FITC Tavern part 3 - Detailing

I've managed to get the Tavern ready for painting. Looking at my co-challengees they seem to be further ahead. Bodvoc in particular has got his house painted and Merijn has got his based.

Looking at their progress, I'm worried I won't finish in time.  I was, perhaps, too ambitious for the time allowed, especially given another bout of decorating (and time spent watching Avatar: The Last Airbender), but I shall persevere.

I'm making a few changes from my initial plans, I'm not worrying about basing for the challenge, though I will get a base on as soon  as possible afterwards.  I'm also leaving off the shutters that are an important part of the look of the original, and the big doors I had planned for the archway (see below).  That way I might just get it finished in time for the end of August.

Before detailing the building I had a good think about how I imagined the building and how it would work.  I picture it as a coaching inn somewhere in the Old World.  The archway would lead to an enclosed courtyard (I'll build some walls for this later), possibly with a stables.  The archway has a set of big doors (I'm shifting them from the end of the wing, which I imagine is some sort of kitchen or storage.  The kitchen needs a fire, so I'll place a chimney above the wing, and the extension also needs a chimney.

The need to fortify the Tavern means that the ground floor windows are heavily barred (eventually with shutters) with fancier windows on the first floor, and the foundations are stone.

For the timber framing I tried to assemble believable frame structures, so the stone foundations have a heavy timber across the top.  Each corner has a similar timber which supports horizontals at various points.  Smaller timbers fill in between the main frames.  All the timber is balsa wood, cut without a ruler to give a more hand made look.  I've also deliberately avoided having the timbers, especially the smaller timbers, perfectly straight.  I've seen a fair few buildings using this method of construction, the timbers are rarely perfectly lined up or straight. 

The daub is ready mixed filler, applied between the timbers.  I used a fairly thick layer, and again avoided having it look too 'perfect'.  Handy hint:  if you damp the foamboard it helps the filler to stick when you apply it.

Side wall of the tavern showing both window types, the stone foundations and the timber framing and daub

The stone foundations are 4mm strips of XPS textured with my trusty Greenstuff World roller.  I always go over the texture with a sharp pencil to emphasis the stonework, then give it the 'foil ball' treatment. Unfortunately I handled the building a lot while adding the timbers etc, and some of the detail has been softened.  I gave it a protective coat of Mod Podge, but I wish I'd done it straight away.

The tavern front showing the fortified door and the archway.  

The ground floor windows with their strong iron bars are made from 'granny grating'.  This is a plastic mesh sold for cross stitch, but it makes excellent grating for models and is available from craft shops.  The door is simply a thin sheet of balsa with 2mm wide planks engraved on it with a sharp pencil.  I added extra planks to strengthen the front door, and since the above photo was taken I've added heavy rivets made from 2mm adhesive stones, again available from most craft shops.  The handle is a ring bent out of copper wire (at last, that jewellery making comes in useful) held in place by a wire loop glued into the door.  

The archway will eventually have a stout double door to keep out marauding orcs, goblins, beastmen and tax collectors, but that's a job for later.

The rear of the tavern showing the chimneys and the kitchen door (with hinges) replacing the nice double doors on the original.  You can just make out the door from the archway.

The roof was made the same way as the roof on the Bakehouse here.  The chimneys are blocks of XPS with brickwork carved in with a scalpel then a pencil and textured with a ball of foil.  The chimney pots are push pins, a very nice shape for chimney pots.  The stacks are anchored in place with cocktail sticks.

The other side of the tavern

I wanted the upstairs windows to look nice and delicate.  I thought the drywall tape I used for the Bakehouse was a bit crude, this is a high class establishment.  I wanted nice diamond panes.  Bodvoc used aluminium car repair mesh for his build, and I planned to do the same.  I have half a sheet of the stuff somewhere in the loft of shame.  

Somewhere.

Instead I tried using the plastic mesh from a food bag*, in this case from bulbs of garlic, which should also give extra protection from vampires.  I stretched the mesh over a sheet of 1mm cardboard/chipboard and then glued the corners with superglue and accelerant.  Then I coated the whole lot with PVA glue.  Once dry it can easily be cut into shape for individual windows.  I admit they would look better with fancier frames, but I was rushing by now.

As I type I've undercoated the model and it is drying, prior to painting over the weekend.

