A Quick Conversion Piece

I've seen a lot of wargamers lately taking those Christmas villages that pop up every season in Walmart and converting them to useful battlefield terrain. They are inexpensive, pretty solid, and easy to find in any Walmart, K-Mart, or even a dollar store. I wanted to give one a shot so I headed over to eBay and began browsing some of the cheaper ones that could really fit into any 28mm game from medieval up to perhaps even modern. The "2004 Cobblestone Corners Windham Heights Angel Domed Gazebo" fit the bill exactly and right away I was picturing how to convert it to something useful.

As purchased from eBay.

The seller packaged it in order to survive just about any scenario including a nuclear holocaust as it took me well over 6 hours to cut through the packaging and requiring me to sharpen my knife at least 10 times in between layers. (Okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration, it was more like 5 hours and 8 times to sharpen.) I started by applying a layer of black primer and paint in one.

Reaper Bones figures for size comparison.

I was afraid the 'glittering snow' would be a pain to cover but in actuality the glitter added a more graveled look to the steps. I then used a layer of craft store dark grey for the stone work and the dome in a German grey-green. I was originally thinking of doing an oxidized copper jade over the grey-green but I really liked the way it turned out so I kept it.

The last step was to dry brush on some light grey and then a mixture of olive drab green, dirt brown, and mustard yellow on the spots that looked like they could be a good source of moss and dirt. Finally, I flocked where necessary to cover up the clumps of snow.

The final product.

I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out in the end. I truly love how it looks and I am looking forward to utilizing it on a 28mm game. I could see this on an early war Belgian battlefield or at the heart of a battle between orcs and elves.