Usually I don't make New Year's resolutions, but this year was an exception and I promised (myself) to finish (and perhaps sell) more or less all my unfinished projects. There are some ...
One of these is my Warmaster project, started some years ago when I was able to get two painted Warmaster armies, Empire and Undead, for reasonable prices on Ebay. The rules system seemed to be quite interesting and I'd like to give it a try as it has some things in common with Hail Caesar rules.
No tabletop game without some terrain pieces, and when checking my options, I decided to try N-scale railroad plastic kits scaling to 1/160 which is roughly 10-12mm figure-wise, and to look for some nice paperwork-buildings which could be scaled to my liking. I also bought three of the Forgeworld Warmaster buildings but was very disappointed as those are much too small, suitable for 6 mm figures if at all. The problem with N-scale kits is that they are correctly scaled, meaning there is no reduction in height as with most of our miniatures. On a model-show I bought three N-scale kits on a clearance and started to convert one to a more fantasy looking building using parts from two kits and a few bits:
As you see I didn't use the white plastic fillers but created the timber-framed walls with balsa strips and a filler/sand mixture. On the tower corners four 6mm-fantasy figures were added as statues and three support walls from another kit where glued to the walls. Here the other kits (didn't use the second large kit at all) and some more pics:
THe building was left at this state and I tried some paper buildings. Where to get them? Essentially it's very easy searching the net for "scale buildings downloads" or "free pdf card model buildings" etc. Give it a try, there is a treasure trove for free. After downloading the only thing to do is scaling the plans down (or up) to roughly 10mm scale using a simple graphics software and using a door as some kind of measuring point. I printed them on my inkjet printer using 180g/sq m paper, cut them out with a scalpel and glued them together with white glue. Here are some of my samples:
All models were reinforced with thick card pieces from the inside or foamboard pieces. I added some details like chimneys and on one building the timberwork was repeated using glued-on coloured wood strips to enhance a 3-D effect.
That was the state of affairs for a couple of years, and everything went into a box and disappeared inside my cabinet. Other projects or real life things came in between ... Until a couple of days ago, when I restarted the project and painted the "Grenzdorf" tower/church followed by some weathering:
Next a base was cut from 3mm hardboard, and as I wanted to store that terrain in a A4-plastic container, it must be smaller than A4. On top of that a cobblestone street will be simulated using a piece of a small scale printed foamsheet I had laying around for quite some time; don't know where I got it from ... The board will then be painted a dark brown as kind of undercoat, the cobblestone a greyish tone using drybrushing. That's the "Grenzdorf" model today:
I'll add some greenery, trees, the little walls, maybe some detail pieces ...
18 July 2008, 03:30:40 PM
