Advice or links to 28mm house building please?

[ulverston]

Hi Chaps,

It seems that my chosen project over the winter months sort of chose itself. I have bought a few Bolt Action books Ostfront and Fortress Budapest. The armies are sat here in their boxes-both German and Russian-over £180 spent  Dont tell the wife....

Anyway the books are full of pictures with scratch built houses and tower blocks which I would like to build.... foam core board is here ready and I wondered if anyone has done this before? Any tips or links to blogs etc would be very helpful.

It would be nice to have a decent board to put the figures on.... does anyone know who did the boards for the books?

Thanks in advance guys.

[Codsticker]

Although mostly fantasy builds there is some good building advice from the Black Magic Craft channel (link) on YouTube.

You will probably glean some info from JBs thread here as well.

And, of course you should probably buy one (or both  ) of Silver Whistle's books (link).

[ulverston]

Hi,

Thanks for the heads up on the books but who is silver whistle? Is that the terrain tutor chap on youtube? Also I have no idea who JB is but I do know that there are a lot of talented people on here.

[Furt]

Silver Whistle has an amazing blog featuring some excellent table dressing.

His books are in the process of being re/printed as of now:

http://wargamingwithsilverwhistle.blogspot.com/2019/07/sign-up-to-setting-scene-volume-2.html

Check out his blog in general for some inspiration of what a good table can look like.

[gamer Mac]

Have you had a good look through these boards

[ulverston]

thanks Furt I will look at the link now.
I always look at peoples work on here, particular Tin Sheds creations or Captain Blood, those guys are just world class.

[Mindenbrush]

Matakishi does some excellent buildings and has plans available
https://www.matakishi.net/making-things.html

[Wyrmalla]

If you're scratch building simple strips of balsa can go a long way to increasing the level of detail. Just extra pieces around windows to resemble frames, or lengths across the walls give more depth.

I'd also recommend looking into giving the walls a texture. Either through using vacuuform sheets or textured wall paper. For brick work, etc.

You may also want to think about using bits of tubing for pipes / gutters. Add little flat square cubes to represent light switches. Find some textured plastic for vents. The Post Apocalpytic board has a pinned thread for architecural details and furniture which may be useful.

Oh and in my experience rubble sells ruined buildings. Its something which many miss out, or only add sparingly. However I prefer to cover the whole ruin in it as it looks more realistic. Easily done by making a paste out of sand, gravel and pva glue - which you can add model bricks, bits of cork/ whatever into too. I've seen it done at the last stage as well - after the ruin's painted - by adding some paint into the mix and applying it too (which is how I do muddy areas - pva glue / water effects/ sand/  brown + grey paint). This sort of paste also means you can be a bit liberal with how tidy the bases of your ruins are; as you can just fill in any gaps during the application.

If you want a tonne of bricks avoid buying them new. Either find a brick mould and cast bricks out of clay. Or make your own by rolling a flat sheet of clay out and cutting the bricks out by hand. Those pre-made bricks will cost you a fortune to make even one piece of terrain. Its the loose bricks which can sell a pile of rubble - instead of just being a pile of dirt you'd see on any other terrain piece.

I'd mention the Mantic Games Mars Attacks brick ruins kits. And the Tamiya set as well (I think Pegasus Hobbies does an unofficial expansion set to it too). Which are fairly affordable. Below's some of my ruins made with those sets (plus balsa wood for the floors, etc).

[ulverston]

Wyrmalla, thank you for your advice, I had never thought of mixing paint into my filler pva mix-that is going to be a game changer! Also the brick mould is another top tip, I just paid £10 for a bag of them and used most just on my German bases.

I had forgotten about the Pegasus sets and will search them out.... as well as looking at the mantic stuff.

Thanks again and the pic is excellent!

[Codsticker]

Hi,

Thanks for the heads up on the books but who is silver whistle? Is that the terrain tutor chap on youtube? Also I have no idea who JB is but I do know that there are a lot of talented people on here.

JB is Jim Bibbly (blog here and his thread I linked to in my last post here.

I have also scratch built ruined buildings for my Mordheim table (blog here).  Although for fantasy a lot of the techniques would cross over for more modern buildings.

[ulverston]

Thanks Codsticker, I need the advice, the techniques and the motivation. As you posted this I was sticking together a town house and losing the will to live!

[Maniac]

A useful source for all things terrain:

https://www.amazon.com/Battlefields-Miniature-Realistic-Effective-Wargames-ebook/dp/B00WQ4QQ9M/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=battlefields+in+miniatures&qid=1572460580&s=books&sr=1-1

Mr. Davies' book is an excellent reference guide for all manner of terrain projects.

[ulverston]

Thanks for the link Maniac, I think that's one to order from my local library

[6milPhil]

Matakishi does some excellent buildings and has plans available
https://www.matakishi.net/making-things.html

I second this as a source. Also, his use of cork tile is really good. I've built a fair few buildings using that and it's a great material, very forgiving and easy to cut.

[ulverston]

Thanks I am still gathering information and making plans... I have joined this FB group which is pretty handy
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=Foam%20Modelling%20Workshop&epa=SEARCH_BOX