Gangs of Rome - Book Dealer

This is the tenth building I have completed for my Gangs of Rome layout, a book dealer, and the kit is again another of Sarrisa's Lower Rank Insula Corner.

Roman "books" were not our modern idea of a book of course, but scrolls or "book rolls". I stupidly decided to make my scrolls by hand, when I could have just 3D printed them. That's about two hours of my life I won't get back! They probably do look a bit more authentic although because I used the pirate-map coffee staining method on them.

Apparently exteriors of bookshops were plastered with advertisements and choice quotes from the titles in stock. Martial once told a friend not to bother going in, since you could “read all the poets” on the door posts. 

I've been wanting to add some greenery to my builds for some time and this time I included a trestle and climbing plant. On the blank wall of the building I made a small street shrine, likely to Jupiter.

 

 

 

 

Gangs of Rome - House of the Pomegranate

The next Gangs of Rome building is this nondescript property known locally as the House of the Pomegranate, an upscale lupanar, or brothel. My inspiration for this was from the scene when Titus Pullo takes Octavian to the brothel in HBO's Rome. The House of the Pomegranate is one of Sarissa's Semi-Detached Small with Flat Roof kits and it was a nice change to not have do add any pan-tiles to this one. At a later time I may detail the open roof area with some couches and plants.

The front room of the lupanar has a large wall mosaic of Venus. Roman brothels are well documented for their highly "descriptive" wall murals but I need to keep this pretty tame as the table will be displayed to the public and players may include kids. I also used a rug that was simply printed and cut out from normal printer paper.

 

 

Gangs of Rome - Wine Shop

This is the third wine shop (thermopolium) I have done for my GoR table. As I've stated before, these types of tabernae would have been as prevalent as they are in a modern city. I could imagine citizens having their favourite places to drink or eat on every street, so I think there would be an abundance of thermopolia. Common Romans had no means of cooking in their own home and so relied on places like this on a daily basis.

 The building I used for the thermopolium is another of Sarissa's Lower Rank Insula Corner kits.I like these particular kits because you can do something interesting with the bare wall around the corner from the shop front. I did some "renovations" on this build by making a second opening to the wine shop by simply dremmelling out a hole on the blank wall. I also added a drinking fountain on the corner's gutter out of blue foam and some beads. I had to prove to myself that I still have some scratchbuilding skills with all this MDF I've been working with. I filled the fountain with some clear resin after making sure the basin was watertight.

I'm not sure about the bull mosaic and so have made it removable. The last image shows the wine shop without the mosaic and I'd like to hear what people think of it.

 

Gangs of Rome - Workshops

This time around, instead of doing a single Gangs of Rome building or two at a time, I have constructed a group of buildings, and have done the roofing and sidewalks together in a batch, in an attempt to cut down on time. I will then detail the buildings singularly or in pairs, as this is proving the most time consuming part of the project.

The next building I have fully completed is Sarissa's Workshops. This is one of the few single storey buildings in the entire Streets of Rome range and has a footprint similar to the ranks of shops. I chose to make the workshops a metalsmith and carpenter, but also considered other trades like a leatherworker, mason or tilemaker. There is a small shrine to Vulcan above the forge that I will try to fit a tiny statue into at a later date.

 

 

Gangs of Rome - Butcher and Warehouse

I was delighted to receive a large box of goodies courtesy of Sarissa Precision and Footsore Miniatures earlier this week for my Gangs of Rome project. After spending quite some time going through the stack of mdf kits (and vowing never to undertake a project of this size again) I got stuck right in.

The first building I started on with was the Lower Rank Insula Corner. I decided to make this a butcher shop as I have planned to do this for ages based off some images I had Googled. The poor ate very little meat, so this would likely be a mid rank store in the scheme of things. Arranging all the hanging meat was pretty challenging but I am very happy with the results. I was planning to put a small shrine on the blank wall around the corner but opted to make it a small pottery stall instead. I will save the inbuilt shrine idea for a later build.

The majority of the accessories for the butcher were kindly donated by Key Capas, a very talented 3D sculptor whose style is very realistic and mostly historically based. Please visit her shop on MyMiniFactory to see the great range of models she has available. I believe the butcher STLs will be available through her shop very soon.

 

 

  

The second build I completed was a Warehouse Block. This a pretty imposing building measuring nearly 30cm wide and will take up a good amount of space on the table. Applying the fridge liner roof tiles to this kit was a bit of a challenge as it is the largest roof area I have tackled this far - but I have only myself to blame there. I really like how the doors open on this kit and the mechanics of it are really well done. One set of the doors pass straight through the warehouse, allowing it to be a thoroughfare of sorts. I haven't detailed the warehouse with accessories as I have a lot of scatter that can be placed in and around it quite easily.