Building Gallery

After the bridge I wanted to show you all of the buildings I have made previous. They vary in size and complexity drastically 'cause I learned a lot while I was making them. So without further gilding the lily and with no more ado:

Buildings 1 and 2:

These were the first buildings I made, and obviously they are very simple. Just three pieces each and without any complicated architecture, these models were basically just a test of the concept and materials. They turned out alright, I do still use them in games.

Building 3:


I really like this building. First off you can see that it shows some of my detail work on the edges. I like this, but I don't really know what it is called, so I call it crenelation. You can also see in the second photo that this one's low wall bent and became very weak, so I just braced it with some extra foam board.

Building 4:



This is my favorite building. After Building 3, I thought I could design something a little more complex and intricate. I like the large crack between the second floor section. Here you can also see some of the crenelation detail work along the edges. For this (and #3) I used thick, non-corrugated cardboard. I found the best stuff is liquor box inserts that are free from the back of any liquor store anywhere. To do the crenelation I just cut the cardboard into 1 inch wide strips, fold over 1/3 of it, mark every quarter-inch and then use scissors to cut each piece off. After they are all cut out, I just glue them to the edge with alternating direction. This building actually uses some thinner board as I wanted to have it look like it used to be more of a fancy house.

Building 5:


This was again an attempt just to make something really complicated. I wanted to have balconies and some complicated geometry. This also was the first building with all of its walls intact (or at least the base of them). Pretty much this one was a total pain in the ass. The boards are 3/16" thick, and I did not measure the pieces exactly, so I had some interior corners that didn't match and some exterior corners that were too short. It was really a pain. The second photo shows some detail that I am still experimenting with. I just took a plain piece of paper and cut it to fit the side and then cut extra out around the destroyed part. My hope is that when I paint it, I can leave the paper covered part the color of what the plaster of the building used to be, and then paint the foam part like bricks or wattle or some other interior building material. I think it could look really neat I just have to get there.

Building 6 and 7:



I designed these two buildings together with the idea that some survivor of Mordheim build a bridge between the two buildings to avoid the horrible zombies walking the streets below. And it looked cool.

Building 8:


I designed this building with the goal to try out two new architectural ideas: A piece of roof, and an overhang. I really should have taken my own advice from the bridge article and waited for some of this to dry and build it in steps, but I was impatient, so the overhang part was really hard.

Building 9:


This one was designed just to be really big. I wanted to make something that really raised the battle off the ground floor. I also experimented with the craft-stick ladder.

Building 10:

This was a simple little building that I made to be a little barrier or addition to another building.


Well, I hope you all liked the buildings. I do plan on finishing these, and definitely plan on showing you when I do, so keep checking back. If any of you think that someone else might like to check these out or be inspired by what I've done, please send them my link. As always, happy gaming!

Massive Bridge

I'm a huge fan of Mordheim, a table-top wargame from Games Workshop. To bring you up to speed, Mordheim is a fantasy game set in a ruined city. Each player uses a group of small miniatures representing warriors called a warband to play a turn-based strategy game and defeat their opponent's warband. To be honest, however, my favorite part of the game is modeling the scenery.

So, here is the first post of my scenery creation blog. Lately I had a little spare time on my hands and I thought I would design a pretty ambitious project and spend that time bringing it to life. I thought up in my head a complicated bridge with two spans and a two-tier landing system on either side.

Firstly, here are the tools and materials I used:

Foam Board -

This stuff is awesome. It is 3/16" thick and very light and durable. This is the main building material for the bridge.

#11 X-Acto knife and blades -

It is very important that you use #11 blades. The #1 blades are not sharp enough to cut the foam board and will ruin the edges. You should also expect to go through a few blades (I used three for the bridge).

Felt-tip Marker -

I just use these to mark on the foam board. I use a red one, but any color can be used. Just use something that is easy to see (not yellow).

Square / Straight Edge -

Super important. You'll need to make sure you've got perfect 90° angles. My squares were my great-grandfather's from 1903, and they're not quite square. So make sure you've got a good one.

Elmer's White Glue -

Also very important. Obviously, this stuff holds everything together.

OK. Time for the bridge. The most important thing for me is the plan:


Alright, that's not a very good picture of the plan, but you can kind of see it. If you want a copy, email me and I'll send you a high-res scan or post it later or something. The plan is pretty much the whole crux of the entire project. I put my idea down on the paper (you can see it there on the top half as a top-down architectural plan) and then from that drawing I drew out each and every piece necessary with their proper dimensions. I suggest some high quality graph paper for this.

Just to put things in a little scope, most building projects I do for scenery have between 5 and 10 pieces and take between 45 minutes and an hour to do. This project had 190 pieces and took almost 6 hours.

Anyway, the next step is getting all of the pieces drawn onto the foam board with the marker. Um, I didn't take any pictures of this step sorry. But the gist of it is that you use the square and measure out the pieces you need and draw the lines as accurately as possible. With this project, because I had so many pieces, I really had to cram them on the boards, and actually used 3 entire 30" x 20" boards for the pieces.

After they are all drawn, really carefully cut them out. Use a good sturdy x-acto knife and prepare for your hand to be a little sore afterwards. Also, don't be afraid to change out the blade with a new, sharp one if it feels like it's beginning to drag through the foam. My strategy for cutting the board was to do each cut in two strokes. The first is to break the top layer of paper and cut most of the foam, and the second is to cut the bottom layer of paper and finish the cut. There are two important things to remember when cutting: make vertical cuts and finish the bottom. Making vertical cuts is very important. The edge needs to be as close to square with the plane of the board so that when it is glued to another board it will be square with it. Second, when cutting you will often not quite complete the bottom cut, and may need to flip the board over to finish the cuts and make sure they connect. (If it isn't easy to pop the piece out after cutting, don't force it and check the bottom cuts!)

So after you've got all the pieces cut out, you should have something like this:


Oh, be really freakin' sure to label your pieces.

Ok, assembly. As you see in the previous picture, I started to assemble the first set of stairs. Here is the stairs after they are assembled:

... and my sock.

Some tips for assembly:

• Glue carefully, after it dries, it will rip the paper and ruin the pieces if you try to disassemble them.
• Use a small amount of glue. Just like in elementary school, you only need to use a very thin, light strip of glue on the foam edge of a piece to stick it to another piece. It will hold better and dry faster.
• If you have to wait, wait. Sometimes it is easier to glue together pieces that are already dry. So just wait, make a sandwich or something.

The rest of the process was pretty simple. After the steps I made the second-tier platforms:


Then I assembled the stair pieces with the first-tier platorms:




Just a note on cutting surfaces. You can see here that I'm working on my bedroom floor which has a really durable Berber carpet. I can drag my knife through it all day and not hurt the knife or the carpet. You need to be very careful what you are cutting on. Some craft stores sell cutting mats that might work.

Next step was attaching the main bridge to the platforms and finishing the other side:





Then, after that dried, I attached them together, finished up a few interior walls and added all of the pillars. Here is the final bridge with some detail shots:





I do intend to detail, texture and paint this model, I just haven't yet.

Well, there you have it, the bridge in all its glory. I really enjoyed working on this and I hope it inspires some of you to do the same. Please comment with your opinion or if you have questions or suggestions. Good luck!