Some old buildings and some new ships…

I found a couple of spare hours over the Christmas break so started going through a couple of boxes of half-finished projects and came across some buildings I had started making a while back, these buildings were for me to use with my 20mm WW2 figures.

I found that I needed more buildings to finish off a Normandy village / small town I had made a long while ago and so I put together six more shops and a couple more houses, well I think it is about time I finished these off… so they have now joined the very long painting and modelling queue!!

They are all based on some templates my son did for me which make it really easy to put together, they are made out of foam board and thin cardboard ( cereal boxes ) and a few small off cuts of balsa wood.

I still have to finish off some of the windows, doors and shop fronts, and then of course all the roofs, and at that stage they will need painting which is done with mainly emulsion sample pots from B&Q, I find this to be an easy and cheap way of doing them, although some of the detail and weathering will be done with Vallejo paints.

I know they look a bit rough now but once they are finished they will hopefully look a lot better.

I still would like to make some gardens to go behind the houses including all the things you would find in them, like green houses, sheds, flower beds etc. etc.

I have seen some great village terrain for ww2 games on different blogs over the years and have so wanted to copy them, well I think that I might try and do some for myself over the next few weeks.

Here are some pictures of the earlier buildings I did, these have been used in many games using my 20mm Germans and British figures, hopefully I will get many more games using the new buildings when they are finished.

These were based ( loosely ) on some buildings in photographs in Normandy during WW2, the centre piece is the church ( which can be used with my 25mm figures as well, I just take out the pulpit and the pews )

Also, Santa decided to bring me a 3D printer this Christmas, well actually it was a very hard and confusing multi-piece puzzle that ended up being a 3D printer when we had finished!!

It took us most of Christmas day to get it all together and up and running… Ok almost running as one of the threaded bars was slightly bent at one end, so we had to make do with turning it the other way round as a temporary solution ( we ordered a replacement bar which arrived really quickly so all sorted now )

We also had a little bit of trouble loading the drivers to run the printer at first, but now everything is running, and I am having fun…

I have tried a few simple prints and have been pleased with the results, but now I am mucking around with a few ACW ships, these are based on some free ones I found, nothing spectacular but good enough to put on the table, but one thing that I will not print is the funnels as they look really wonky and not great, these I will just add with plastic or metal tubing, I will add a few other bits of detail onto the prints to make them a little bit more realistic, but I think once they are painted they should be great.

Here is one I did and which looks not too bad, although as I stated the funnel is really wonky, maybe something I am doing wrong with my printer, and the base was far too thin because when I took the print off the bed most of the rear section stayed on the glass!

I am also looking at putting together some spaceships that I can call my own at some point, I am really excited about that, although I will have to improve my 3D skills a lot to get something that looks good… but I am not in any great hurry so plenty of time for practice.

And then there is the WW2 stuff, I could try and print some stuff for the village, maybe a bicycle or two, or a watering can, or maybe…

Ok you get the idea, 2019 could be a good year for the hobby stuff in my house.

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2 Comments

    • Mac

      Thank you, the foam card is very easy to work with luckily, and I also cover the buildings in a very thin coat of PVA / Filler mix.. that covers most mistakes! and looks a little like a cement render when it is painted.

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