BSC2024 Daeothar's Frostgrave Warband Camp

[Lost Egg]

I like how your wizard is cursing the heavens over the situation

[Daeothar]

Since the tile floors of the hallways are rather posh, I thought that a simple floor of wooden planks would just not do for the den of a powerful wizard*. So I decided to create a wooden floor in a fishbone pattern.

To this end, I took a bunch of coffee stirrers, stacked them all on top of each other, taped them in this position and took them to the band saw. There, I cut off the rounded ends (they might come in handy as roof tiles later on perhaps) and cut the stirrers into lengths of 15mm.

This provided me with enough tiles to do the room (and significantly more as I found out afterwards, so I might as wel use them for the upper floor as well ). And after first adding a border around the circumfence of the room, I then started laying them down individually. Th8is took me a couple of hours, including a short intermission to get something to drink and stretch my weary muscles.

But in one afternoon I managed to floor the room, which is drying as I type this. I used the slower PVA for this, to give me more time to work. I still did it in sections though.

It's not perfect, but that'll probably add to its charm (or so I hope ). There will be at least one persian rug on the floor though, so I might be able to mask some of the more unsightly errors...

And Angry Wizard Guy is actually doing a 'Heck Yeah!' here, as he's mightily chuffed with his new wooden floor 




* My head-canon for this build is as follows: This was once the home of a powerful wizard in Felstadt. He had an old, existing house renovated with a nicer interior when he moved in (it was conveniently close to the university quarters). He then used a rather powerful spell to make sure his study was always at a nice, moderate temperature and not too humid.

After the cataclism that covered the city in perpetual winter, the spell somehow kept functioning, even after the demise of its caster. In fact, it seems that it is so powerful, it protected the room, even when the house partially collapsed.

An intrepid warband looking to strike it big in, what was now known as, Frostgrave recently discovered it, and made it the heart of its campsite. The wizard leading the warband obviously claimed the miraculously well preserved room as his own, and here we are...

[zemjw]

Good job on the fishbone pattern. I think I would have gone cross-eyed after the first row 

[Lost Egg]

Ooo...that's posh! Lovely job.

[Daeothar]

I have since sanded it smooth, after the glue was dry. This almost completely filled up the gaps that were still left here and there, even though I tried to be as precise as possible. I then brushed a thinned down coat of PVA over the whole surface, to both protect it from everything that will come next and also to seal in the sanding dust.

Once it's time to paint, I will sand it once again, removing the PVA layer, so I can stain it and then do the final sealing. I'm hoping to make the floor a dark wood in the end.

On another note; I discovered that my tile floors have all warped upwards, so none lies flat anymore. I don't know what caused this; I thought they had been fully cured, so I've now bent them back as well as I could (there was some breakage here and there along grout lines) and laid them down flat, with a big metal weight on top. Hopefully this will remedy the situation.

Otherwise, I will have to do some redesign and reprint the lot...

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

I like the way you are doing this with the plastered walls, parquet flooring and the fireplace - very detailed and attractive 

[McMordain]

I love the room with the wooden floor and the fireplace. Looks great, that wizard is a lucky one

[Codsticker]

I really love the flooring; you don't see a lot of that kind of flooring in model buildings.

[has.been]

You are putting in a LOT of work on this, and it shows. Well done sir.

[tomrommel1]

that looks really nice,indeed

[The Voivod]

Lovely stuff, man.
This is gonna be an amazing piece to game around.
Cool to see you're playing around with some new toys and techniques. Really upping your game, once again.

[snitcythedog]

You really are packing in the little mundane details that are easily missed.  Very good stuff. 

[Daeothar]

Thanks guys; much appreciated

Construction of the upper floor has begun in the meantime. I added a row of stones protruding from the walls as a divider between floors. It also gives a bit more visual interest to an otherwise pretty plain set of walls. IK'm pretty satisfied with how that looks.

Then it was on to the upper floor. I cut out a rectangle exactly fitting the circumfence of the room below, making sure it also included the card framework (1mm thick), which will function as the main support for the upper floor. I say upper floor, but I aim to suggest in the build that there are more floors above these two. Or there were, at least.

I added balsa beams tot he underside of the floor, and cardboard trim to two sides of the rectangle. TYhe other two require a bit more finesse and fitting (due to the beams), but will also receive them. I let the beams protrude out a bit, so I can let the floor extend a bit as well, to add to the ruined appearance.

Next will be adding floor boards to the top, and some more parquet on top of that in the corner. The idea is to suggest that this room was nicely furnished at one time too, but the collapse and subsequent exposure to the elements ruined it even more. This will give me an opportunity to use up all those excess pieces of wooden tile.

But I might as well build up the walls of the 2nd story first; whatever suits me at the time of my next opportunity to hobby away

[Lost Egg]

"How the hell am I gunna scrape that off?!"

Those underfloor beams are a lovely detail.

[Daeothar]

"How the hell am I gunna scrape that off?!"

Today I got to (almost) finish the floor/ceiling. I added bricks to where the chimney meets the ceiling, added the rim to the rest of the roof and added stonework to the outsides on the two exposed inside walls, taking care to add bricks where the repaired hole in the wall is.

Then I started adding planks to the top side of the construction. This is the basis for the floor of the 2nd story. As said; I will add a patch of parquet to one corner of the room, to suggest it used to be covered in its entirety.

It's drying now, weighted down to prevent warping. So the next step will be some more stone work now, building up the ruined walls of the second floor. I'm thinking hard about adding a small balcony to the corner as well