Planning an iron age Scottish broch

[grapes]

Hello from a dollhouse miniaturist.  I'm planning to make a 1:48 Scottish broch, an iron age stone tower.  I'm still just in the imagining stage right now.  I haven't worked in 1:48 before - usually I do 1:12 - so I wandered in here to get ideas for using figures of people and maybe sheep.  If I end up having any people, they'll only be just normal people going about their daily activities, not warrior sorts.  And sheep?  I would love some Soay type sheep, but maybe I can just paint existing sheep if I can find good ones.  I might end up only doing sheep and no people, because I'm really picky about people looking realistic in their proportions.  Unless anyone has some good suggestions?

Also, I'm not sure what I'll do about the stone.  I would love to be able to do it in real stone, but I just finished a stone cottage and it was hard just to find stones in the right shapes and sizes for 1:12 (without buying expensive ones for sale for miniaturists.  I just picked them up one at a time over many months from gravel driveways and paths.)  I don't like plastic though.  It scares me.  I have a couple of plastic dollhouse tile floors that I installed about 20 years ago in my youth, and they're yellow now, ugh.

I'm totally new to the wargaming miniature world (is that what it's called?) but I'm so impressed with all the projects I've seen here!  And I welcome your suggestions!

[Emir of Askaristan]

For the stones use a bag of Coarse Grit from a garden center. These small stones are the right scale for walls etc and would work if you wanted to build the broch like this. Alternatively why not sculpt the stones, which could be fairly flat and regular depending on the raw material to hand, by rolling modeling clay round a suitable container and setting to it with a cocktail stick.

The walls of the broch I've been to at Glenelg have narrow passages set into them, so perhaps an internal cylinder and an external one may be the best way to show this.

To achieve the correct height you could make several rings of clay, each slightly narrower and join them, then smooth over the join.

There are model brochs out there, commercially available, rather than buy them see if you can get some inspiration from them. Monolith designs used to do one but I don't see it listed no. Google it and select images and you should see pictures.

Sheep are available from Gripping Beast. They may also have some dark age or Iron Age villages who would do. There ought to be pix on their site but if not, ask and I am sure they will oblige or someone here might be able to help. Modern sheep look nothing like their earlier equivalents so would be no use.

Hope that helps, let us see how you get on

[AndrewBeasley]

My daughter has spent most of the last 4 summer holidays from Uni in Orkney digging up a broch or two  so I try to avoid talking about these buildings...

Have a look at Hirst Arts and their plaster casting materials http://www.hirstarts.com - you may find a set that will give you basic stones.

Ask at the garden centre for pea gravel these may be the correct size.

A plan that may help is http://www.buildmodelcastles.com/html/scottish_broch.html

[grapes]

Thank you Emir and Andrew!  I'm definitely planning to have the passage and stairs between the walls.  Oh, brochs are so wonderful!  I don't want to buy an existing one though.  The whole point of my project is that I want to make it.  (I'm not a gamer, so it's not that I need it, I just want to make it and have it.)  I'll look into garden grit, thanks.  The trouble is that the brochs were made of lots of stones that were long and flattish, not round, which makes it harder.  I'm going to be very picky.

Wow, plaster casting looks like so much trouble!  But very cool.  Do you all do a lot of casting?  I've never done it.

[Westfalia Chris]

Wow, plaster casting looks like so much trouble!  But very cool.  Do you all do a lot of casting?  I've never done it.

Casting can be a lot of fun, but it's quite tedious if you need large quantities. Also, if using more robust materials, such as dental plaster or plastic-reinforced ceramics, the items can get very heavy very quickly.

That said, the Hirst Art moulds are excellent quality. I am not sure, though, that they won't be a bit too clean and orderly for a broch.

Another option would be to use XPS polystyrene foam. This is a very popular material and easy to work with; furthermore, it's light and robust, especially if you don't need to handle it. You could get a couple of sheets from your local DIY and cut circular "layers" from it, cut stonework impression into that and sand down the assembly afterwards to get that slightly curved appearance.

[Captain Blood]

Gripping Beast make a set of 28mm scale Manx Langton sheep.

http://www.grippingbeast.com/product.php?ItemID=286

[AndrewBeasley]

If you a keen on the flat stone and decide to go down the foam carving route, I would reccomend that you look at coating the walls in 'Foam Coat' from Rosco.  If you need a smaller quantity the material in available in small packs from the Foam Factory.

You may find (URL Removed till AV warnings clear) of interest.

[Mitch K]

If you a keen on the flat stone and decide to go down the foam carving route, I would reccomend that you look at coating the walls in 'Foam Coat' from Rosco.  If you need a smaller quantity the material in available in small packs from the Foam Factory.

You may find http://senjistudios.com/?p=1926 of interest.

I get a "cookie bomb injection website" blocked warning from Norton from this...

[AndrewBeasley]

Worrying - AVAST reports it as risky today - I've taken out the link from the original post.

Try this one for the range https://hotwirefoamfactory.com/Foam-Coat-Glue-Foam/

And an intro video:

[Silent Invader]

I made something 'similar' to an iron age broch for a 28mm fantasy project.

For the stones, I used no more nails on a cardboard cone (probably 0.5mm greyboard, I don't quite remember).



Needs to be done a smallish amount at a time as the no more nails dries quite quickly.  Just smear it on a couple of mm thick, then draw in the rocks.  I used a plastic tool for the drawing, a bit like a tooth pick shape, that I trimmed from some 1mm scrap plasticard.

I've used the same technique on a medieval church and a fortified farmhouse, where I wanted a flint and mortar effect..

PS: the cone is actually two cones that sandwich lengths of vertical spacers cut from 10mm foamboard.

PS2:  I've been to Glenelg as well.  Loved it there.

[Mitch K]

Grapes,

I don't know if you've read this:

http://www.ed.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.118339!/fileManager/occ20.pdf

But I found Dennis Harding's work (freely available on the web) to be an invaluable source for my Pictish constructions.

M.