Have been working on terrain on and off again for a bit, have now managed to round out two boxes of the Ruined Hamlet
from Warlord Games. Each box contains three identical 'kits' which can make a large and small building, or be combined in to one more aesthetically interesting piece. I was going for quantity over creativity, so managed to get 11 buildings out of the two kits.
First building I assembled (bottom left) I had a larger than building sized base, but quickly worked out that limited how I could use the building (i.e. putting it on a rural themed base meant it would not work on a cobblestone board in a city type game like Mordheim) so from then on I tried to get the bases to more closely fit the buildings themselves, filling any overhang with rubble.
Buildings were assembled and glued directly on to the base. Wooden floorings were made of coffee stirrers, aquarium gravel glued down for rubble/scatter and then the whole building was undercoated. I applied the pant fairly thick in order to texture the walls a little, then once dried sprayed the model with Plastic Soldier's Dirt Brown weathering spray. A quick retouch of the colours here and there and gluing down a garnish of Amy Painter's summer undergrowth and poison ivy and I called them done. Will need a few more walls etc then I should be able to fill out a ruined city.
Next up was a 'proof of concept' half timber scratchbuilt building made from foamcore, balsa and cardboard. Wanted to start with something simple to learn what I was doing before trying anything more elaborate.
End result looked OK for a test piece. Take away points were as follows:
- Need to remember to cut the foamcore at as close to a right angle as possible so that there is a larger surface area in contact when gluing walls etc together.
- It's probably easier to texture the walls prior to undercoating rather than to use paint to texture at the end.
- Needs windows. And detailing.
- Roof tiles look OK but I think the rows on the edges should be made from thicker card to provide more of a sense of depth.
- I need to slow down when painting to avoid overstepping on tho the timber (need to use something with more of a point than what I use for terrain brushes usually).
- Some more practice with greenstuff probably wouldn't hurt either.
- Half the time was spent doing the roof tiles, so should have those cut out in advance and ready to glue down next time.
