Attempt at 3d Modeling a historical Church

In working on the current Pint Sized campaign, I looked at the scenery for the town in question. In particular for the buildings that stand out the most in the battle. One in particular that caught my eye was the town church. It is not a particularly impressive structure. It looks more like a shoebox than a cathedral. But it did have a few unique features. The doorway was rather distinctive. So i took my hand at making just the doorway. I have a period picture of the church and the church still stands today so it can be seen in Google Maps Street View. This is a huge help. The buildings in the town in several instances extend out into the street itself. How this is not a terrible traffic hazard, I am not sure. The battle has a number of pictures of the town just after the battle. This is helpful but the Google Street view allows you to get a better understanding of the spacing that you loose with some of the historical images.

Historial Church as of December 1944:

Church Front Today:

After doing the entrance as 3d files. I think I will also model the windows. There are four windows per long side of the building. The building will be made outside of my printer as the printer is too small to handle the building, even though it is a small church. I am thinking of going with foam core for the building. The image taken of the church after the battle showed that it survived mostly intact but the stucco was pock marked on the walls and in many cases, the stone underneath can be seen. Since the town was shelled prior to the attack, I will probably try to model the damage on the church. The modern church has whitewashed walls with a white and black steeple. The roof appears to be tile. The town had mostly tile roofs so this makes sense. The historical image supports a white and black steeple. The steeple roof is black while the square building part appears to be brick.I can only guess at the building color. Possibly a brownish color.

Details modeled so far:

The back of the church is extended out (my geometry eludes me to describe the shape) to make the building a little more interesting. During the fighting, the steeple took fire from US forces thinking a sniper would be present in the building. It was also struck with something heavier than a rifle round to leave a large hole under the window on the front face of the church. The blinds covering the window in the steeple appear to have been replaced with smaller thinner ones compared to the period picture. I am unsure if the roof of the steeple has changed over the years as the picture of the church cuts that part off. I will base the steeple roof off of the modern building.

Back of Church:

I will mess with mocking up the building later today. I don't plan on modeling all of the buildings from the town. Just a few that stand out and seem important to me. So far my list has:

1) An MG bunker: Probably purchase the Sarissa one at some point.
2) The AT Gun Bunker: I may just look and see what is available.
3) The School House: Another building with pictures from the time and still stands in the city across from the Church.
These are just my first thoughts. The others I have some that seem similar enough to stand in.

Celt Village and Happy 2025

Over the Christmas break, I was able to get some work completed on some terrain. I finished painting the Celt Village from Blue Moon/Old Glory Miniatures. I am mostly happy with how they came out but feel that the thatch roofs could have been better. The picture is on top of some small shelves that my son bought me for Christmas. It was a pretty useful gift.

I also managed to finish plastering the watchtower. I also have gotten some paint on it as well. I have purchased some speed paints with my Christmas money and tried a dark wood on the platform and woodwork. I am still undecided on how it looks. I started painting the tile roof but that still needs more work.

I also plastered the Mansio and most of the Villa. The Mansio has been mounted on a base as well. This should help keep it together. I also glued the elements of the mansio together. I will have to do the same with the villa as well. It is just proving to be more fiddily than the Mansio was. The hope is to make progress on these soon.

I also placed an order with Sarissa Precision for the barracks from their 15mm line of Roman Buildings. I saw that they have a Roman farm as well. I am very excited about picking that up as well, but that is for the future. I found a nice small house on Etsy that seemed to be at a reasonable price. But the shipping was close to $60 for it, so I passed on that one. I will probably get the Vicus buildings from Warbases 15mm line at some point.

Celts.... I got in my order from Stonewall Miniatures. I now have enough for two more groups of noble warriors for the Celts. These will be a mix of sword and spear armed.

I also now have more Auxilia to paint. I was really surprised that I have three more groups worth of Auxilia infantry to paint. This is besides the cavalry and the painted Romans that I have. I am wondering if I should get some Legionaries but at the moment, I will pass.

Other items, I purchased a BattleMat Bazaar ground cloth. I got the double sided one with a winter snow on one side and something green on the other. I am looking forward to getting it. I have plans for a December 1944 pint sized campaign for Chain of Command. I am concerned about how much in the way of rewrites will be needed when Chain of Command 2 is released.