City walls and Townhouses

[Theomar Pius]

Ok, I\'ve done a few wip\'s around the web, and figured I would do one here too.
This piece will be part of the village that I\'ve been building.

If you\'ve ever read about medieval villages, it was a fairly common practice to build various buildings, attched to the cities outer wall, mostly out of a need to share that wall, and save on building materials. So I\'m going to attempt something like that, a wall section with townhouses attached. However, I also wanted to build a defensive point on the wall, just to give a bit of character to things.

So this is the first part, the actual wall section, with the turret.
The turret is built from two pieces of 1.5\" foam, and one piece of .5\" foam. The shape of the turret was cut from all three pieces, then glued together as a solid block. Then I carved out the battlements, cut out the basic wall shape, and carved the blocks into the wall.
Next I cut the wall section out of one piece of .5\" foam. Basically did this the same way, cut out the shape of the wall, then carved the blocks.
Finally I added a stair section, made from 3 and a half sections of .5\" foam. I cut the steps from the base, then work my way up from there. Texture is added to the walls by pressing a jagged rock into the foam.

Next step, adding the foundations of the townhouses.

 

[DaN]

Coincidental timing?
Now this is the bit I\'m interested in;

... then carved the blocks.

Are you simply pressing into the foam with a Biro to draw the shapes?

 

[freakinacage]

good stuff!

 

[Theomar Pius]

Originally posted by DaN
Coincidental timing?
Now this is the bit I\'m interested in;

... then carved the blocks.

Are you simply pressing into the foam with a Biro to draw the shapes?

Well, it depends.
On virgin, uncut foam, I cut the blocks with a sharp xacto, and then upen up the cuts with a dull pencil.
On the turret, which is all softer, cut foam, I use and ink pen to do both at once.
There is a tradeoff. Knife and pencil always looks better, but xacto blades aren\'t free, and I\'ve been cutting a LOT of foam lately.
A lot of the foamwork on the inside of this wall won\'t be seen, so I took the risk of shortcuts. The good part about working this foam is, it\'s hard to screw it up, easy to fix if you do.

 

[Theomar Pius]

The next step is finished up here. I made the foundation for one of the two townhouses. Basically what I do is pick a relatively square shape, and make it using many odd angles so that it\'s no longer square. When I build the upper levels, they will be larger than the base, which was common in medieval times.
One of the windows is from the old mordheim box, the other is a buckle from the scrapbooking store.
I\'m not planning on a detailed interior, so instead I paint the interior black, which will obscure any detail. That is also pretty consistant with reality, since most windows appear black unless lit from inside.
I also save the piece cut from the doorway, it will be detailed as the door, and glued back in place recessed.

 

[Manus]

Very nice to see how you do it, saved for future reference - cheers

 

[krom1415]

Looking great pius, cant wait to see this one finished

 

[mattrock]

I\'m so pumped to see you do a WIP!

Terrain is an area I\'ve not delved very far into, primarily because I just don\'t know where to start. It\'ll be nice to learn from the best!

You mentioned you have other WIPs out there. Can you post links? I\'d really like to see the realization of some of your work.

 

[Theomar Pius]

Originally posted by mattrock
I\'m so pumped to see you do a WIP!

Terrain is an area I\'ve not delved very far into, primarily because I just don\'t know where to start. It\'ll be nice to learn from the best!

You mentioned you have other WIPs out there. Can you post links? I\'d really like to see the realization of some of your work.

I don\'t see why not.

Blacksmith
http://www.customhobbyforum.com/index.php?topic=1185.0

Regal Beagle (this one is funny, because I started over halfway through.)
http://www.chchwargaming.org.nz/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2916&start=0

 

[mattrock]

Thanks TP. Really great stuff there! :beer:

 

[DaN]

I might decide to blatantly rip off that design just to see if it ends up looking the same

Would that be ok?

Edit: I notice that on the walls you\'ve managed to make some of the blocks recessed... Is the foam cut or compressed or something there?

 

[Theomar Pius]

OOPS, kind of forgot I was doing this thread, got caught up in finishing the church.

Ok, lets seem what did I do since last time. Well, lots.

Firstly, I built the foundation for the second building, which is smaller.

I also cut about half out of the barbican, as it was really just too big. Not only is the smaller size more realistic, but it will be easier on my shelf space as well.

I painted the stone walls black, and then lighter shades of grey up to white. The paint on the walls still isn\'t done though, needs all the colors of green and brown to make it look dirty.

I built the two buildings out of foamcore mostly, with a bit of pink and blue foam too, just because I ran out of foamcore.
I also painted the insides of the buildings black, to hide them, since they won\'t be detailed inside.

The windows are all scratchbuild from thin strips of balsa. It\'s a pain, but if I do it all at once with the windows all the same size, it goes quicker. This was actually the easiest it had ever been on windows, since I got all of them done in one day.

After the windows are made, I trace them onto the building, and cut out the openings, then paint the openings black.

