Having built a wooden version I've now decided to move onto the other buildings from Gimbrin's Mine, building and, and try the different styles on them.
So the second building is No 6 in the Terror of the Lichemaster pack. I'm going for a stone build, these are dwarves after all.
As with the wooden shack, I gave the original a 'cabinectomy'. I built the whole structure out of XPS, milled to 5mm thickness. To give the cabin a more dwarven look I added pillars to each corner, these were 10mm square, with the outside corner taken off. The walls would be butted up against the pillars.
Prior to assembly I recessed areas for the door and windows. The windows were again granny grating, the door is a piece of balsa, scribed to give a planked effect. The stonework was measured, pencilled in, then the XPS was cut with a knife, before deepening the mortar lines with a pencil. The whole lot was textured with a ball of foil, and several of the stones were pressed in to give a slightly less uniform look.
The components for the stone cabin
I tried using tacky glue to assemble the cabin, but the XPS doesn't absorb it well. I ended up using a glue gun, which did the job nicely.
The cabin assembled
I added a couple of pillars in the middle of the long walls. To maintain the dwarven look I went for 5mm deep and 1mm wide, with the corners chamfered. If Peter Jackson has taught us anything, its that dwarves like octagons.
I glued a card roof in place (the usual postage envelope card) and then tiled it with 2mm thick XPS. I avoided card as I wanted thicker, hefty stone tiles. I've also avoided the typical slipped and cracked tiles that typify my human builds. None of that shoddy roofing from dwarves!
The roof actually gave me a lot of trouble. My first attempt had the tile strips too close together, so there was an unsightly profile. I ripped them off and started again, and remembered to add a chimney (just a strip of textured XPS). Spacing the strips out further looked better, but the edged looked scrappy, so I trimmed them in line with the walls and added bargeboards, again, strips of XPS. If I were doing a fancier dwarf building these would be ideal for some decorative carving. The ridgeline was more XPS, fashioned to match the bargeboards.
Cabin front awaiting door furniture
Cabin side
Cabin rear
Window side
The cabin has a coat of mod podge to strengthen it, then its on to painting.
As you can see, the cabin is a good size for dwarves, especially once it has a base. I still need to find some 'greebles' for the ends of the ridge. I'm sure I can find something on a sprue somewhere.
Excellent work, really like the chunky style of this.
ReplyDeleteYes, the 'cabinectomy' definitely helps sell this as dwarven. I have plans for a large dwarven building for my Kings of War demo set, so this is kind of a test run to see what looks right.
DeleteNice going, I like the pillars a lot, they do make it look like a Dwarf building indeed. Also thanks for introducing 'granny grating' to my vocabulary :)
ReplyDeleteThanks. Glad to help regarding the granny grating. it's useful stuff if you can find it. I've seen it used very effectively as flooring for 'grim-dark future' type terrain, and even as railings with some of the plastic cut out.
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