The Temple of Love: Building a Sisters of Battle Cathedral pt 3 - WIP Facades

Two of the most important parts of the cathedral are the facades - the grand frontispieces of the building at (what would be in a Catholic cathedral) the east and west ends. Looking down on the building, these would be the horizontal bars at the top and bottom of the ][ shaped building. While they aren't completed yet, I've done a fair bit of work on them and have some WIP pictures!

The Aquila Facade

The first course laid down.

The facade lying on its back, with the "Shrine of the Aquila" pieces in place.

Expanded PVC sheet is used to make more steps and lift the Aquila pieces so they
line up with the Pegasus pieces better.

Seen from a "model's eye-view"!

The floor is made of expanded PVC sheet

The first of belltowers starts work.

The front facade of the cathedral - the bottom of the ][ - uses the Shrine of the Aquila combined with Pegasus sections. I used some expanded PVC sheet to make floors as well as shim up the Aquila sections so they would line up better with the top of the third course of Pegasus pieces. On the top of those are two towers - these will house bells and be topped with some kind of pitched roof.

The Rear Facade

The upper section of the rear facade

The lower section of the rear facade

Using the two ruined panels from the Aquila kit, I constructed a whole, narrower window

The window in place

Both parts of the facade glued together

The repaired window propped in place

The whole facade with the repaired window propped in place

The rear facade is of a different design to the front; the pitched roof that I plan to have run through the "nave" of the cathedral runs to the facade itself. The two corner towers have flying buttresses (cast in resin from half an arch piece). I used solid pieces rather than window pieces for this facade, not only to save sufficient window pieces for elsewhere, but also so I can build a sort of "high altar" against the real wall.

Rather than use Pegasus pieces to make the central section, I used the two ruined panels from the Shrine of the Aquila to assemble into a whole, although narrower, window panel.

There is obviously a lot of work left to do on these facades, particularly the rear one, but I hope you have enjoyed these work in progress pictures. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Danforth Laertes =][=

The Temple of Love: Building a Sisters of Battle Cathedral pt 2 - cutting up Pegasus kits

Two posts in one day? Must be the end times! Or maybe I just didn't want to make the first post a huge long one and so I am breaking it up (also, full disclosure; I am off work today and so have plenty of time!)

Assembling the Pegasus Hobbies "Gothic" kits is very simple; they fit together well and would hold even without glue (I am gluing, of course - I have discovered that the Oatey All-Purpose Cement, while gloopy, can be applied with a little brush and allows one to assemble the larger sections without a problem. I've used it to glue the columns together, reserving regular plastic cement for more delicate things). There are a few issues I have discovered, however.

That is a picture of the front section of the building - the space between the two U-shaped sections will be filled by the Shrine of the Aquila as a facade, and the rear space will butt up against the body of the cathedral. Astute observers will notice each of the U-shaped sections has three panels but four columns. Even-more-astute observers will have noticed that the Pegasus sections are a panel and column joined together. There are no separate panels or columns.

This has been noticed in some reviews of the product, so I was ready for it. I found it easy to remedy this and, with a bit of thought, I was able to produce these U-shaped sections very easily and with minimal glue seams. Here is how I did it;

I took advantage of the double-wide sections Pegasus provides. For each level of each U-shaped piece, I used two double-wide sections and cut them so I had the red-shaded pieces above. Cutting them was easy; all I did was use a razor saw to cut through the thicker plastic at the top and bottom (shown below as a RED line) and then scored with a sharp Stanley knife (shown below as a BLUE line). The thinner plastic of the central panel was cut all the way through and it was easy to turn the piece over and score the rest of the line so it would break easily. A little bit of cleaning up and the job's a good 'un!

The spare panels and column do not go to waste - I need panels without columns for the central circle and elsewhere, and I need columns without panels for some of the planned flying buttresses.

With these cuts, I'd created two new pieces - one "reversed" section (I couldn't just mount a normal section the other way around, because the designs on the two sides are different) and one "two column" section. I was able to easily glue these together with a normal section to make the U-shaped sections.

The column rears aren't glued in place here - this is just a demo fit for the photo

So that is how I have been hacking up the Pegasus kits. The glue seems to hold them together well, although I suspect it will take some time for it to fully cure.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Danforth Laertes =][=

The Temple of Love: Building a Sisters of Battle Cathedral pt 1 - introduction & plans

Well, we've all thought of doing it - getting a hold of a bunch of GW's Warhammer 40K modular "industrial gothic" scenery and / or some of the Pegasus Hobbies "gothic" sets and building some vast Imperial Cathedral for our Sisters of Battle. Most often, people build ruined structures - they are easier (the kits come with a lot of ruined sections, and you need fewer pieces) and they are more suitable for gaming on (you can reach inside to place models).

But I didn't want to do that - I wanted to build an intact Imperial Cathedral. Something like the vast structures we see in the artwork.

Of course, something that large would be impossible and impractical. But a large scenery centerpiece would be doable. And, rather than let the idea languish in my head, I resolved to put it into action! Some initial thoughts;

• The Pegasus terrain is inexpensive, sturdy and quite suitable for Warhammer 40K. I would use that for the majority of it.
• The Cathedral would be the central chapel of my Order of Sisters, the Order of Our Crystal Lady. This is a small Order (a couple of hundred Sisters) and so a smaller building (in relative terms) would be suitable.
• As Catholic Churches are cruciform, so should this have the ][ shape of the Ecclesiarchy symbol, with a circular center section topped by a skull.
• I would make the piece as modular as possible, for ease of storage and display.
• So far as possible, I would build the whole thing out of plastics that could be joined with plastic cements, rather than trying to mix materials and glues.

With all that in mind, I placed an order for a whole mess of the Pegasus kits (2 of each of the non-ruined sets) as well as the Shrine of Aquila GW piece to use for the facade. I also ordered some sheets of 3mm expanded PVC. This is a plasticard alternative, but is less expensive and easier to cut. The problems with it are that it does not glue with regular polycement and is a bit flimsier. I also ordered some length of 75mm square PVC tube, to serve as large columns.

When the Pegasus kits arrived, I was very pleased indeed with them - they are sturdy with minimal flash and fit together very well. They lack the detail of a GW piece, but for terrain this is just fine. I clipped them off their sprues (really, it is clipping small nubs of sprue off the pieces) and used regular polycement to assemble the individual sections

I took some measurements and drew out a floorplan on one of the sheets of PVC, laying some of the pieces down so I could get an idea of how it might look.

Rhino for scale.

It all seemed to fit nicely, and so I decided to go ahead and glue some stuff down to the PVC base. To glue the dissimilar plastics together, I used some special plumbing cement.

This stuff smells, gives you a headache, is gloopy as all hell and comes with a brush like a cotton ball on a stick. I wouldn't want to assemble models with it! However, for gluing the Pegasus stuff to the PVC (and gluing the large Pegasus panels together) it works like a charm.

Only the pieces at the front are glued down in this photo

As you can see, I have cut the base board up in order to make the final piece easier to store and display. Individual pieces will be able to be used as smaller buildings or display backdrops.

So, that is the initial post on this project. Future posts will focus on individual elements of the build, as well as background and design details.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Danforth Laertes =][=