The roof is made in a few steps. First thin cardboard from a cereal type box is cut and glued into place.
Next I put hte dormers on, making more windows. If you re-enforce the roof in the middle, the roof will be very square and level. If you don\'t, the roof will sag, which may or may not be good. It will certaily add character. The small building I strengthened, the big one I didn\'t. The dormers are not square on the big one, but the have character. I also put the foam chimneys on before shingles. The post are made from rivets, push pins, and clear tubing.
The shingles are made from thin styrene from a for sale sign, /5\" strips cut at different widths. I glue them on from the bottom up, gluing my fingers together several times in the process. You can also use coarse sandpaper to score the styrene ahead of time for a wood grain, but I already had these made up, so I just used them instead. The cap of the roof is cardboard, same idea though.

Next up was the wood work. Now realise that on real tudor buildings, the beams are flush with the wall. These aren\'t real tudor buildings, they are fantasy miniatures, and only need to convey the idea of beams. Plus fantasy, you can do whatever you want and say it was a wizard.
I start with the horizontal beams, then move on to the vertical and diagonals. I just use strips of balsa, chipped with an x-acto.

The base is 1/4 mdf, or hardboard in America. It\'s just like pegboard, but without the holes. A 2x4 sheet is about $2, so the price is good. Measured and cut to fit the stone wall, and sized to match the town gate I did last summer.

I have not glued the buildings on yet, because it will be pretty close quarters between them, so I will detail the groundwork on the base before hand.

Wow, now my fingers hurt from typing, so it could be a few days before the next update.

 

[krom1415]

Wow, love how you do the roofs, you work has got me looking at local medieval buildings in Canterbury UK, my local city, and its amazing how intricate and there work was. Yours really does echo the period, top job sir

 

[Theomar Pius]

Originally posted by krom1415
Wow, love how you do the roofs, you work has got me looking at local medieval buildings in Canterbury UK, my local city, and its amazing how intricate and there work was. Yours really does echo the period, top job sir

Thanks for the kind words.
You are lucky to have such buildings around you. The oldest buildings around here are about 150 years or so, American civil war era. I don\'t know if I could handle that much inspiration!

 

[Theomar Pius]

Added texture to the negative space between the beams. I use Woodland Scenics water effects, it\'s in a squeeze bottle, dries quickly, about an hour or so, but is very easy to work, and a little bit goes a long way. I stipple it with a scrap piece of balsa.

I also put on the base cote for the paint, using folk art honeycomb as the base color. I\'m kicking around doing some buildings in colors, but since the rest of the village is all in a white tone, it\'s a risky move. I\'m also a bit worried it will come out cartoony. Most likely won\'t do it on this town, but maybe down the road.
I also painted the stonework on the chimneys. Simple black base, shaded up through grey.

Lastly, I made the doors for the buildings. The way I make doors is pretty simple. When doing the building, I sketch out where the doorway will be, and cut out the opening. The piece cut out is the door, so I carve the wood pattern into it, use styrene to make the iron parts, nails for rivets, brass rings and styrene for the handles. Then just glue them set in, into the original doorways, they are a perfect fit.

 

[Arma]

Utterly awesome!

I may have asked this before but how would you go about doing a rounded turret? I\'ve seen people use Depron (spelling?) but it\'s kinda hard to get in Japan though it is available.. at a price.

 

[Theomar Pius]

Hmmm
Well, all of the round towers I\'ve done so far were cardboard tubes with plastictruct brick sheets wrapped around it. You can also cut the foam really thin, and use a pencil to draw the brick paterns into it. As for the actual turret, I\'ve used svezda round towers and converted them, or carve it out of foam, or heaven forbid, use hirst bricks. Also, a lot of craft stores have round bird houses with cone roofs, those are real easy to convert.

 

[Rat Sandwich]

That is so awesome! I need to find the time for more terrain building. Currently building a underhive city/settlement for Necromunda. Just out of interest, where do you get the foam from? I have to beg it from local industries and builders yards.

 

[Theomar Pius]

Originally posted by Rat Sandwich
That is so awesome! I need to find the time for more terrain building. Currently building a underhive city/settlement for Necromunda. Just out of interest, where do you get the foam from? I have to beg it from local industries and builders yards.

Where are you from?
I get the blue foam from Lowes, the pink foam from Home Depot, the white foamcore from JoAnns or Michaels.

The manufacturers of the foam is Dow for blue, Owens Corning for pink.

I know in the UK, you can order it from http://www.barrule.com/workshop/

 

[mickc22]

B&Q have the pink in 2\'x4\' slabs 50mm/2\" thick in packs of 4 for £20
Well my local \"warehouse\" one is anyway, maybe the smaller ones wont have it tho

I prefer 25mm/1\" thick sheets personally

Some insulation supply companies will have different thicknesses and sizes, but I\'ve found some of them a bit reluctant to sell less than a complete pack (that\'s over £70 ).
I\'ve been lucky and my local firm have let me have a couple of sheets from a split pack
Also they call it Polyfoam as well, but different manufacturers have different names.