Review: Gripping Beast Houses and Hovels

Something different from Gripping Beast this month. that's right - they don't just make figures!
Here are four buildings from their resin range.... all can be used on your Saga Wargame Table.

BUL3 Medium Wattle & Timber dwelling.

BUL5 Stone & Thatch outbuilding.

BUL6 'A' Frame building.

BUL7 Small Thatched outbuilding.

Read on for more....

Four Houses and Hovels from the Gripping Beast Resin range...

As they came from Gripping Beast...

These are all single piece castings with no bases. You can lift them up and put figures underneath if you need to.

All buildings were under-coated with white spray primer then painted inside with a thinned black acrylic and outside with various Vallejo Game Color paints.

Simple black wash was used on the stone effect and dry brushing was used on all the surfaces to give some depth.

As an experiment I decided to use Army Painter 'dip' (Dark Tone) to protect and add more depth.

The buildings were coated with Army Painter anti-shine matt varnish to tone down the glossy look of the dip.

One point to note - be very sparing when you paint on 'dip' - where it can't run off such as the apex of a roof, it can sit and go hard and hide the detail. This happened a bit on the top of the 'A' frame building(!) You need to put very little on the model surfaces or it will sit or run and in both cases can well up at certain places (rooftops and base of the model!)

BUL3 Medium Wattle & Timber dwelling

I really liked the contrast of wood, wattle and daub and the thatch roof. The end effect is quite pleasing. The building was sturdy resin yet still quite light. No finishing was needed other than a little filing around the inner door frame. Painting was straightforward with a little more dry-brusing of the wattle and daub effect in a slightly different colour to the wood.

and painted...

BUL5 Stone & Thatch outbuilding

The grey stone walls would really make this building stand out. Similar construction to the first building - nice and sturdy. Again a little clean-up with a file was needed on the inside of the doorway. Other than that, it was a joy to paint with lighter shades of grey for successive dry-brushes on the walls.

and painted...

BUL6 'A' Frame building

Another sturdy hard resin piece. The shape, wood-effect ends and a stippled effect roof make this a more unusual building. There is a single doorway at the front that needed a little filing down to even off the resin where the doorway had been. Other than that it is very easy to paint.

and painted...

BUL7 Small Thatched outbuilding 

This is a very small little outbuilding but still looks very good. Lots of detail - you can see what look to be sunken nail heads or possibly dowel jointing in the timbers. Lovely. This house being small was very solid. The doorway cam intact (thin resin) so I left it and painted it black. You could model a doorway or even a drape as the entrance. No cleanup on this little building! Straight to undercoating.

and painted...

There you have it, four great buildings that look really good on the wargame table.

Many thanks to Gripping Beast for supplying these models for review.

--Mike.