A Friendly Building.

Built:  October 2012

So I got a phone call:  

" Hey can we come over tomorrow and use your gaming table and terrain.. cuz we don't have any ? "

"Sure" says I.

".. if you happened to have a building that would be great too..."

Lacking anything period suitable for their needs...  I said "Sure!".

And so it begins..  dropping everything non-gaming that I was in the middle of, as the Valkyries in the Attic were making too much noise for me to focus on anything else...  I scratch built a building in about 2 hours, without any detailed plans, or even a shopping trip... 

 

A sloppy slightly medieval stylised workshop of some sorts - suitable for a steam punk inventor I suppose.

Removable roof- just lift it off.

Balsa wood framing.
Cork sheet for walls & floor.
Styrene Chimney - from a gardening fan-like thing, for tying tomatoes too. (Dollar Store).
Hinges - from the wooden craft boxes (Dollar Store) that I used in a previous project.

Covered the roof frame with thin Balsa sheet, to give it some firmness.
The Straw Mat is a cheap yoga mat from the Dollar Store (previously used in the failed jungle huts projects).

Turned out ok.  Doors work nicely, the metal hinges are much better then the plastic nylon aircraft hinges I've been using.  The roof looks pretty good.

 With a bit more paint, and some detailing, it will be ok.

Oh look, someone's moved in already, and put the kettle on for tea !

Desert Town - Accessories

Built:  April 2012

The ability to accessorize, is what separates us from the animals....

Balsa wood Merchant stalls.
With replaceable divided table top sections - as this will allow me to use these for a variety of time periods - colonial, VSF, and modern - simply by changing what the merchant is selling - fruits & nuts, ancient books & tomes & elixirs, etc, etc.

 

Bamboo skewers lashed together with thread (liberally coats with white glue, for security), make the sun covers for the stalls.

Cheese cloth, covered in white glue make the aged canvas material.

Still wet (above).  Dry (below)

Revisco tent & barrels (I believe), 28mm.
I found these very light weight, and as I dislike my terrain moving, I added some modelling clay for weight.  However, when the clay dried, it had shrunk, and I had to super glue the clay into position.  They have a nice heft now, and don't feel like hollow plastic items.

The cheap plastic fountain centre came from a Dollar Store Cinderella kit  - which also came with 2 40mm female figures, and a horse drawn coach suitable for 28mm!

A large flat fender washer in the bottom, once again for added weight - with a smaller washer to raise the fountain up that little bit, above some additional glue to make the water in the fountain smooth.  Pink insulation foam, cared into a ring makes the outside of this.

Resin 20mm items here, but close enough for 28mm work.
The resin explosions on the Right hand side I couldn't decided what to do with - as I had no immediate need for  explosions markers.  These got painted red, and used as vegetation for VSF games on Mars.
In the back, a resin African drum, a fireplace, and a 54mm+ Victorian Xmas decoration hand pump (rather out of scale for 28mm, but by itself, it looks ok).
Everything mounted on fender washers, and texture with drywall compound - and soon to be painted to match the table top.

Plastic wishing well, from the Cake Decorating section of the local craft store.

 

Stalls, mounted on fender washers.
In the middle row:  2 plastic Cots, a resin African Oven and large pot...  suitable for Cannibals I suppose.

Desert Town

Built:  March 2012

Having 1 or 2 of these one each recent trip to the Dollar Store over the years, I figured I better start this project, before I ended up with an entire bin of wooden boxes!

I later learned, that these boxes are the cheapest source of Hinges for doors !  2 hinges and a wooden building for $1.25 !

A little Creativity, and a model saw, and presto, a town was born.
The box with one mesh side, became a garage type thing, with large double doubles.
Using the rounded ends of pop sickle sticks in the corners of the rooves, these became the support tabs for keeping the roof on the building.

