It's only been the last few months when Daniel has taken a renewed interest in this project. When I visited him and his brother at Royal Military College a few weeks before Christmas, we played a small Western game. You can see some pictures here. While there, Daniel showed me a new building he had been working on, a massive hotel! When he arrived home for the Christmas break, he brought the finished item with him. This is an amazing piece of work, as can be attested from the photos below.
Daniel's hotel, measuring about 15" x 12", and perhaps 8" high.
Although it's hard to see, there is a notice beside the main door advising cowboys to leave their sidearms at the bar!
The gun shop attached to the hotel...and yes, that is a 6 foot wooden Indian out front! The sign is handpainted, with the stitching included to model three canvas sheets added together and hung by ropes.
The rear of the hotel. The clapboard siding is made from individually laid boards (as is the fence). The log gun-shop is made from real bark!
A view of the interior of the second floor. The walls are papered and the floor boards are individually laid. The entire floor pulls out to reveal a fully furnished main floor.
The rear yard is scratch-built from balsa and various pieces of scrap plastic and resin.
As an added bonus, I also finished up another smaller building for his collection, this time a hardware store. Both this and the hotel are made of resin, and the hardware store in particular required little fiddly work (unlike the hotel).
I find the posters really finish off these models. These are from Gary Chalk's excellent article in Wargames Illustrated.
Daniel's 10-year old sister, Diana, also got into the act. She decided to paint up some tipis for Daniel's collection as a Xmas present. We did some internet research and Diana picked the colours to conform to our idea of a historically-correct Hollywood western movie set (yes, that is an oxymoron, I'm sure).
These are "soft" resin models from Old Glory and take the paint quite well. Diana did all the painting on these and I finished off the groundwork. Now, if I could only get her to paint horses for me...
Daniel's hotel, measuring about 15" x 12", and perhaps 8" high. 
Although it's hard to see, there is a notice beside the main door advising cowboys to leave their sidearms at the bar! 
The gun shop attached to the hotel...and yes, that is a 6 foot wooden Indian out front! The sign is handpainted, with the stitching included to model three canvas sheets added together and hung by ropes. 
The rear of the hotel. The clapboard siding is made from individually laid boards (as is the fence). The log gun-shop is made from real bark! 
A view of the interior of the second floor. The walls are papered and the floor boards are individually laid. The entire floor pulls out to reveal a fully furnished main floor.Now here's the irony. Walking into Daniel's room at RMC and seeing his hotel was a bit of a shock since I had bought the Old Glory hotel at Fall In! and was in the process of assembling and painting it as a Christmas gift. His town would now have two hotels! It was gratifying to see his happy face on Christmas morning as he opened the box with the hotel.
This hotel is almost as large as the one Daniel scratch-built (and the two bear a striking resemblance in plan and form, even though there was no cross-pollination). Although I didn't have the same fiddly work as Daniel had with his creation, this model presented some challenges. The second floor detaches as an entire piece as does the main roof and the roof on the side shed. In order to make the second floor piece fit snugly into the corner created by the covered veranda took some creative finagling. The resin casting itself was rather crude in places and required some extensive carving and sanding to make things fit and look "right."
This hotel is almost as large as the one Daniel scratch-built (and the two bear a striking resemblance in plan and form, even though there was no cross-pollination). Although I didn't have the same fiddly work as Daniel had with his creation, this model presented some challenges. The second floor detaches as an entire piece as does the main roof and the roof on the side shed. In order to make the second floor piece fit snugly into the corner created by the covered veranda took some creative finagling. The resin casting itself was rather crude in places and required some extensive carving and sanding to make things fit and look "right." 
The barrels and various crates scattered about the base are 1/35 scale items borrowed from some Force of Valor WWII sets.
The rear yard is scratch-built from balsa and various pieces of scrap plastic and resin. 
As an added bonus, I also finished up another smaller building for his collection, this time a hardware store. Both this and the hotel are made of resin, and the hardware store in particular required little fiddly work (unlike the hotel).
I find the posters really finish off these models. These are from Gary Chalk's excellent article in Wargames Illustrated. Daniel's 10-year old sister, Diana, also got into the act. She decided to paint up some tipis for Daniel's collection as a Xmas present. We did some internet research and Diana picked the colours to conform to our idea of a historically-correct Hollywood western movie set (yes, that is an oxymoron, I'm sure).
These are "soft" resin models from Old Glory and take the paint quite well. Diana did all the painting on these and I finished off the groundwork. Now, if I could only get her to paint horses for me...When we get all the buildings together for a game later next week (hopefully), I'll take some pictures of the entire town!
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