Brutalist Blocks of Flats 28mm, any advice?

[ulverston]

Hi Chaps,
A few years ago now I purchased Zona Alfa and have just gotten around to reading it along with Metro 33. So I am now wondering how to construct some large (four storey) blocks of Soviet era housing blocks. I will need a few and may have one or two damaged with trees growing out of them.

My question is has anyone ever done anything similar in cardboard? Even foam core board has gone expensive so I am looking at the cheapest route. I do fancy the mdf kids playground as a part of the board and obce saw an abandoned version on here.

Any tips, photos or links would be most welcome... my little zone needs your help!

[Belgian]

Maybe some plastic crates turned upside down, or indeed layered cartonboard might also work. Looking forward in seeing what you will be doing.

[ulverston]

I will try using heavy cardboard but was hoping someone had done this before me so that techniques and texture might not be an issue. There are soma experts who work in card... finding something to make iron railings with would be helpful as well. MDF isnt cheap if you need large buildings and even foamboard seems to have doubled in price!

Having an empty or derelict affect is also a bit more difficult to achieve than I thought.

[joekano]

I haven't built apartment buildings, but I've used artboard with upscaled OO 1:76 model railroad paper textures for other buildings.  Scalescenes.com has some inexpensive downloads (full kits and texture sheets) that could be useful to you if you have access to a good printer that can handle large size paper.

[ulverston]

Joekano thats pretty much exactly was I was looking for. So one would print them out at 130% or so? I have to say they do look good... I will pop onto the site now and see what they have, I think I did print some of their buildings out a few years ago.
I do want my zone to be grim but I imagine a wash or paint may sort that out.

Thank you for your help

[Silent Invader]

I will try using heavy cardboard but was hoping someone had done this before me so that techniques and texture might not be an issue. There are soma experts who work in card... finding something to make iron railings with would be helpful as well. MDF isnt cheap if you need large buildings and even foamboard seems to have doubled in price!

Having an empty or derelict affect is also a bit more difficult to achieve than I thought.

Look at the zombie project thread by Commander Vyper

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=12559.30

He’s just resurrected the project using plastic buildings but in the early days used printed textures on Mountboard.

[joekano]

Joekano thats pretty much exactly was I was looking for. So one would print them out at 130% or so? I have to say they do look good... I will pop onto the site now and see what they have, I think I did print some of their buildings out a few years ago.
I do want my zone to be grim but I imagine a wash or paint may sort that out.

Thank you for your help

Yes, scale up during printing. My paper options only got me to 120%, which is a bit undersized, so 130% would be better if you can pull it off.  Here's an example of what 120% got me.  As you can see, image resolution still looked good:


Also, be sure to check out the scratchbuilders section, as they have a lot of other useful textures:

[ulverston]

Thanks Chaps I am stuck with an A4 printer so will probably be limited to 120% but it looks absolutley fine. In fact very good. I may try and construct the flats to look 3d with a juggling of depth on the verandas etc...

I intend to use Spectre Operations rules but with Zona Alfa lore and campaign system... already I am gathering my street furniture and scatter as being in the open is usually fatal in Spectre.

[joekano]

Glad to be of help.  I don't know if you saw, but they do have a few free downloads, so that might be a good way to experiment and see if it meets your needs before spending money.

[ulverston]

Thanks Joe thats a good idea. The architecture is pretty dour  (to me anyway) in eastern europe so the tower blocks should work well. Maybe they will serve as a template for even plainer card buildings... I am off to some art shops today to try and find a grey paper with a rough (concrete) texture. We have a strange hobby!

[has.been]

Scour the skips near light industrial units for polystyrene packaging.
They make great ruined sections.
The ones I did (years ago) I coated with old envelopes turned inside-out,
some have very nice patterns (brick etc. & it was cheaper than buying
model railway paper.) You could use those printed papers mentioned in
this thread. Tear irregular shapes, stick them on (I used wallpaper paste)
When dry mix up some filler & PVA/Wood glue & stipple that onto the rest
of the surface. Makes it look like the concrete rendering has been coming off.
Push some cut up bits of paperclips (concrete re-enforcers) to stick out at
twisted angles of the broken sections, along with a few pieces of tubing
(I use old biro tubes) as broken pipes.
Paint the non papered sections with Match-pots. Any colour, maybe even a
different one for each block. When that is all well & truly dry, give it all a
good dry brush with a light sand/dust/grime colour Match-pot of your choice.

