Chinese Tower from Birdhouse (UPDATE FINISHED!)

[Operator5]

Took a break from painting Russians tonight to work on a terrain piece for the table.

This is a Chinese tower from the Michael's birdhouse.

I pulled the walls off the two upper levels, sanded them down, and added the detail work (where the white area is) using some balsa wood.



I did not have aChinese fan sitting around, so I pulled out the old standby, cross-stitch plastic grid. I clipped a simple pattern out and will glue that to a corner post.



Still a bunch more to do with it, but this is the start.

[Alfrik]

Picked up 2 of the towers myself today! Like the railing work

[Mancha]

Will the walkways now be wide enough?

[Alfrik]

I measured the width of the walkways around the upper floors and found them to be about 3/4 of an inch overall, a bit of variance according to how well they were assembled. Im thinking of adding a small exstension piece around the top to allow for my 20mm square bases for most single character figures. Nice hand railings by the way

[Chairface]

Fantastic!  How hard were the walls to remove!?

[Operator5]

With a dremel and a cutting blade, no problem at all. I originally tried just breaking them off, but that was useless. The wood is soft, but the glue is exceptionally strong. In the end, I took the dremel out and cut along the base, then used the sanding tool to get them flat.

And the walkways are not wide enough for most 28mm bases. With the railing out a little bit, though, I can now stand guys in the doorways easily enough. My snipers will have a field day up there.

[Operator5]

Well, I hurt my back this morning and that meant all the work I planned for the Russians got put on hold. Could only work on "big" things since I had to keep getting up from sitting.

Here is the latest work on the tower.



I uses the same plastic grid that I did the railing with to create the roof pattern.

I also completed the detail work on the lower level. Now to finish painting that.

[odd duck]

looking really good so far  :)like the railing ,I'll have to pick one of this things up myself ,Oh and I wish you a speedy recovery with your back ,I'm all too familuar with back problems

[Operator5]

And here is the beauty with my first finished Russian squad guarding her.

I still need to touch up a few spots, but that should be quick work.

[Calimero]

Nice

[odd duck]

Looks Great!!

[Hitman]

Very nice. I saw one of those and thought...too big. Now that I see yours...methinks I'll have to make a trip to Michael's with a coupon and pick one up as well. Great job. Thanks for the step-by-step as well.
Regards,
Hitman
 

[Mancha]

Pretty nice.  I like your added architectural features.  And the Ruskies look good as well.

[Red Orc]

My favourite bit of this is the way you've clipped out some of the struts from the cross-stitch mesh to make the pattern for the fencing - it's really effective! I'm so stealing that idea, even though I don't have a lovely pagoda-y birdhouse tower thing to put it on... I might just have to make a Chinese restaurant or something!

A great looking terrain piece, from a DIY store bargain plus some clever applications of simple techniques - nice work!

[white knight]

Looks great! Why don't we have stuff like that?