"4Ground Colonial Australia Buildings" Topic

Apparently in the pipeline; release date unknown.

Maybe it's tied into the release of Dead Man's Hand Down Under.

I heard a rumor about this too straight from the horses mouth. No real timetable is my understanding, but you may want to hold off on labor-intensive scratchbuilding for lack of anything appropriate.

What makes an Australian building of this era different? I'm not familiar with this at all – is it type of window, roof, siding?

What scale of buildings might they be making, and as Ivor stated, what makes an Australian colonial building different? What period might this be? Good enough for Ned Kelly and/or the Eureka Stockade? Oh, how I miss Cannon Fodder Miniatures! The owner made a Ned Kelly and was going to make figures for the Eureka Stockade as well IIRC.

Different to what? Every country has its own distinctive architectural style, dependent on culture, climate and available materials. If you want to know what colonial Australian buildings looked like why not do some googling for images of period structures.

I'm sure that without DMHDU this range wouldn't be happening, but as Ned Kelly famously said, 'let's be thankful for small Murphies… begorrah.' So obviously they'll be in 28mm.

I would be very surprised if the range doesn't include a certain public house that's featured prominently in more than one movie, and other celluloid-inspired models. If you re-watch the movies the existing DMHDU figures are derived from you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect (it shouldn't take long; there aren't many of them). Generally speaking, the sets in 'The Proposition' owe more to westerns than the real Down Under, so I hope they avoid replicating them.

If the range extends to models not based on movie sets I'd hope at least for a rough bush squatter's frontier/selector's bush hut (vertical slab walls and bark roof weighed down with log lattice).

What I will say is that, if the range includes more sophisticated brick buildings common in small rural towns (of the type bushrangers liked to raid)in more settled districts, which were constructed in the general British colonial style, they would also do for other parts of the empire – so South Africa, and perhaps even India. It was this architectural homogeneity (along with a good veldt-like location) that allowed the producers of the film 'Breaker Morant' to make the film in South Australia.

Greg Blake was involved in a recent reenactment of Eureka Stockade in NSW. As well as being the former Mr Cannon Fodder he's the Author of 'To Pierce the Tyrant's Heart/Eureka Stockade: a Fierce and Bloody Battle'. He gave a lecture on the battle at the event.

My friend Dr Nic also participated, and had a chance to talk to him, but didn't mention anything about Greg hinting at a return to sculpting. He seems to be more focussed on writing and reenactment these days.

Not all is that different depending on location and period. I think that 19th Century Middle Eastern buildings (village type), look a lot like Mexican buildings of the same period. So, why are these different than other colonial buildings on the market, other than perhaps a specific and infamous building.

I could google, but without knowing what period this might entail, that then would be a futile effort. So, if someone wants to answer my basic question of what period these might be for (because different countries have different colonial periods), THAT would be very helpful.

Different from any other 4Ground building to call it "Australian" basically. Thanks though, much appreciated, I'll just Google any questions I may have in the future.

The difference must be the accent they use when groaning in the wind! ; )

The Early Settlers utilized local flora

link

as shelters from local fauna.

link

Google Sovereign Hill, a sort of Ye Olde theme park, for some period colour.

What period does DMH cover?

Yes Mark – an unfortunate architectural experiment. But how were the settlers to know that pineapples were T-Rex's favourite desert?

Australian colonial era architecture is somewhat different from 19th century American. Our architecture was solidly English, and it wasn't until the end of the 1800's that you see stronger continental influences and even then only in the major capitals.
Melbourne probably has the best examples of how Australian urban architecture evolved through the period. Head out bush you'll find as noted above most differences can be explained away in the context of available materials and the local environment.

I don't think most of us could tell which of these is American, and which is Australian Based on style.

Note the very distinctive decorative filagree wrought iron-work around the edge of the verandah, and the carved support posts. They do look somewhat stylistically dissonant on such an otherwise ramshackle dwelling.

It can heavily depend on what part of Australia you are talking about. A major difference from American 19th C architecture is the reliance on stone. Australia does not possess the tall timber forests that covered so much of North America, providing an abundance of building material. Where timber was available, it was usually difficult to transport, as Australia's rail network was woefully under-developed compared to the US.

Another issue is that there's nothing Australian termites like more than timber houses. In certain areas of the outback, there were accounts of whole buildings being eaten out by them. Hence, local stone was more common, even in relatively temporary structures.

Large return verandas were a big feature of Australian buildings, too, and not just on private homes, but commercial properties and railway stations also.

I guess they'd work for New Zealand Wars in the 1840's?

Darrell.

Just Add Water Blog:
link
Gewalthaufen (Late 15th /Early 16th Century) Blog:
gewalthaufen.blogspot.co.uk
La Journee (Early 15th Century Blog):
link
Shooting Leave (Late Victorian Blog):
allthebrave.blogspot.co.uk

It's often assumed that because the remaining early colonial buildings of Tasmania are mostly built from stone, timber was little used as a construction material, but the documentary evidence tells a different story and paints a similar architectural picture to colonial North America. The wooden buildings simply haven't survived because of the passage of time, bushfires, and other environmental factors.

On the mainland the first dwelling built by a squatter or selector was usually a very basic hut (Aussie for cabin) thrown together from whatever rough timber and bark was at hand in the immediate environment, so a lack of transport infrastructure wasn't an issue. Stone would only be resorted to in desert regions with very few trees. After all, it's a much more time and energy intensive construction material than wood, and when the priority is getting a roof over your head…

Australia did have extensive forest cover, but mostly of a more open type than in the US, known colloquially as 'bush'. It was mainly composed of Eucalypts (gum trees) because that species was ecologically advantaged by Aboriginal fire-farming. It was vigorously cleared by settlers at the first opportunity, and stands of true forest were ruthlessly felled by timber getters (loggers) – hence the apparent lack of forest cover in the present Australian landscape.

If sponsored by Great Escape, I'd imagine they will indeed be famous pseudo-historical structures inspired by cinema. It's also been suggested that a lot of the current 4ground buildings would be "close enough" or perhaps "closer" with corrugated tin roofs which I am planning on taking a stab at using plastic modeler's corrugated tin sheets. That way you can swap out the roofs and maybe some signage and repurpose your current Old West collection depending on the setting. Throw in some kangaroos and native trees, and I'd say you've taken a decent step towards making it look authentic considering that the game is meant to be more Hollywood that historic simulation in any case. Still won't satisfy the purists, but even they can probably use the new buildings to start something more accurate.

And don't forget that the men in the shed at Murray Bridge Trees and Terrain make a variety of excellent local flora species models.