Market Day

Saturday is market day in Oasis el Khazi and the locals come to town to sell their wares. This attracts visitors both foreign and domestic with cash to spend on stuff they need. Throughout the day people make business transactions and avoid paying, if possible, local taxes. This is well nigh impossible but they still try. Just business, nothing personal.

 Wide shot of the market

The first picture is a wide angle view of the market building and surrounding stalls. It's still early and not yet choc-a-bloc. From left to right we can see:

• The Police Pavilion. They keep a watchful eye upon trading from here. It is also where market traders pay their rents and taxes.
• Market stalls of various types with the Market Hall in the background.
• A film crew
• Police station. If anyone fails to pay the standard charges they will be taken here for a one-way interview on personal motivation. Possibly involving some percussive adjustment of attitude.

In the second shot we can see some of the products and people. Spices, fruit and vegetables. And a chicken. You may recognise the two ladies haggling for the chicken. (I also found out I can't paint chickens. Feathers are hard)

The third shot shows a frank exchange of views taking place between a bearded gentleman and a market trader. My guess is he wants one of those fine brass pots at a good price. The pistol and the onlooking police officer ensures fair trading for all. Off to the left we can see a trader trying to flog some cloth to an unconvinced woman. Who is that lurking in the background?

 

The final picture is along the front of the market. 

All of the market stuff I scratch-built from odds and ends. 

• The cloth is paper which I painted with white glue; allowed to dry; painted; dried; loosely rolled. 
• The brass pots are all gold coloured beads and sequins.
• The spices are in those square size things you get on hangers in clothes shops. I painted them to resemble wooden crates and then inserted some pieces of white glue covered brown paper in to get a heavy cloth look.
• The spices themselves are pieces of thick card bent into a V-shape and then coated with white glue and sand. Once dry they were painted and then glued in place.
• The fruit and vegetables are all beads. Painted with a white glue and colour mix.
• The large pottery vessels are wooden beads with a smaller plate-shaped sequin glued on top. Painted a pottery brown and with coloured beads glued on top.
• The little truck with the barrel is scratch-built apart from the wheels (off a 1/72 scale A/T gun) and the barrel (Renedra).
• The Police Pavilion is entirely scratch-built. The columns were cut from balsa pole and the roof is a framework of coffee stirrers. The wooden sections were fixed together with white glue. I strengthened all the joins with dressmakers pins in pre-drilled holes. The cloth cover is a piece of striped cotton cut to size and glued in place. I made sure that the uprights were high enough for figures to pass underneath without any bother. For such a simple construction it does look very sinister.
• The figures are a mix of Copplestone, Bob Murch and Eureka.

 Updates as they happen, chumrades!