BSC2024 Daeothar's Frostgrave Warband Camp

[Mick_in_Switzerland]

That door is really good -

[Thargor]

That door is just another example of why this is such an inspirational build...some coffee stirrers stuck together and cut to shape, or a bit of scribed balsa would have worked, but you've spent a day making a detailed, opening door.

Where is the clapping hands emoji when I need it?

[Daeothar]

Oh shucks, y'all's makin' me blush 'n all... 

Truth be told though, I am very happy with the result. SO much so, that I will redo the blocked door in the same style too.

As for the windows; I was faffing around with a mould/jig for plasticard frames, and this seemed to work. But when I pulled the first one out of the (cardboard) jig, it came apart as apparently the glues I used were not able to fuse ABS and polystyrene together. Bummer.

But then, as I was closing up shop for the night, I got this idea, which I wanted to check; I have the entire range of the Lego Heroica games and expansions and I remembered a doorway that might work.

And lo and behold; the door (which is a window in proper minifig scale) was a nigh on perfect match for the windows I cut out!  What are the odds, right? 

Now, I didn't want to take the required bricks from the games; my daughter and I had too much fun playing them and the games would not be complete afterwards, which would be a shame.

So I sourced a Lego brick seller locally, called them this morning, went by immediately after and left half an hour later in possession of 10 windows and matching inner frames for the princely sum of €3,50!

Some urgent family matters first, but then I found some time to fit them into the build. I had to shave out about a mm or so from each window hole, and then cut a part from the Lego brick, including the nub on top, and it was. Just. Perfect! 

Due to circumstances, I won't be able to do much more this weekend I fear, but this has saved me at least a full day's worth of work. They just needs some glazing and additional fluffing, but they're better looking than I would ever have been able to achieve by hand.

I'm already contemplating checking out the Lego catalogue a bit closer for more useful bits and bobs...

[Codsticker]

Those lego frames work perfectly!

[Lost Egg]

They look spot on!

[anevilgiraffe]

Door and windows look great.

And totally get you on the toothpicks.

[Ragnar]

Those lego frames work perfectly!

Seconded.  Great idea.

[The Voivod]

Was wondering, why you went through all that effort on using plasticard and the door, when cardboard would probably would work just as fine. But offcourse your build needs to be fully functional.....

Can't wait for you doing some modern buildings and trying to figure out how to make the toilet actually flush.

Overdoing it as always. Seems you push your limit with every new project, dude.
It looks awesome.

[Daeothar]

Thanks guys!

Working plumbling, now there's an idea...

As it turned out, yesterday I did have almost an entire evening to faf around with my project after all. And I got quite a load of stuff done. Well; mostly they're small jobs with big visual results, but still; definite progress!

Firstly, I built the blocked door in the same style as I did the opening one. But I did not have to build it completely; it's partially blocked on one side and there will be a bookcase blocking it on the other side, so only the very top will be visible.

This went rather quickly, also because I did not have to invent everything; I had some templates and pre-cut plasticard already. And since I was working on the door(s) anyway, I also added doorknobs to both. It's a small hole drilled partially into the doors, with a short piece of plastic rod inserted and glued and then a tiny craft jewel is superguled to the top of the rod.

Presto; facetted (so: fancy) doorknobs with minimal effort

Then I glazed the windows with pieces of blister packaging and glued very thin strips of plasticard onto the window sills, to hide the small holes that were present there.

After all this, I finally glued all the doors and windows into place. Turns out, after a quick test, that the superglue I use works really well with foam. Which helps.

The added GW decorative bit on the side wall (the disk) looked too tacked on for my taste, so I cut it out of the wall, including the stones behind it, and then glued it back into that hole. It's now recessed, and looking like it actually belongs there

And overdoing it as ever, I also decided to magnetize the first floor for extra sturdiness during gameplay. It was not really necessary; it fits pretty snugly on there, but me being me...

It was a really quick job though; I heated up the back of one of my jeweler files (I use them without wooden handle) and carefully melted a hole into the required locations. The diameter was exactly that of the magnets I have used here, so some small blobs of superglue later and this was also done.

