Building scale question

[myincubliss]

This might seem like a silly question, but how big should a building be for 28mm? As in, how tall should walls be?

I'm planning on rocking out some cork buildings a la Matakishi (well, not quite a la, but I'm sure you get the idea), but all his plans seem to have a building floor being 40mm up from ground level, which seems a little small. The 1/48ish wooden windmill kit I'm converting for wargaming use has a floor height of 70mm (and door height of 50mm), which looks good, but seems terribly unrealistic when you think about how tall that would be IRL. I've drawn up plans to stand minis next to, even stood with a ruler on my head to try and measure how much space there is between my head and the ceiling at 1:1 scale, and... I'm confused.

Mathematically, Matakishi's directed 40mm height is correct, 70mm seems way too big (if we say 6' is 30mm at scale, and I stand 3/4 the height of a room tall, 40mm would be that room's height).
Is there some bizarre eye-tesselating effect caused by scale? Does anyone have any sound advice?

[Dan]

The problem  I've found with doing buildings is usually the base on figures .
My doors are 40mm x 20mm . Most buildings I make have a wall height of 60mm but some ground floors I make a little bigger between 60 and 80 depending on the building .

[archangel1]

One thing you have to remember when using 1/48 scale accessories with 28/30mm minis is that they are roughly 25% larger than the equivalent would be in matching scale items.  I agree that 70mm floor height sounds excessive, though, even for 1/48.  That's roughly 11 feet - quite a large spacing, although there's not exactly a lot of stuff in a windmill, is there.  One plan I found shows only 9' ceilings, at least on the ground floor.

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Matakishi's 40mm works out to roughly 8' for 30mm figs, which is what my own home's main floor ceiling is at, so it would appear to be correct.  I tend to build to scale, myself, but I guess it depends on what looks good to you.

[Sangennaru]

I'm making a resin house and each floor is around 35 mm tall... but it's for 15mm game! consider that a normal floor should be around 3,5 meters, and do the proportions:

1:48 means 350:48 centimeters... It should be around 7 cm... maybe 6 is better, because the scale sometimes is quite smaller, but nothing less...

[sukhe_bator]

I tend to build to scale then reduce the dims slightly. I also tend to reduce the scale a bit by eye. Not a very scientific method - granted, but take a step back, or up and see what I mean. Place it on the table. Does it really need to be that big/too small?

Unless its worth fighting over, like a main gateway, I assume that figures contesting an ancilliary doorway will be either side of the threshold, so I build for the figure scale and don't allow for base sizes there. Castles and most Asian/Middle Eastern buildings were constructed with an eye to defence, so entrances and windows were usually smaller. I'm 6' tall and always have to stoop in castle doorways so I make mine 25mm High at the very most. If you look at gateways and wooden doorways, they may look big to allow carts or horses in and out, but they always have a 'pedestrian' entrance which is quite narrow (approx. 2' x 4-5')

When scratchbuilding in 15mm I typically make doorways 15mm H, small room ceiling Hts 25mm high, unless they are stone vaulted etc. in which case 30mm. Distances between floors 40mm.

I usually work in 15mm or 25mm and find I can reduce 20mm scale kits a little to make them look right or up them a tad to suit 25mm.

[matakishi]

Decide on a size based on what you want the building for. Most of my buildings are for Crossfire so they need to accommodate two bases of figures this means they fit nicely on a 150mm x 100mm base and the floors need to be 40mm high.

Buildings for other scenarios, Boxer Rebellion for instance, are larger because they have to accommodate individual figures.
If I ever make a building which is designed for figures to fight inside it will be much larger, like a role playing floor plan with say 5ft represented by 30mm and exaggerated dimensions.

The basic problem with (war)games buildings is the lack of scale or conflicting scale of everything around them. 25/28 mm figures are not scale models, they are too bulky for their height and don't have human proportions, most rules compress ground scale and often one figure will represent several actual men. If you make a building to 1/56 or 1/60 scale suddenly all your trees are dwarf varieties, your 'river' isn't as wide as a real stream and your 'hills' are odd bumps in the ground and your little fat men won't fit through the doors

For years gamers have done the only thing they can to combat this...make stuff that looks right to you.
Everything else is meaningless, there is no right or wrong.

One final thing to bear in mind; most people seem obsessed with measuring a miniature's height to gauge 'scale'. In fact the height is the one dimension you are not really aware of during play because you aren't at ground level, you are looking down on the table from an angle. I find (and you may not) that scaling my buildings to the width and breadth of a figure works better for me.

As an example, I am happy with 1/50 scale armour for WWII games. The Sherman tracks may come up to the figure's head rather than his shoulders but at least he looks like he could fit through the hatch which is the bit I notice during play.

[myincubliss]

Many thanks to all for the advice, I think I'll make some paper mock-ups and have a bit of a fiddle...

[dampfpanzerwagon]

Not really a satisfactory answer, but I tend to go by eye, estimating the sizes as I go along, there is an old saying in modelling; If it looks right - it is right.

Try a rough sketch on some scrap paper first.

With regards to the over-sized door on the windmill - build a smaller door surround, to reduce the opening, a lot of buildings had very ornate doorways and windmills were not built to a universal design!  I have use 1/35th scale terrain pieces for my Flintloque 1/48th scale miniatures, I either re-modelled the door or cut plastic/plaster from the bottom of the walls. 

Good luck.

Tony

[fastolfrus]

Rather than sketching out a rough version on paper it might be worth trying a prototype on cheap cardboard - supermarket packaging is probably the cheapest (it's free), then if it works, use that as a template to mark up your final product.

We made some western buildings last summer and kept designs to a minimum but cut card templates to mark up all the walls etc.

[myincubliss]

Over the last couple of days I've built a comic shop (WIP pics to come when we're next at home) - I built a paper model of the ground floor to check scale against minis - in the end I went with Dan's suggestion of 60mm walls, since I spend a lot of time bending down to get a model's-eye-view, and it looked right... So far it's basically painted, and the perspex windows have been glued in... just need to produce some scale props...

[Hammers]

The basic problem with (war)games buildings is the lack of scale or conflicting scale of everything around them. 25/28 mm figures are not scale models, they are too bulky for their height and don't have human proportions, most rules compress ground scale and often one figure will represent several actual men. If you make a building to 1/56 or 1/60 scale suddenly all your trees are dwarf varieties, your 'river' isn't as wide as a real stream and your 'hills' are odd bumps in the ground and your little fat men won't fit through the doors

For years gamers have done the only thing they can to combat this...make stuff that looks right to you.
Everything else is meaningless, there is no right or wrong.

I sunscribe to this idea and for the same reason. Wargamers do not make buildings to live in but to look at therefore 'the art' is more important.

One useful, and I think interesting idea, that I learnt from the time I was doing a lot of dioramas, is that when you make multi story buildings to slightly reduce the hight of each floor. Due to perspective the eye expects items seen from the ground to look smaller as they become higher. As with everything seen in scale, if not 'should' at least benefits from being enhanced. I would not say that this theory applies if you mean to keep miniatures at different levels within a scale building.

[Sangennaru]

Try a rough sketch on some scrap paper first.

That's the best thing to do, probably... I always try to do that, maybe comparing the sketch whith a photo...

[Dan]

I just found out it plays to plan ahead  . I built a building from out of my head and it was too large to fit with my other buildings and did not fit with the building I based it on . I was lucky in that I could trim 10mm off the edges of the front and back walls and took 100mm off the length . I also cut 5mm off the bottom of the walls. Luckily the windows and doors look ok with no alteration needed .
Maybe I will do a cardboard mockup first next time.