I'm pleased with my progress, but there are some things I wish I'd done differently.  I should have added more diagonal timbers, especially to the larger panels.  I do like the the idea of shutters for protection, but the placement of the front upper windows means they couldn't open or close because the roof is in the way.  I failed to account for the tiles when I placed the windows.

The first door I made was for the kitchen, with card strips for hinges.  I then realised that for the hinges to show, the door must open outwards.  I imagine the inhabitants bar the doors in case of emergencies, which implies inward opening doors, so all the rest are without hinges.  Hopefully the door furniture and the strengthening timbers make them look interesting.  There are two doors leading off the inside of the archway passage.  These are quite plain; they can't be seen easily.

Next up, painting.  Lets see how well I meet the deadline.  If I'm struggling I can always claim I still use the Julian calendar. 

* Ironically, for my original build of this model, way back in the 1980s, I tried something similar, stretching the mesh from a fruit net over the inside of the building.  In those days I cut the windows out.  I couldn't get the mesh tight enough though and it looked rubbish.  Somewhere I still have the unfinished model, I might go back and finish it as a nice counterpoint to this tavern.

D&D Campaign Heroes

Work continues (slowly) on the tavern, but in the meantime, here's something that I did quite a while ago.

When we finished the long running 4E campaign back in 2018 (see various posts starting here for more details), I presented the characters' minis to their respective players as a memento.

However, there seems to have been a mix up somewhere, and T'Other One found several of them in a box.

So before these finally go out to the players, here they are. 

Kathka (left) and Kathra (right)

Both these characters were run by the same player.  There was a complicated backstory involving reincarnation and twin sisters, but essentially it was a way of explaining a raise dead that tied in to the history.  I believe Kathra was actually a pre-generated character in the starter module.  The mini is simply one of the WotC pre-paints (Dwarf Shieldmaiden) with a better paint job.  The shield had a wolf on it (more reference to the character background) using a GW Space Wolf transfer.

Kathka is Freya Fangbreaker from Reaper.  I've since used Freya as Citronella in the first Teramarr campaign (see her here).  I replaced the shield with one made from plasti-card to match Kathra's shield, though I'd run out of Space wolf transfers unfortunately.  The axe was replaced with a sword from the Mantic Elf sprue to match a magic item the character used.

 Ozzie (left) and Tol Flemin (right)

Both Ozzie the often dead wizard and Tol the ranger were more WotC pre-paints.  I believe Ozzie started out as a Dragon cultist? I gave him the magical orb in his left hand, a greenstuff pouch at his right hip and a more appropriate paint job based on an earlier character mini but with darker tones.  This is the second iteration of Ozzie after multiple raise dead spells.  I'm not sure where the original mini (another WotC pre-paint) was but I recall he had a book  in one hand.

Tol is based on a Greycloak Ranger.  Much was made by his player of his stylish dress sense, and he loved feathered hats, the fancier the better.  I used the head of one of GW's Empire troops, probably the archers/handgunners box.  Otherwise the mini was simply repainted.

Looking back at these I wonder how they'd look if I were painting them now?  I remember being pleased with how the leaf camouflage came out on Tol's cloak.  I'd certainly use clear bases for one thing, and I'd varnish them too.  Tol doesn't have a five o'clock shadow, he's lost the paint on his chin.  

I don't have the mini for Switch, the halfling rogue, or Memnon, the tiefling cleric.  I know Switch's player took his mini, and T'Other One (Mem's player) provided his own minis.  Whilst it might be nice to assemble the party for a final photo, I can't see that happening.  It really deserves some sort of background and I don't have anything like that.

Althea

Finally, Althea, a shadow elf played between Kathra's death and eventual reincarnation as Kathka.

this is a WotC Drow wizard, and I'm including it just to show what the pre-paints look like with their original paint jobs.  Some are better than this, some worse, but they are pretty easy to repaint.

FITC Tavern part 2 - Assembly and Rabbets

I'm progressing nicely with the tavern but I see Bodvoc is ahead of me. Merijin is still planning as I write this, but I'm very impressed with is research. You can find part one of my build here.

Using the mock-up as a guide, I got the foam board cut and the basic assembly done today.  Once again I used a sheet of foam board generously donated by T'Other One.