Finally, and the job with the most visual impact, I finally glued the big rubble pile into place and added a whole bunch of debris on it ( and the other, smaller pile). I used sand, gravel, cork bits, and all the saved cut-offs from the build which I saved. To this I added a bunch of intact stones from my stock and also plaster rubble I had saved from casting plenty of rock faces in rock moulds for another project.

Together, these make for some pretty convincing collapsed building rubble!

I still need to seal them into place using isopropyl alcohol and thinned down PVA, but that I'll tackle tonight. The edges of the base also require covering to fit in with my snow table, and I will add some more smaller piles of rubble along the outside walls. Also tonight, I plan to do the plaster on the top floor.

The astute might have seen the cardboard shapes I glued into place there. These are for extra support and stiffness for the upper floor's walls, as they proved rather bendy/floppy on their own. This way, they're quite a bit more resilient. I was always going to plaster certain areas of the top floor walls, but all broken and crumbled. The same I'll do to the inside walls of the ground floor.

One week remaining and I still have to get started on the interior details like furniture and the required Frostgrave camp elements...

[anevilgiraffe]

lovely stuff.

[Ragnar]

The use of card to both support the inside of the walls and provide the foundation for the plaster is brill!

[Lost Egg]

Looking good matey. Recessing the disc was a great idea and it really feels part of the building now.

[Daeothar]

Thanks lads

I believe I still owe you guys a rundown of the rivet/nail punching tool I cobbled together, so here goes:

I used a double sided hand vice which I dreaded using, since whatever side I was not using would always dig painfully into my hand, and when I got myself a new one with a rotating knob on the end, I stopped using this one.

But during a build involving wooden strips, I needed a way to do what I've done in this project; simulate nail heads in wooden surfaces. So I got to using a technical pencil for this. It was perfect, but it also was rather fragile and not intended for the purpoe. Also, it was not very handy for the job.

So I A-Teamed/MacGuyvered my own tool for this in about half an hour or so, if I recall correctly. I consists of exactly 8 parts, including the three pin vice parts:

- Pinvice body
- Pinvice head (x2)
- PC case cover screw
- small metal spacer
- PC case motherboard spacer screw
- Small screw (same diameter as the head of the pin vice)
- Head of a technical pencil (0.5mm)

The main part is obviously the pin vice itself. To the business end, I superglued the small screw, which works as a stop for the technical pencil head, which is put on top of it. One of the pinvice heads is then screwed on tight.

The back is a bit more involved though, but only a little. I took the PC case screw, added the spacer ring to it and put it down the opening of the second pinvice head. I then screwed the motherboard spacer onto the screw using needle nosed pliers.

When those two parts were snugly screwed together, there was ample space for the screw to rotate independently from the head, and the spacer ring made certain it did not wobble too much. The second head was then screwed back onto the pinvice and that's it!

I've used it a lot over the years and it has not let me down once. The only downside is that the PC case screw I chose was not much of an upgrade from the bare bit-holder and head that pained me so much before.

Which is why I used a bit of cloth to prevent getting blisters on the inside of my hand (again). Were I to do this again, I would probably go for a more comfortable knob (yeah yeah )

GW has pinvices for instance with a large plastic handle, which might be more suitable. But this is just what I had available at the time 

Project update tomorrow; I'm headed for bed now...

[Daeothar]

As promissed, here's the progress of last night. I put down the ground cover on the bare parts of the base. There are some additional piles of debris here and there, but most of the plain cover will be snow once painted.

I also plastered the first floor. It's obviously rough right now, but it will be sanded down to the same relief as the plaster inside the room. And then I will be chipping away at it on the edges, so it'll look like it's slowly crumbling away.

And that, I think, will conclude the building part of the project. All that remains now is to do the furniture and trappings of your common warband base.

Originally I wanted to do all the furniture in plasticard; it's the part I regularly enjoy the most, but there's this little thing called time restraint, so instead I've opted to print several bits to speed up this stage.

I've sourced several free and paid for pieces of furniture and details and I will complete the ensemble with some plasticard items. Think the dog kennel and a bookcase; both relatively easy projects.

All of this will have to be done in the next couple of days too, so I will have enough time to paint this thing as well...

[Daeothar]

And as I was flocking that base, I also attempted printing the first batch of furniture. It did not go as planned...


"Nigel gave me a drawing that said 18 inches. Now, whether or not he knows the difference between feet and inches is not my problem. I do what I'm told."