Dollar Store bird feeder.  These were hard to take apart, had to hammer it some, and cut it some.  They use good glue wherever these are made.  However the wood is soft, so its easy to cut.
Added a disc under the roof, for support to keep it on the side walls, and cut out a door.
I think these make better storage huts, then living spaces - esp with the lack of windows.

FAILURES

Not everything I build works out.
Sometimes the Devil is in the Details.
Sometimes my Imagination exceeds my Ability.

 

These are a variant of boxes from the Dollar Store.  Notably a couple are in the perfect shape of a peaked roof building, one has a curved top, and another is cylindrical for holding a wine bottle.  All great shaping for buildings.

I decided to build some Jungle Huts out of these boxes, and cover them with various materials, to get that bamboo & grass roofed hut feeling.  - a Straw Crafting Mesh, Burlap Bag, Straw Place Mats  (all from the Dollar Store).

After cutting the building (dam that card board material was hard to cut by hand!) (note also the sloped roofs on a few of these with shorter rear walls), and applying the burlap, I noticed a problem.  While I accounted for the the width of the material while soft - once glued, they became rather hard, and difficult to get the roofs back on.  Unacceptable.

These was to be a arabian tower of some sorts.  The dome was a half a styrofoam sphere, and cork sheet was used to make the balcony floor & walls.   Once again, this material was bloody hard to cut, and produced some un-level edges.  The interior steps are reinforced balsa, and wit the sections being removable made the tower very playable for single 28mm figures.  However... when I went to paint it, turns out that the paper is plastic coated, and paint doesn't adhere to it!  Too much wrong with this project, so it went to the Unacceptable pile.

Armoured Cars

Built:  March 2012

Requiring some  pseudo-historical vehicles for my mish-mashed Colonial/VSF forces, i decided to scratch-bash some quick models, using Balsa wood.

The E-V/4 Panzerkraftwagen Ehrhardt fit the bill, so I made a sketch, figured out what balsa wood shapes I could purchase (angled wedge like pieces were very handy for this project - as well as a variable of square & rectangular stock).

Wikipedia: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehrhardt_E-V/4

Landships:
http://www.landships.freeservers.com/erhardtkit.htm 

For the rather fast pace I made these, I was pleased.  They aren't as detailed as I'd like, and cutting perfect angles with soft balsa wood is a challenge - but suitable enough for a wargame, but not a good example of model making.

They are in need of a more detailed paint job, but even just a solid grey colour made them look formidable on the table.

One note:  these had a large crew, and were able to simultaneously fire most of the MGs shown at the same time!

Rusty Car

Built January 2013.

Forgot to take a "before" picture.  Dollar store toy racing SUV.
Wheels, plastic chassis, seats, dashboard, and headlights removed.
Judicious hammering used for that "seriously wrecked" look.
Cork base added.

Painted rusty browns, and a Grey wash over top.
Bushes from the dollar store, standing by to germinate inside it.

Finished model.

Gas Station Accessories

Built January 2013.

Victorian Street Clock - Dollar Store Christmas decoration.
Gas Pumps - 50's style pumps, O scale train models.
Store Counter - irregulars miniature medieval bar counter.
Newspaper Box, Garbage Can, Filing Cabinet & TV - Mega Miniatures.
Tank - resin.
Mail Box - scratch built from balsa and styrene tube.

Sofa & Wardrobe - resin
Pop Machine - Dollar store toy.
Crate & Bottles - rifle crate and wine bottles, resin.
Oil Barrels - dollar store.

Note:  items are based to increase their stability, and weighted when possible as well.

Wheels - from the rusty car scratch build project.
Flat of Coca Cola - O scale train model.

Telephone Poles - 1/4" Styrene tube, balsa cross piece, plastic beads for insulators, with styrene rod through the bead centres and into holes in the balsa for increased strength (the ends have yet to be trimmed in this shot).

Bases painted, and items washed.

Labels added.
Dinoco is the oil company from the Disney/Pixar films: Cars, Toy Story and Wall-E.