All the pieces cut out ready for assembly

To give the model extra strength I decided to use rabbet joints rather than butt joints.

If you don't know how to make a rabbet joint, here's how.  

Butt joint, only one point of contact along the joint

For the rabbet we need to remove the shaded material, making sure the bottom layer of card is intact.  

Easily done with careful use of a craft knife.

Lots of gentle shallow cuts rather than savage deep ones*

The two pieces then fit snuggly together with double the contact between the pieces

And glued, I recommend pinning from both sides while the glue dries.

An extra bonus with rabbet joints is you don't get that strip of exposed foam down the joint. 

Glued and pinned

I used map pins because I couldn't find my dressmaking pins, but actually they proved easier to remove, so I'll stick with these in future.

I've also added a 'first floor' to provide the roof of the tunnel and add strength and rigidity to the model.

Next I'll add the card former for the roof and the details to the building (doors, timbers etc).  I'll pencil in some ideas on the white card first, based on the original model.

EDIT; I should point out that if you are using rabbet joints there is no need to reduce the size of the walls accounting for the thickness of the foamboard, just cut them to the full wall length.

*Not in the Lovecraftian sense.

FITC Tavern Part 1 - Planning and Mock-up

I've started work on the tavern, my entry in the First International Townscape Challenge (FITC).

I once tried making this building, many years ago when it was part of the Streets of Blood supplement. 

Back then I used really thick card scavenged from work (it was great building material, but hard work to cut details like windows, I wish I still had some).  I do remember I never finished it, making a mock-up reminded me why.

I've always been bothered by the design of the building.  The archway is nice, but seems a little redundant given that the building ends just after it, with only a thin wall.  I thought it might be better if there was another room beyond the archway, so I decided to add an extension.  With this in mind I decided to build a mock-up out of corrugated card.  This would allow me to judge the proportions of the extension I was planning, as well as have components I could measure to get the foamboard right when I came to cutting the pieces for the actual build.

I printed off a copy of the model and carefully measured it, transferring dimensions onto a bit of corrugated cardboard.  I normally do the pin prick method to get the doors and windows in the right place, but I wasn't bothered about those on the mock-up.

The original model has no internal strength to it, being just the walls that are visible from the outside. I decided to essentially make a long box for the main building and add the 'wing' to the end as an 'L' of walls; much stronger.

Problem; the end wall with the 'wing' needed an adjustment to the angle of the roof.  The 'wing' end wall, if the same angle as the other end wall, drops down to an unfeasibly low end for the 'wing'.  I decided a shallower slope would give a nice height to the wing, but of course I had to alter the other end wall as well.  

I remember having issues building this before, probably why I never finished it.  I think this might have been part of the problem.  I just couldn't get the walls to join at right angles, I wonder now if they are meant to be slightly askew?  After all, Medieval buildings are rarely 'true'.

At first I tried having equal sized sections on either side of the archway, but it looked a bit too neat, and rather large.  I reduced the size of the extension I was adding to be about the same as the wall visible up to the wing, which I thought looked better, and more manageable on the table top.

So now I know what to cut and how to assemble the tavern, though there may be some tweaking to account for the difference in thickness between the card and my foamboard.  For ease I went with a flat top to the archway, but I might cut the proper arch shape when I make the model properly.

The First International Townscape Challenge

I had a mad idea a while ago (one of many), following on for the success of Bodvoc of The War Crow and my Terrain Building challenge last year, I thought how about another, but this time I invited Merijn from Another Wargaming Blog who graciously accepted.  We are each building one of the Warhammer Townscape models over August, and blogging our progress.  No prize, just the satisfaction of a challenge completed (hopefully).

I've chosen my building, the Tavern (no 25 in the pack) and I'm going to do a little bit of extension to it, so I might make a mock up first to see how it looks. 

This should be a noticeably bigger model than most of the buildings I've made in the past, it will be a nice centrepiece on the tabletop.

 

Holiday HeroQuest

On a rainy day in the middle of a holiday week, what better than a family board game (or several)?

Amongst other games we got in a game of HeroQuest. This was a nostalgia trip for me and my kids, and an introduction for my wife and the future son-in-law.

Great fun, and Max joined in too. 

Max wonders if there is any more treasure to find now the gargoyle is slain.