Greek/Cretan Church - finished article

I've spent about another hour finishing off the application of the wall filler and painting this church for a Greek/Crete themed terrain board. I started it last Sunday and only got around to finishing it off today. It is based on this source photo.

After applying all the wall filler and leaving it for 20 minutes to dry, I painted it all over with a pale pink-ish beige tester pot from B&Q. It was called Warm Beige, but it must be at least 5 years old, so I doubt very much that they still stock it. I bought some other tester pots this week and all the colours seem to be named after places now (Galway, Chueca, Andulusia, Greenhills etc).

The exposed stonework was painted with a darker beige colour and I painted the deep recesses around the door and windows with a diluted black to force a shadow.

Once the base coat had dried, I cut up a piece of the foam that comes in packets of miniature figures and used this to lightly dab on a much lighter colour. I don't know if you can really see the difference on the photos, but this is what it looks like with the lighter colour dabbed on.

After that, I used another piece of sponge and started to dab on a cocoa brown colour to apply the staining and weathering effect on the render. This is the stage that took the most time; don't apply too much paint to the sponge otherwise you will end up with blobs of paint on the model rather than lots of tiny dots. It takes a bit of time but the effort creates the right effect.

Following the brown, I used the same bit of sponge and lightly applied some dark grey to only the top parts of the walls and the roof. Some really well-diluted paint (alternating between the brown and the grey) was painted on certain parts to create a more uneven weathered look.

This is what the (almost) finished article looks like. I'm just awaiting delivery of a Lindt chocolate reindeer, which comes with a little bell, which looks to be just the right size to hang in the bell tower. Assuming it is the right size, then I'll paint it and affix it in place and probably also attach the bell rope down the front of the building like in the original photo.  I decided not to paint the brick archway and bright yellow mortar because even though it is real (IRL!), it doesn't look very real!

The final bit of detailing that I did was to paint the door and appropriately weather it.

I think that I might make a circular stone seat, with an olive tree to provide some shade, to position outside the church.

UPDATE 21/12/20: The bells, the bells...

My Lindt chocolate reindeer arrived, so I took the bell from around its neck and mounted it in the bell tower and then gave it a coat of appropriately weathered paint.

It is now battlefield ready. ;-)