Afghan Adobe Buildings

[Rob_bresnen]

I built some adobe buildings about 12 years ago- simple little boxes made from foam card. I used a mixture of DAS air drying putty and PVA glue to make a sticky putty to make the nice rounded edges at the top of the walls. These little boxes served me well for many years, but ended up being chucked in a box in the loft. When Alcal said that he fancied doing Soviet-Afghan war I began looking on line for adobe building and was shocked at the cost of them. I kept thinking I know I can make them better than that for less because I made those little boxes years ago and they looked OK. I dug out my old buildings, and decided to revamp them, and make them into compounds suitable to me used for Afghanistan or similar locations.
I used based from Warbases, and gave them new doors, adobe walls, and added match stick beams sticking out of the walls. The biggest building got a new staircase to provide some roof top access too. I used floor grout (the grey stuff) to fill in the gaps and plaster to add a bit of texture to the blue foam. the floor grout is useful as it is very gritty and adds a nice coarse texture too.

I still need to finish the walls, build gates, add sand and grit to the base and paint them. I will be going for a more realistic colour scheme than my old one.  

When these are finished I plan on making a larger complex with lift off roofs and internal access. I have previously made buildings with lift off roofs but have always found painting and decorating the interior difficult. My plan for the big complex is to paint the interiors before I assemble the building. That is going to take a bit more planning.

[LordOdo]

Looking good!!

[Hupp n at em]

Those look really nice.    Will you be using the same method for the new building with the removable roof as you did many years ago for these?

[Rob_bresnen]

No, I will be building them entirely from blue foam as an experiment. As I will need space to get my hands in I will be making them larger too. The only problem is that I am beginning to think they will not scale well with my older buildings (which will look tiny in comparison). Therefore I might not be able to use them both together on the same battlefield. I might save the larger ones with the internal rooms for small skirmish games like Black Ops, when room to room fighting is what is needed.

[OSHIROmodels]

They look promising 

cheers

James

[pocoloco]

Great start or rather a continuation with those buildings 

I wouldn't worry too much about slight size difference between new and old buildings if they have similar wall textures and paintjob they should mix nicely together... the local authorities might not be that strict about house building policies

[Hupp n at em]

If you make the larger buildings look more like collections of offset boxes rather than having big straight walls, that could help balance them out with the look of the older buildings.  It would make building them a way bigger
PITA though. 

[Rob_bresnen]

Here are a few shots of my first two completed models.







And here is the big compound which as so far only had an undercoat- I think it is quite satisfying to see the whole structure one colour as it helps show what it might look like when it is finished.



My first big compound went in the bin- It looked too tall, too boxy and it the rooms were too small to get my chubby fingers in to move the figures about. I might go with Hupp n at em's suggestion of using a series of smaller interconnected buildings rather than one big building.
In the mean time I have remembered that I also bought some prepainted Adobe buildings on ebay a while ago and dug them out to see if the were usable. They are the same hight as my little boxes and a little bit larger. They are made of MDF and textured bumpy paint. I used a craft knife to trim the edges to round them off a bit. I am hoping that my paint scheme will cover up the fact that they have a different surface texture- after all not all mud brick houses look the same. I am going to swap the door on this building to more closely match my others as I really don't like this one.

[Constable Bertrand]

Hey Rob, looking good

If your worried about the mdf texture paint, just coat it with your das putty solution, that will round the corners more too!

I see no issue at all with your different buildings though, the old ones look fine next to the new ones.

Cheers
Matt.

[OSHIROmodels]

Very good 

cheers

James

[6milPhil]

  Those look just the part. These kinds of buildings are relatively simple but great fun to build none the less.  

[Rob_bresnen]

I have done a bit more work on my village, finishing my two larger complexes. The larger building with the lift off roof was bought on ebay and tweaked a bit- I shaved the corners to soften the edges and added a new front door- the old front door was reused inside.

The carpets were just taken from the internet, resized in Word and cut out. It was an after thought but I think it looks nice. 












Next up- A mosque, some shops or a small markeyt, and perhaps a few bomb damaged houses.

[pocoloco]

Great work and splendid idea with the carpets. Will be shamelessly stolen when I get to build some similar type of buildings

[Andym]

That's some cracking wee pieces. Love the carpets!

[Malamute]

Very good