[Daeothar]

I did this once with their free template for a warehouse front; upscaled it to approximately 1:50 scale from HO and it worked like a charm.

What I did do, as I was (and am) working with a simple A4 printer, is reshuffle the components in the PDF using Photoshop. I first enlarged the sheet, then I started another A4 sheet and cut and pasted the enlarged parts onto that. And then a new one once it was full, etc.

If I recall correctly, I went from 3 to 5 sheets of A4, but it's been a while, so I can't be sure anymore.

A bit labour intensive, and I remember having to split several elements (ensuring overlap when cutting), but the results are very nice indeed. The buildings are very well engineered.

Oh; keep one more thing in mind: the designs require you to work with several thicknesses of card, but remember to make sure the cardstock you use is also of a slightly larger thickness, or you'll run into fitting issues!

I worked around this by prepping sheets of card by glueing several together with PVA and weighing them down for drying before I started construction.

When starting out with this, I had this idea that papercraft buildings are a bit of a quick, cheap and easy solution, but don't let that fool you. Especially the Scalescenes ones are quite a bit of work to properly build; don't underestimate the amount of cutting and glueing required!

You won't be building one of these in an afternoon, that's for sure. But the end results are proper scale buildings, which are very well textured and proportioned, with loads of detail and character.

[Captain Harlock]

Try to find thin slices of DOW. Sometimes it goes by the name Styrodur or Roofmate depending on the country. I think it’s available down to 1 cm thickness. It’s way way cheaper than foamcore and more durable. I think it’s the ideal material for commie-blocks of khrushchev‘s era.

[ulverston]

Thanks for the help guys! One thing for sure unless one really has a good go at using different card thickness and foam core the peper buildings just dont look right. Kudos to those railway modellers because it is much harder than it looks! On every point the advice on here has been correct.... back to the literal drawing board for me I am afraid. I attempted a workshop but it just looks odd.

I have looked for roofmate etc but no luck as yet. The search for a replacement for foamcore continues as its now £25 for 10 A4 sheets!??! I can only assume there is some sort of shortage.

Thanks again for the help.

[Major_Gilbear]

The search for a replacement for foamcore continues as its now £25 for 10 A4 sheets!??! I can only assume there is some sort of shortage.

It's well worth looking around, and using slightly different search terms too. Example here, where 10 A3 sheets are £12.10 for example, or on Amazon here with the same for £11. I'm sure there's more/better out there, but this was the result of a quick 1min search! 

Another material to consider for you project is cork tile, like these on Amazon again, but most DIY stores sell them too. Some useful features about using cork tile are:

     > More weight than foamcore, so you buildings don't move as much if you knock then accidentally on the table.

     > They have a good adobe/concrete  texture, and can be broken or crumbed to make convincing-looking rubble.

     > They are somewhat flexible, but can be stiffen up enough as you assemble your structures.

     > You can cut them with a strong knife (Stanley boxcutter or similar strong sharp blade), and you can sand them too if you want.

     > They take paint and glue (and spray paint) excellently, and rarely warp.

     > There are high-density floor-grade tiles that come pre-sealed on one side and are generally firmer than the more generic sort.

     > You can use thicker cork for the base (trivets and heat-mats are often cheap sources of these if you get them from charity shops or bargain stores); it's sturdy, can shape well, and you can even carve into it as well if you wish.

     > Saved offcuts and crumbs make great basing material for your figures and scatter terrain.

If you want some assistance in getting started with cork, the incomparable Paul Ward (AKA Matakishi) has some beginners' tips here, and many projects on his site which use the stuff, although I think this one and this one will be good to get you started on yours.

I hope that helps and gives you a good start on your own efforts.