Mystery Model - Top Floor

The model is growing - the second floor pieces get added on.

Piece #19

The second floor really was a jigsaw puzzle since this one was created in many pieces and I had to refer back to the original photos to try and identify which parts went where.

No I still have not found the book I drew up the original design in and listed all the pieces.

Here we have the central main section (part #3) just above the entrance.

To the right a rear room with its own roof and the front tower continuing up. Between them is going to be a section of just sloping roof.

To the left are parts 15 a rear tower and #19 a sloping extension extending the main section.

Rather than build the internal walls on these I've used strips of foam-board on the interior joins. This gives me something to glue together but does not use the whole sheet of foam-board up on internal walls. The strips I think will give the model enough internal support. They also give me something to hold onto on the inside of the model when twisting it about to work on at different angles.

Previous article in this series: More Wood

Next article in this series: Mystery Model - Completing the Basic Structure

Using the scraps

From the left over pieces of foam board that I had hanging around cluttering up the place I decided to build an additional model for the ghost town entirely from the scraps without cutting a new board. 

This is the outcome of the experiment, the frame work at least. It’s in three parts to allow me to clamp the sticks on easier – I learnt that lesson last time.

These coffee sticks are everywhere.

I’ve let things slip recently as far as the model making has been concerned, and suddenly I found myself swamped with coffee sticks.

 

This weekend saw a mass washing and cleaning session, but without the warm sunny days of summer I now have coffee sticks drying all around the kitchen.

 

I’m going to start a quick knock them together project to build a couple of old shacks, mainly to get some used up. Working on models like this they can be as rustic as they like.

 

 

 

 

I’ve used foam board this time for the frame work rather than recycled card boxes, mainly because the foam board will be sturdier, and thus easier and quicker to complete.

Vorsteck in ruins

The final part of Vorsteck was an area of derelict buildings, where the stone buildings had collapsed. Of course if I was making a display version I’d include a lot more rubble, and if these buildings were external then grass and vegetation would have been added but these were more the war torn results of previous invasions for the old city.

I suspect nasty things would have lived there ready to pounce from the ruins at us as we passed through.

These ruins were built in the basic same way as the main buildings, that being foam board covered in DAS putty hand made tiles to look like stone blocks, with the exception of the arch way which was covered in putty but had brick work etched in before it dried.

The main difference being that instead of full squared buildings they were just slithers of half walls, and cross ways and T shapes designed to look like exposed interior walls.

Some of the earlier pieces that became the ruined castle were originally made for the Vorsteck layout.

Combined with some elements from the ruined castle set the old town would have been quite a scary place to visit.

NEXT : Test layout photos

Vorsteck versatile buildings

Continuing my short collection of posts about the Vorsteck Rock Town.

I think I mentioned that these buildings cost more to make than my usual projects, due to the nature of the building and thus the materials used. For this reason I wanted to be able to use them in more ways than one once their original purpose was finished. So aside from being the underground houses of Vorsteck I wanted to add adaption packs for them to turn them into various other countryside cottages.

The images that I had in mind came from the Torchwood episode Countryside where a small community of locals had some very unpleasant dietary habits, and the stone cottages of the recent remake of The Wolfman.

I built the basic house shape from four sides of rectangular foam board. I did not use the usual shape for the small sides with triangle roof as I had envisaged the Vorsteck houses as having flat roofs as there would be no rain to content with underground.

I built the flat Vorsteck roofs as being detachable from the main building, and then started to build additional separate roofs that could rest on top, and built them so that these roofs could be swapped when required for the flat stone of Vorsteck, or thatched or tiled country cottage roofs.

The windows and doorways I cut out so that they were open, the wet DAS putty I used to frame the cut edges of the foam board so that the frames were still stone looking but also more robust than just the tiled stone effect.

Because I was going to curtain the windows and doors with fake algae (see next post) I needed to have a way to fix them inside and still be changeable. I built up the insides with off cuts of foam board and covered them with card making insert areas to mount different effects for windows and doors. For the doors I made additional wooden doors stuck to card which could be slid in to these slots when I wanted the buildings to be cottages on the moors and the windows were shuttered by the addition of inserted clip in wooden panels made to look like closed shutters.

As each building was slightly different in size and shape each building had to be numbered and each set of adaption pieces made separately and also numbered so that they could be easily attached to the right buildings. I haven’t yet completed the adaption pieces for all the buildings as these were not priority but I think over all this is going to work to allow these buildings to have a varied lease of life.

NEXT: Vorsteck the algae curtains



Coffee Stick Houses, Experiments and Conclusions

Considering I have had a week off work, I haven’t managed to get much model work completed. The weather has been quite foul really, and even the garden has not been tackled. Not one dry day in the week so far.  This is the time of year I should be using the table outside to be able to get more work done, but it does not look like it will be the case.

I have managed to finally get the wood work finished (I think) on the three outstanding coffee stick buildings I have been working on now for several months (on and off). I really want to get  these finished as I want to get on to the ‘Axilion Trade’ shop and public house ‘The Ship and Hankor’ as featured my novel. These will be more labours of love than some of the other projects. But I will get some of these other unfinished projects done first, just for my own sanity and space in the kitchen where they end up when half finished.

