The Observatory

This piece was made by my husband and is a process piece meaning when it was made it was made in two parts, 1 the lower tower and 2 the upper dome. After completing the bottom, we needed to find something that was suitable as a top, with a little tweaking in size we ended up using the top part of a model from printable scenery.

The piece could easily also be used as the top piece placed onto a castle wall or even a castle model.

Being all individual pieces of resin, I find that it is very fragile when it comes to drops and bumps, another reason we switched to FDM printing.

The Observatory has been made using easy cast resin from Barnes Products to create the tower. The resin molds are from Hirst Arts. www.hirstsarts.com . The roof and door have been printed on our Ender 3 using eSUN PLA+ Filament plastic. The roof is from the Kickstarter Dwarves, Elves and Demons by Printable Scenery. www.printablescenery.com

The staircase can be removed from the centre with a little struggle as it is a tight fit, we tend to just keep it all attached.

I painted the Observatory in September of 2019 using the Monte Morte paint range and Citadel lead belcher.

This piece has been primed with vehicle primer filler to cover some of the 3D prints layer lines then under coated in flat black. For the wood I have dry brushed in Monte Morte burnt sienna and then dry brushed with yellow ochre. The roof has been painted with Monte Morte Phthalo blue, then dry brushed with Monte Morte Cobalt blue. For the stone I dry brushed with Monte Morte paynes grey first then made a mix of two parts grey and one-part white, dry brushed with this then again made a mix of two parts grey and two parts white and again dry brushed. After that I dry brushed with the Monte Morte titanium white to finish the stone look. The silver is a mix of Monte Morte silver and lamp black on the door, for the reverts and roof I used citadel lead belcher.

We made the Observatory to be used in games of Frostgrave and DnD and are looking into how to incorporate ways to light up the inside of all the buildings. I still need to do all the weathering and foliage on every piece.