A true work of art and, trying to see what's on the shelves in that room there's work for many years to come !

Gotta love the skeleton boogie, shake rattle & roll. But most of all this is masterful building & it even looks like its scale-tonnage especially in those upward-looking views. 1/35 bats maybe?

Great work looking forward to seeing it finished

Nice job buddy. That is a ton of work there man. I wish I had more to show for my time.
One of these days I will have to give that cork stuff a try.
J

JGphins , thanks man , your comments mean a lot especially coming from a brother who I know loves architecture as much as I do !!!

Maarten thanks for the cell dude , very cool jaw dropper .

Dave , thanks man , nope no cemetary etc. I guess I have not given the impression with the build so far that this is the upper , maybe 1/3rd of the building .

Hans , thanks man , yep I'm good for the rest of my life on kits etc. , but I'm still buying more !!!

Tim , thanks man , bats would be so cool , I'll have to work on that , any bat kits out there , I think if anybody had one it might be Plusmodels .

Jerry , thanks man , there isn't a speck of cork on the build , everything is cast plaster , check out dioramadebris.com , no affiliation just an extremely happy customer . Their products have a million uses when it comes to architecture , the mind's the limit .

I made a bush league attempt at a background and the mold is forest green with a very vivid green as highlights . This was done so when the next floor is on the mold area will be in shadow so I had to brighten it up . You can see this in the last couple of pics with the next floor on . The figure is an antique Coree one early - mid 90's I believe .

Thanks for sharing your work.
This is an impressive undertaking. Keep it up!
/Stefan

Cheyenne many thanks for the clarification, my bad. You already have an outstanding dio in the making here. I like the idea of a sniper scanning for targets using a background foto for depth perception.

I can't believe that's not cork, and very nice weathering treatment on the columns - mad skills bro!

Sincerely
Dave

hey Cheyenne! this is a real masterpiece!
i like the floor very much did you paint it? very convincing ‘cotto’ effect!
may i suggest you to attach a rope to the bell’s clapper as seen on picture 1 for the priest to sound it.
i saw in Greece that it runs outside the belfry (so I guess that it is so also in other ortodox churches such as in russia or ucraina).
cant’t wait to see what’s next!
ciao
edo

Barry Price , thanks man , forgot to mention that from my last post .

Stef , thanks man much appreciated .

Dave , no sweat man , I think I'll 86 the dormer and add some roof tops on the bottom , maybe that'll give it the impression that it's the top of a church . The dormer piece looks like the window tops are small doors . This is getting to be a visual problem , kinda like trying to pick up a turd on the clean end .

Edo , thanks man glad you like it .
The floor was made by placing wood tile bits from Michaels craft store , then I wiped a thin ragged coat of wall mud/plaster .
Next I stained it with golden oak wood stain , added some more plaster on spots , removed some in others , sanded then restained .
Next I gave it a wash of nutmeg brown acrylic , rubbed some cigarette ash and plaster dust into it and ..... done .

Oops almost forgot , there will be lots more bells and yes ropes on the clappers , I'm just not there yet , but I am getting there .

I made the "cork mistake" as well. My bad. Really looks like cork. The point is,this looks cool,and that is all that matters,
J

So so cool Cheyenne - mesmerizing. Great backdrop thru the arches too, you’d only need to tint it faintly with some colored pencils & it’s done - although presumably that’s not going to be the final background…? Ace weathering – maybe the bare bricks now look a bit clean by comparison, wouldn’t there be some fragmentary patches of stucco hanging on in places…or maybe I’m being previous?

Hi Cheyenne - I really admire your patience with all of the casting of plaster - the result is great! Thanks for the update!

Cheers
Nick

Hello there Cheyenne, great looking progress my friend. The vision and execution are top notch quality.

Backdrops are visual key elements to promote scale and size. Those elements along with the colors utilized here really work well my friend. As you continue the progression phases of construction and detailing perhaps you can plan out placements of various foreground objects such as trees to capture more depth in visual presentation.

I'm sure you have all those visual effects planned out on your to-do-list for later but just a thought that instantly came to mind.

Excellent architectural techniques on display here. Thank you sir for sharing!

JGphins

Thanks Jerry , yeah a lot of people think it's cork . Just plain old Dap dry mix patch plaster .

Thanks Tim , and slow down son I'm gettin old and yes random patches of stucco will be added , I probably was thinking of that the same time you posted , does look a little to neat for decaying wall stucco .

Nick , thanks man I'm really digging working with dry mix plaster .
Create your form and chip and fashion
away , don't like what you did take some wet wall mud/plaster and fill it in and do a re-do .

JG , thanks man I just printed up a b/w ref pic so everyone didn't have to look at my bench all the time . Creating a backdrop is miles away right now but I am thinking on it .
I like your treetop suggestion , that'll work , gotta store that in the back of my melon for now though , still lots of building and casting to do .

Went back to the first concept with double arches on the lower gallery , I'll be casting half round tiles for months , the mold I have only casts 9 at a clip .

Lot and lots of great progress here and of course a welcome interruption in the tumbleweeds blowing through the forum.
J

Nice looking scratchbuild. You've captured the weight of it (if that makes sense), it looks heavy and solid. Keep the pics coming.

I agree with Jerry. ... Cheyenne, your work is extremely refreshing to this forum — pushes all “tumbleweeds” aside!

—mike

Magnificent construction & great shots looking up into it. Don’t forget the safety harness for the tiling, it looks a long way down

great update as always!
i was wondering if you are going to keep the small entrance I saw inthe first picures of this wonderful build.
i ask because the roof tiles are different, and may be you would consider to update those to what you are doing now...
ciao
edo

Thanks Jerry , tumble weeds eh , maybe we're on " double secret probation , whatever that is " .



Paul thanks man , it actually is very heavy it's all solid plaster , had to use Locktite to adhere the arches to the columns and then reinforce the tops with basswood so I could pick it up as one piece .

Mike thanks man !!!

Tim thanks man , don't need a harness , Hogwarts school of roofing .

Edoardo thanks man , no small entrance , it was actually meant to be the top of a dormer , everyone thought it was a entrance .
That was a blunder on my part as to not make it look as such .
JGphins had the solution though which I am grateful for , .... tree tops to give it that top third of a building look .

Awesome work! It looks like it could be in Europe but I'm not so sure about Russia. I picture it in an Italian mountain village.

Thanks Chris , the original ref pic is of a Russian church .
Early on in the build I was undecided as to where and what type of architecture this would develop into .
I liked the arch idea in the ref pic and just went from there .
I had decided on an Italian scene after adding the fancy scrolly embellishments so mission accomplished with you thinking Italian .
With the half round terra cotta tiles it can kinda be pretty much be only Italian .

Far from nearly done but I wanted to do a small update cause this is gonna take a while .
The different absorbing rate of the plaster makes one coat of craft store terra cotta color paint a done deal .
No need to work at darks and lights to get that terra cotta color meld .
Still needs the rest of this sides tiles and a wash and she'll be good to go .