BG Whipple's Headquarters

This is the side that faces the aisle. The blank wall next to the door is curious.

View of the back wall without weathering of the roof. The symmetrical facade
is actually more pleasing than the front.

 I am just about done with the Belle Air house. Adding the shingles can be tedious, but this building wasn't too bad. I used laser cut red cedar shingles that I made. They had self adhesive backing, so they are easy to apply neatly.

I decided to leave the door shut as it was very hard to see the interior and  the door has some nice detail too. Any  detail inside would be largely invisible. Too many other projects to do to spend time on that.

Orthorectified photo - note the peeling paint on the siding and the
gap in the siding to the left of the door.

One detail that I missed is a gap in the siding between the door and the blank wall. In the prototype photo one can see that the siding is slightly different and that a seam is visible. It appears that this part of the house is an extension or was remodeled.  I experimented with trying to cut a slot in a test piece of siding with various techniques to see if I could replicate the look without a complete tear out, but nothing looked convincing. So I decided to leave the model alone. Maybe some paint and chalk dust can convey the look. We'll see. 

You'll note that the borders of this prototype photo look odd. That is because I used the perspective warp feature of Photoshop to help orthorectify the structure. This is a relatively new feature of Photoshop that helps automate rectifying buildings that have been distorted by perspective when the image was taken.  It's not a true orthophoto as the side walls are still in some perspective, but the front wall is now flat, square, and in relative scale. 

General Whipple

 This house will be the HQ of BG Whipple. He had an interesting career, as a military engineer he did a lot of mapping of the western territories before the war. He was the commander of the newly formed balloon reconnaissance corps early in the war.  He had just assumed command of a division in III Corps and participated  in the Battle of Fredericksburg.  Unfortunately, he was killed a few weeks later at the Battle of Chancellorsville. So his name remains relatively unknown. But he received an official state funeral that President Lincoln attended.  He was a friend of Lincoln. 

 A balloon camp near Falmouth is on my do list.

The next step is to finish the terrain forming so the house has a place to sit. I can also start covering up  the hill with plaster cloth and paper soaked in Durhams water putty. Then on to rock carving.