I tried a couple of experiments with these three buildings, as featured in earlier postings.

      (1) The use of recycled boxes as the base framework.

      (2) The method of cutting and placing the sticks.

Conclusions.

(1) The use of recycled boxes, although they do finally turn out quite sturdy once the coffee sticks have been stuck on they are very flimsy to work with . When I tried to strengthen them by using the boxes glued up it meant that I had no internal way of holding them whilst working. Also it made it hard to use the clamps to hold everything together. I ended up tearing into the bases to give hand holds or to allow the clamps to grip.

Although putting together random boxes gave for some interesting shapes and structure to the buildings, which I might not have achieved just working from scratch. Working with foam board means I need to use the outdoor table to lay it out and cut it, I do not have room to do this inside. I experimented with gluing boxes together during the winter months when it was not an option to work out on the garden table.

In summary I’m going back to the foam board, I think I do prefer this as a base core. I will certainly use foam board for the two new projects I mentioned above.

(2) The way I glued the sticks down originally was to build the skeleton frame work of the building stuck over the foam board core. Then I applied the side panel sticks after. In the linked post above I started to experiment with what I thought would be a quicker way to get the job done. This was to stick full sides on first then over lay the frame work on top after.

A couple of you said you preferred the look of the original method to the sample I posted at the time. 

I persevered with the new to see if the overall effect I wanted could still be achieved. In fact this method when applied to a whole building came off worse.

I ended up doing more remedial work and fixing than before, and I agree the final effect is not as pleasing. I hope when the paint goes on it will cover some of the real patched up work I’ve had to do.

In summary, next time I work on more of these buildings (and there will be more I have more coffee sticks than you can wave an entire coffee plantation at, at the moment) it will be the old method of frame work first then fill in the panels.

My next post will cover the edging on the round sided building, some photos of these once sanded down and ready for the under coat.

Here you can see where I had to cut away the side of the roof which had dented back on itself. I've re-seated the side piece and the roof slates I had to cut away, and it is looking much better. Photos next time.

I've also added a new Gallery Page for the completed coffee stick buildings that make up the Ghost Town.

... and finally, another teaser from Karl - Birth of Mystery

As Max approached, the small weasel faced man peered at him long and hard. Then in a voice that resembled someone who had just found that he had been sitting in something unmentionable and unpleasant, the port inspector addressed him.

     ‘Two crates.’

     Was it a question or a statement? Max could not decide what the inspector was saying. He thought hard to remember if he was expecting a delivery. The inspector obviously did not feel like waiting for a reply.

     'Two crates from Mirdi. What do they contain?’ He expanded, in the same cringing voice.

     Max considered. ‘Pottery,’ he said.

   The inspector’s eyes bore through him, it was obvious that any moment he would declare the crates as being impassable and would have them split open on the dock there and then.

    The port inspector considered and rechecked his list of shipments. A smile cut across his face, it looked like a split in a wrinkled orange thought Max. The inspector looked up again.

    ‘I shall pass these.’ He declared, as if he was doing Max a great favour. ‘However I see also a shipment from the Isle of Mishdine. That intrigues me. Why was not this crate on my manifest, nor brought over by the ferry?’

Archive Collection – Stone Circle

I know I’ve shown the stone circle a couple of times but I realised that I had never actually talked about it. So, just to put the record straight or curved as the case may be here goes...

The stone circle came about around the same time as I was making the water mill when I had a lot of wall filler mixed up which I couldn’t keep. 

The question was what to do with it; I didn’t have any other models on the go at the time which were ready for wall filler to be added. Rather than waste it, I looked around for ideas as to what to do with it. I had been watching a lot of ‘Robin Of Sherwood’, and some of the scenes featured a stone circle, and with ‘Magical Ring’ and from ‘Clannad’ being one of the albums I often model to it was quite inevitable what came to mind. Oh and not to forget the ‘Doctor Who’ adventure ‘The Stones of Blood’, which must have been in the mental mix somewhere.

The base was a sheet of corrugated card board, and the stones themselves were small off cuts of foam board stuck together, some of the stones were single pieces of foam board, others would have had extra pieces stuck to them to add extra thickness in parts. These were quickly stuck down in a circle, with top pieces placed to make cap stones. I would probably have used quicker drying super glue as I had a pot of filler to use up before it set. Then I liberally plastered the mix over the arranged foam board pieces, ensuring that the surfaces had some curious textures.

Once all this had dried the base was covered with PVA glue and sprinkled with saw dust to add a first level of ground texture.

The whole lot was then painted, in those days all I was just using the Games Workshop paints, so these would have been the colours used.

Various green shades for the base, along with black, white and some of their grey mixes for the stones. Those early paints although having wonderful names were never labelled on the pots in those days, so my memory fades and some have been renamed since I believe.

Additional green flock was then added with more PVA glue, along with some scenic foliage.  I used the oasis foam for flower arranging on the front garden part of the watermill to allow model trees to be poked in at will. Small slithers of the oasis were shaved from the blocks of the foam and glued and pressed down in patches on the base of the stone circle. You can clearly see them around some of the stones where the ground work is a sort of brown-green colour and a different texture.