates from 2002! - which as everyone knows requires moving saved files from one to the other. In the course of doing so, I took the opportunity to update our holiday photographs by trimming them down to the ones we really wanted to keep, not the random collection that existed. The task revealed images that I thought might be of interest to wargamers who like to model scenic items. So here are a few of buildings from Burgundy in France. Don't worry, there aren't too many!

This is the château of Bussy. Its most famous inhabitant was the comte de Bussy-Rabutin, who was a cavalry general under Louis XIII and Louis XIV. He did not like Turenne much and he lost his position for writing a racy novel about the French court, having to spend the rest of his life in exile at Bussy. I can think of a lot of worse places to have to retire to, although he seems to have spent a lot of the time being bored and pining for his lady loves back at court! The big round towers were converted from the original medieval castle.

This is the château of Commarin. Like Bussy, the big towers were part of the original medieval castle.

This is the château at Epoisse - yes, where that delicious but very smelly cheese comes from! It belonged to the prince de Condé, one of Louis XIV's great generals.

This is the little château of Fley, the village where we were staying.

This little château was in the village of Posanges, tucked away on a side street. It shows a much older style than those above, probably still very much as it looked in the late Middle Ages, unlike those of the 17th and 18th Century, which were mostly conversions of old medieval castles.

An old medieval tower in the town walls of Semur.

Old houses in the little town of Vitteaux.

So, hopefully that might give some inspiration to the modelmakers amongst you. Burgundy is full of historic sites, towns, villages. And of course it has lovely wine and cheese!

Avrupan Sci-fi/Future Wars Scenery

October was Avrupan month and I decided to concentrate on painting figures and models and making scenery, rather than try a game, though it has to be said I am still trying to find a set of rules that meets my tastes. Anyway, I have now finished all the figures I have for this project, have only a few models to go, and produced a lot of buildings and scenery.

Here are photographs of the latter, made from all sorts of domestic plastic/metal food containers, with various odds and ends added from the scrap box. Grey, or at least various shades thereof, is my default colour for Avrupan scenery. The bases are usually card or thin wood or plastic, finished off with fine sand/gravel, it being an arid/desert world. All, by the way, are for 25mm figures.

I confess I rather balk at the price of ready made sci-fi scenery, hence the homemade route, but they do for me. I probably could do with more signs, symbols, labels, numbers, etc., but as most of those available commercially are in English, they do not fit my ideas for Avrupan, where that is not a language.

A standard habitat on the left; a blown up one on the right. I am coming round to the fact that you can never have enough destroyed structures in modern or future warfare! The original piece for the buildings was an air freshener.

Some sort of factory/admin building on the left - mainly bottle lids - 

and storage tanks on the right - three tonic cans.

Rocky outcrops for scattering about the tabletop.

These are made from those foam packing things that look like "Wotsits".

A storage area and various items of equipment made out of the scrap box. The pipes are paintbrush protectors, there is a cotton real, some tyres and a container spare from models, while the boxes came from some sort of equivalent to "Lego" that I have had lying around for decades. The walls are plastic figures bases surplus to requirements.

Two more factory-style buildings - the main structures were dessert tubs.

More factory buildings - dessert tubs again, with various bottle lids, although the round top on the one to the right is the head off an old roller deodorant.

Another blown up building - a few odds and ends inside.

A defensive point on the left, something industrial on the right.

Power towers perhaps? These were supports left over as surplus when we had 

a new shower tray some years ago.

Another factory/admin building - the main part is half of an index card box.

Some heavy duty pipework for an industrial area. These came from an old children's toy found in a charity shop which involved putting them together to make a wind instrument!

A general picture of some of the end products. I really do have to have a game now!

Petaudia Odds and Ends

The boat will be used in my fantasy/medieval campaign of Petaudia. The rigging is made from darning thread/cotton. I am not entirely sure I have rigged it correctly - there are no instructions for that with the model, so I just followed a picture I found on the internet of a completed model by someone else!

 

ACW Scenery

Scenery

A new item of scenery, this well is from is from Iron Gate Scenery (IGS). I have bought a number of their models and, although a bit pricey, they are very nice.

Some scenery - barricades and fences.

Some more small items of scenery. The barricades are just oak twigs from the garden, stacked appropriately, with sand and gravel basing material and some flock. The wall/fences were made from gravel, long matchsticks and cocktail sticks, with some basing material and flock. I have decided that aged and untreated wooden fence post, rails, etc. look okay from a distance with Vallejo Medium Grey paint, dry-brushed over a black undercoat.

And here are the walls/fences in use for the first time on a Fescennia campaign battlefield:

Odds and Ends Terrain

 And finally a few items of terrain.

Old tree stumps and a fallen tree, all made out of oak twigs from the garden. I think oak twigs are the best for representing tree trunks as they wear well over the years and show interesting lumps and bumps!

A hasty defensive barrier of tree trunks and branches, with rocks and earth, the usual oak twigs and gravel from my basing material box. Useful for a whole range of periods.

Fantasy Scenery

Some more scenery for my mediaeval/fantasy campaign. This is a plaster of paris ruin from Antenocitis' Models bought years ago and finally put together, painted and based. The 25mm goblin wolf rider gives an idea of the scale of the model.

A more atmospheric shot!