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Some of the earlier pieces that became the ruined castle were originally made for the Vorsteck layout.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

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.

Country Cottages, Fireworks and Fur

After boxing up some of the recently finished parts of the ruined castle and the ghost town to give me more working space, I uncovered a box of partially completed models.

This included two of the country cottages, I have four completed, pictured here – but I found another two packed away for whatever reason in a just started state.   I’ve dug these out and now intend to finish them off.

 

Regular readers will have recently seen a tribute piece I wrote for my parents. Once again I must credit mum with two great ideas which feature dominantly on these cottage models, in fact I’m sure it was these ideas that fuelled my drive to use as much recycled materials in my models as I could.

These models start life like most of the other buildings with a foam board skeleton, and cardboard roof.  I was buying a lot of balsa wood sticks to build the models, and then following one Guy Fawkes Night mum retrieved a rocket stick from our garden. Instead of throwing it away she brought the stick in, it was a bit harder than the balsa wood but certainly very similar that it could easily be used in the model construction somewhere.

Now, for the last few years I take a stroll around the streets of Dagenham on the morning following the Guy Fawkes celebrations and gather up as many sticks as I can find. This annual horde provides quite a collection of different sizes and thickness of wood all very suitable for model construction with just an occasional clean up required for a few burnt ends and paper bits glued on.

(Need I emphasise here the firework code, about not returning to lit fireworks?  These sticks have all fallen from the sky once the fireworks have gone bang and all that remains is the wooden stick.)

Last year's horde of sticks

Most of these cut with the craft knife like balsa wood, some of the thicker or harder wood sticks I use a small hand saw. The front of this cottage was built with balsa wood; the other three sides which I completed this weekend have been constructed from firework sticks.

Once the wooden frame has been stuck to the foam board I fill the areas between with the good old modelling favourite the wall filler.

I know from memory that the original cottages were made using the mix it up yourself stuff, but this one I’m now finishing off has been filled using the same ready mix product I’ve been using on the castle ruins.

Now comes the next idea from mum, the thatch roof. I tried a few ideas for thatch none of which appeared to come close – then mum suggested an old (fake) fur hat that wasn’t wanted anymore.

We cut this up and glued it to the roof of the cottages, then cut across the fur in bands to give the fur a layered look. After that the main effect came from the painting.

This time I’ve used some craft fur bought from the hobby store. I’m hoping this is going to come out just as effective, at the moment it looks a bit like a bad wig.

You glue the fur on in separate pieces, one for each side, ensuring that the fur hangs downward on both sides. Using a straight edge I ran a blade along the fur forming layered sections, not cutting right into the fur but enough to make it appear like the fur is like layers of thatching.

The next stage is to glue on the chimney and the capping stones seen in the finished models before giving the whole model a clean up before painting. The true effect of the thatch comes with the paint work.

But that’s next week. Country Cottages The Thatching

Project Round Up – Easter Monday

Well, the Easter holiday is nearly over, at least I have managed to get some model work done each day. Today was quite a busy day model wise, with the sun shining down and ‘Big Finish Doctor Who’ audio book CDs playing in the background I got quite a lot completed.

Castle Ruins – Castle Entrance.

The left hand side of the entrance has now been completed, leaving only a small part of the roof near the murder holes to be completed before I start painting.

Castle Ruins – Partial Room.

This is the last piece of the castle ruins that I had originally planned, and I had the polystyrene skeleton cut out for a while now.

This piece gives me a partial room with a doorway, on a higher level, with a set of steps leading up. The steps have been built from odd pieces of polystyrene, glued in a spiral set of steps, once covered in wall filler these will be much sturdier than they are now.

I have reinforced the top level join with a couple of cocktail sticks inserted into the top step and the main body piece. 

Today I started to cover the first couple of walls then decided that the whole thing was too box shaped still so broke out two lumps from the remaining sides.

I think this will give a better result in the end. These odd pieces will be made up to be small wall fragments for general placement on the overall layout.

Coffee Stick Ghost Town.

After looking at the paintwork from yesterday I decided that the models did not need a second coat of burnt umber before I added the lighter shading, so I started today with a 50–50ish mix of Wilkio’s Burnt Umber and Americana’s Desert Sand.  Both are acrylic based paints. I picked up several different bottles of Americana paint from a recent clearance sale at the local branch of Hobbycraft. (I try to pay regular visits to as many hobby shops that have clearance bins, as you never know what you might find.)

I lightly coated the two models with this lighter brown mix, then once dry I dry brushed with the same acrylic white I bought at the local pound store which I’ve been using on the castle ruins to give that aged weathered look to the wood work.

These two models have come out a lot darker than the original two coffee stick buildings I made; I actually prefer this colour scheme and will probably keep to this when I make a few more of these models. I think the town needs a few extract smaller models to go along with the three large ones that dominate the one smaller model at the moment.

All these models have had their windows painted black; this is quite a neutral design so that I can always add additional effects later.

After, I gave all four of the coffee stick ghost town buildings a quick spray with Games Workshop’s purity seal. The other two have been waiting a while over winter for their spray, as I try to do this outside when the weather is better.

Project Round Up - Good Friday.

Had one of those odds and ends days where I gathered up a number of the projects I’ve been working on over the last few weeks in a bid to try and get some of them finished off.

