Building terrain and buildings?

[Parrot]

I have branched out a bit and am trying to do some medieval style buildings by scratch.  So I am interested in what materials to use?  what should the buildings be made of?  Modeling clay? cardboard?  The store I was at had a package of DAS clay and also a box of brandless clay in a 10 pound box.  should I make the walls from clay, and support them with planks of balsa wood? I think balsa wood for timber supports will be good, but I need roofing suggestions as well.  If i figure this out I will probably try to do some natural terrain too.  Any good online tutorials to use?

[has.been]

I use foam core, peal off one side of paper then draw/emboss the 'stones'. I do not even bother with cutting out doors & windows, I just emboss deeper than the 'stones'. This allows me to 'draw' the planking of the doors & the frames of the windows. When I have done all of the walls I use wood glue to assemble the building (holding it in place with pins until the glue has set, which is normally over night). The roofs can also be done from foam core, embossing the thatch pattern onto the exposed foam.
When the building has set I give it a thin coat of filler mixed with PVA glue & leave that to dry before giving it all an undercoat of dark brown (I use matchpots/testors from a hardware shop). When that has dried I drybrush with various shades of grey (mix up some dark grey & keep adding white or cream to each coat, using the brush lighter each coat, until happy with the result. I then add any detail. Then flock/bushes to the base & building is done.

[Atheling]

I've started making a an Afghan Tower, not specifically for Medieval, but could certainly be used as such by using two empty duct tape rolls and caking them in air drying clay and sculpting on the stonework with an embossing tool by hand.

I'll post up a pic very soon. It's a quick and easy method that's great for the NWF but more regular stonework would have to be sculpted for a medieval tower on a city wall for instance as these tasks were often planned by master masons (I know a bit about it as I used to work with the Stonemasons at Durham Cathedral and later the archaeology department too).

I hope this is of some help? Maybe as an alternative to the embossing blue craft foam?

Darrell.

[Elk101]

I've made medieval style timbered buildings with a foamboard base and balsa timbering; then a smear of polyfilla on the exposed foamboard. I've mainly tiled the roofs using cereal card and individually placed tiles but you could use trimmed down teddy bear fur or brush fibres (or numerous other materials)  to represent thatch.

[Zaheer]

Matakishi's site is a very good site for beginners (apologies if you're not one of these!), http://www.matakishi.com/makingthings.htm
, and Terragenesis is worth a look http://www.terragenesis.uk/, as is the Workbench section of this forum.

I would suggest you get some Poundland (or local equivalent!) filler and/or spackle to experiment with as well as or instead of the clay. I find you can get much better results from these.

[UbiqueMatt]

Cardboard is cheap and easy to use.

[Atheling]

That's pretty damn good considering it was made from cardboard!! 

I imagine it is quite sturdy when all put together(?)

Darrell.

Cardboard is cheap and easy to use.

[Paul]

Cardboard....
http://paulsbods.blogspot.de/2015/09/medieval-building-with-covered-walkway.html

[Eric the Shed]

Parrot good to see you are looking to build your own...

Constructing terrain is one of the highlights for me in this hobby. I would strongly recommend you consider four things...durability, playability and storage & cost.

Once you have done that think on the materials - foamcore and cardboard are both great starting positions as has already been mentioned. They are both readiliy available and inexpensive


however if time is precious you might want to consider the multitude of pre made or part made buildings out there...

[Pijlie]

Some pointers  Enjoy!

http://pijlieblog.blogspot.nl/search/label/scratchbuilt

[Neldoreth]

I've put together a few articles on buildings of that medieval look and feel.

I tend to use foam core over cardboard, but cardboard would work using the same techniques! Some issues I've had with cardboard though are the ridges if you're using corrugated card showing through after painting (that's the stuff with thin card on the outside, and wavy thin card sandwiched in the middle). If you do use corrugated card, I would recommend using the stuff that is very thin, with the wavy middle part very tight/close together. That way, when you paint it, you don't see the corrugation as easily/obviously.

Foam core has the benefit of being straight and firm regardless of how much paint you put on... but don't use it as a base, because it will warp...

For my stuff, I build the roofs as removable, and I cut out the shingles (details on how can be found in the articles). In any case, here are my articles:

Building the Prancing Pony

Building a Medieval Town

Some sample shots:











Thanks
n

[Captain Blood]

Parrot, I've bumped this over to the workbench because I think you'll get more response here than on the Medieval board 

[Neldoreth]

I also have an article on various options for making thatch:

Thatch Roofs... how to decide how to make them


This method above produces the result below:




This method above produces the result below:




This one method above produces the result below:



Thanks
n

[Mr.J]

I've recently just started putting together some of my own dark ages buildings. I've used basic lasercut buildings and scratchbuilt card cores. I also use the towel technique for roofing and it is very easy and looks reasonably realistic too.

Clicky pics on page 1 and 3.
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=82477.0

[Parrot]

I bought a sheel of foam core, but now I can't figure out how to cut it.  Everything I try ends up damaging the foam and the cut ends up ragged and poor.  Should I be using some sort of specialist tool for this?