28mm Normandy buildings

[14th Brooklyn]

After the proliferation of SciFi posts lately, here is some historical fare once more. 28mm buildings for Normandy:

http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/2014/09/27/normandy-houses/

The base models are MDF by Timeline Miniatures (link provided in the blog post) before anyone asks.

Enjoy,

Burkhard

Visit my blog at http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/

[Steve Johnson]

They look very nice.

[14th Brooklyn]

THX Steve!

Visit my blog at http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/

[Derek H]

Looks good.

 

But if you want an authentic Normandy look you should paint the shutters a very pale grey (almost white) .  If you look at historic black and white pictures they’re almost always very pale, consistent with the pale grey colour that’s still used on the shutters of over 90% of the buildings there today.  Those that aren’t pale grey are usually brown or green.  Other colours are very rare indeed.

Shops and cafes are much more likely to have coloured shutters than houses.

If you look at this album of Normandy housepictures you can see there that they use a rather limited palate of colours on their houses.

https://plus.google.com/photos/116351605796897365226/albums/5925372001542530833

This is typical

[Steve Johnson]

I prefer the coloured shutters (call it artistic licence) as it makes the buildings stand out more on the table. If they were grey/white as you point out, I think they would look a bit too dull.  Just my two penneth.

[14th Brooklyn]

I was between a rock and a hard place on these. As you say, I knew most shutters and the like on houses in Normandy were and indeed still are very light coloured. But as Steve pointed out, this would have looked too bleak in those scale. So I took the artistic license, to go for different colours. But still it is a dark but non bright green on two of them and a faded blue on the other. Maybe this is some hamlet where the people were more extravagant! ;-!

Visit my blog at http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/

[Derek H]

Interesting.  You go out and buy some new buildings because the ones you’ve already got don’t look like they’re from Normandy.  Then you paint the new ones so that they don’t look like they’re from Normandy either.

Whatever floats your boat I guess, and they still look good – in a not-Norman kind of way.

 

 

[14th Brooklyn]

Derek, is this not a bit harsh?

 

For one, I went and got me these since I had too few buildings for Normandy, not because they do not look like they are from Normandy.

And looking at your original post, you yourself said, that green shutters were not out of the norm for Normandy. Photos #71 from your selection actually shows one with green shutters (almost the same shade) and brownish doors (also the same shade as the doors on my houses). So we are talking one house with faded blue shutters. Can anyone prove that there were no houses with blue shutters in Normandy at all! That makes them all look wrong for Normandy?

Visit my blog at http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/

[Mick A]

Well I like what you’ve done with them 🙂 I think its wrong to say that they don’t look like they’re from Normandy just because some shutters are blue, it’s like saying all cottages in the south west should be white which, believe me, they aren’t.

[Derek H]

If those are the standards you want to apply you might as well call those models “Cornwall cottages”, “Frankfurt farmhouses” or “Bâtiments Belges”.  It would be every bit as accurate.  And if challenged you could demand that  people prove there are no houses that look like that in Cornwall, Frankfurt or Belgium.

They’re nicely done generic bits of scenery, but there’s nothing about them that says “Normandy”, except the title of this posting.

I have this strange idea that if you label something as “Norman” it should  look like something typically found in Normandy.   Perhaps I’m old fashioned.

[Mick A]

Derek, can I suggest you google ‘Normandy Houses’ then click on images? There are three within the first twenty pictures with blue shutters and doors as well as plenty of other bright colours…

[Derek H]

What a spendidly atypical selection that Google search brings up.  Houses from an album entittiled “colourful Normandy houses” and lots of the Columbage (half timbered) houses that are actually quite rare.  DPhotos on the web are not typical, they are often there because they are exceptional.   o a similar Google search for the “area you come from” and “houses” and see just how typical the results are.   If I were to believe Google Images then I live  in an unrecognisable  town full of large stone villas and mansions.

My own album, the one I refer to above, comes from me putting together a resource which would be useful for me making wargames scenery.    It is partly my response to the inadequacies of Google image searches and it is compiled it  from photographs taken during extensive holidays spent in Normandy looking at things from a wargamers perspective.  I have made an honest attempt to put together a set of pictures showing what is typical of the region where the fighting occured in 1944.  Though some of the pictures are  in there because they’re interesting by being a bit  different from the norm and some of the types of houses pictured in there  are only found in specific places.

I share the album online in the hope that it will be useful to people wanting to put together authentic looking Normandy scenery.

But of course wargamers aren’t  modelling Normandy today, they’re modelling Normandy in 1944 and  I’ve also looked through many hundreds of pictures taken in Normandy during the fighting, most of which are in black and white.   What I found there is completely compatible with what’s found today, most of the shutters look to have been painted a very pale grey in 1944 as well.

If you prioritise other factors above accuracy and realism, then that’s fine.  Paint your “Normandy houses” any colours you like and justify your selection any way you like.  14th Brooklyn says he prefers colourful houses to realistic  houses and I can understand that.

But if you really care about accuracy and realism and want to use model buildings that could be seen as typical of those found in the region you’ll paint your “Norman houses”  with pale grey shutters.

 

 

[Mick A]

My point is that you are wrong saying that no one would paint their shutters and doors blue, there is photographic evidence that some people did. Even if it was only those four houses in the whole of Normandy it justifies 14th Brooklyn painting one of his houses in that way… Your photos are a great reference, and thanks for sharing it, but I think you’d agree that they don’t represent every house in Normandy.

[Derek H]

If you don’t want adjectives to have any real meaning then why bother to use the things?

 

 

 

[Mick A]

I take it as you have now switched to having a go about my wording that you agree I was right about 14th Brooklyn having blue doors and shutters? 😉

[Derek H]

You’re right in that they could exist in Normandy.  But they’re not typical and I see no reason to describe them as “Norman”.

Using your logic I’m going to use this as the basis for an African hut.

 

 

[Mick A]

It would be a bit cramped, but with a bit of straw on the top and around the sides it may make a nice domicile for Pygmies or a multi storey hut for 15mm… 😉

[14th Brooklyn]

Mick,

I am having trouble reading your PM. Would you be so kind… there is a contact field near the top of the right navbar on my blog. THX,

 

Burkhard

P.S.: I am withdrawing from this discussion. Without meaning any offense Derek, but I think you are a victim of being too strict in your interpretation here. By your logic someone doing a diorama of Paris that contains an Eifel Tower does not depict Paris either. After all there are millions of buildings in Paris that do not look anything like a steel spire, only one. So by your logic, since it is not common it is wrong to depict it as Paris building.

And to be honest… I hate it when someone says that I said something I did not. You have twisted my words twice to give me a motive I did not have. I see no reason in trying to argue when someone does that!

Visit my blog at http://dhcwargamesblog.wordpress.com/

[Derek H]

The Eifel tower is iconic, it does the job of depicting Paris rather well from that point of view.  Pegasus Bridge would do a similar job for Normandy.

If you were going to wargame  the actions of the resistance during the liberation of Pauis you’d probably be better off building some models depicting a typical street than building a model of the Eifel Tower.   Then that might be useful for a specific scenario.

[Mike]

Let us agree that they could be found in Normandy, whilst not common place.
Let us also agree they look pretty.
Let us also agree that anyone can use anything for their interpretation of a given thing.
Also let us respect that Derek has spent a great deal of time and effort into making a nice accurate database of said buildings.

But most of all, let us be happy that people with whom we share this hobby enjoy it too.
Be it for the same or for different reasons.

[Steve Johnson]

Well said Michael.

[Author]

Posts