Castle Ruins – Castle Entrance. I’ve now got the front entrance brickwork and the right hand side brick work finished. I did this today out in the garden with the sun quite strong for this time of year. I found that the wall filler was drying off faster than I could get the side covered. I had to work in smaller sections  to be able to carve the stone effect into it before it dried too much. If it dries too quickly the stone effect becomes a bit crumbly when it is dug into. The best thing in hot weather is to work on smaller sections at a time, but because it does dry quicker you can get more area coverage in the long run.

Castle Ruins – Walls. I got the paint job done earlier in the week, so today these pieces were given a spray with ‘Purity seal’ from ‘Games Workshop’.

Coffee Stick Houses . There are currently two being worked on. One had a few missing pieces added on to it, the smaller one has reached the stage for undercoating. As I was working outside I took the quick fire approach and sprayed with ‘Chaos Black’ also from ‘Games Workshop’.

Log Cabin. This is a test piece using home grown canes.  I’ve added some cane pieces now to two sides, once the glue dries I’ll clean up and see what it looks like. I did find that a couple of the cane pieces had fallen off from the first attempt, but I’m not giving up yet. I think this will work.

Castle Ruins - Ongoing work

Another weekend with only a few hours spent working on the models.

First I’d like to say a big thank you to all those who have promoted my blog on their sites, your support and encouragement is much appreciated as well as any comments left. Speaking of comments...

Luckyjoe asked about murder holes for the entrance way to the castle ruins. I admit I forgot all about those small holes in walls and ceilings where defenders could pelt invaders with rocks or pour down boiling oil. These were a very vital part of a castle’s defensive measures. To really do justice to them is a bit late now, as I’ve already lined the entire entrance with the filler, but there was an area along the top where a square shape on the original polystyrene did cry out for something a bit extra to make a feature out of it.

Using a metal rod I managed to break through the wall filler and make four suitable holes in each corner of the square. These will be turned into some murder holes, but I will be making an additional piece for the entrance later so I’ll make certain I give more thought to the forward design.

Cheers Luckyjoe now who ever GMs using these has an extra weapon to use against the players, guess I should start writing my own adventure. (BigLee beware, you think our current GM is EVIL – sign off with manic laughter...)

I also realised that there were no window pieces either, so in the other curved section I was working on I cut out some small window shapes this time before I added the wall filler.

Up until now I’ve been using plastic coffee sticks to cut the stone shapes into the wet wall filler, but they don’t actually last very long and soon snap.

So I’ve given in and bought a new small chisel blade to use for the stone work – a quick trip to the local hobby shop this weekend.

This wall and the flag stone tile effect I’ve put on to the top of the entrance way were carved out using the new blade, I don’t think you can tell the difference.

I’ve only got as far as undercoating with black acrylic paint this weekend – I’m going to try and get the grey colouring done during the week if I get a chance.

Scenic Terrain – Rocks

Ok, a quick post tonight. I recall saying recently not to throw away that tub of dried up wall filler you found at the back of the shed when you went looking for something to build the castle ruins with.

When I went to start these building projects I did just that, went to find some previously bought filler only to find it had dried out and formed a solid lump in the bottom of the tub.

Just before I threw it out a thought struck me and I turned the tub upside down and struck it with a hammer, knocking the solid lump out. It fell out and broken into three large pieces and several smaller fragments. I collected up the larger lumps and the best of the other pieces.

Having come from the bottom of the tub, the pieces all had nice flat bases to them.  This meant they sat nicely on the table, and from the front had great rock structure.

The backs were smooth from the tub walls, but never the less; they formed great free-standing corner rock pieces for quick distribution onto the game table as rocky terrain.

I gave the pieces an undercoat with black acrylic paint then later once that had dried I used a black/white mix in various shades of gray to colour and highlight and a hint of brown in flashes across the rocks to appear like seams of other rock (or maybe even fool’s gold) in the structure.

One of the smaller pieces had a nice round dip in it, this I filled with a bright blue paint to look like a small rock pool. This took a bit longer to dry.   

I might even go back and use some of the water effect material on them later to really bring up the effect. (If I do I’ll let you know how it works out.)   

   

All in all, rather than throwing away what was going to be wasted wall filler, I ended up with extra rocky terrain for use in our underground cavern adventure.

Castle Ruins - The Dungeons

A trip down into the dungeons today.

These two pieces have four archways cut out of the polystyrene, the first piece came with an arch already in the original piece, and it was this which gave me the initial idea of cutting further arches.

Using the hot wire cutter I cut out the additional arches in single pieces, and retained these pieces whole. I then covered the polystyrene with wall filler and sculpted the stone effects as previously described. The only difference was inside the arches; here I left the polystyrene free from the wall filler.

Once finished I painted the inside to match.  The naked polystyrene took the acrylic paint just as well as the wall filler.

The extra cut out pieces were then covered front and back with wall filler and had the same stone effects shaped into them. Again the sides were left clear of wall filler and just painted.

This allows me to slide the cut-outs back in, this can then be used to either block up the arches as plain walls, or have them represent secret doorways, the pieces being angled to show as if wall panels have moved revealing secret passages beyond.

Leaving the polystyrene bare also allows for further adaption. Using cocktail sticks or tooth picks, painted a metallic colour I’ve created iron bar fixtures. I’ve glued the cut down sticks together using two thin strips of card.

Then the pointed ends can be poked up into the bare polystyrene archway to hold them in place, and removed again after the game.  This makes for barred gate ways and prison cells.

By turning the bar fixture pieces over and securing them up the other way the bar panels can then be used as metal spikes in the archways ready to come down and trap the adventurers.