Hi. Back from a little break. I started back up the Mordheim/Fantasy row house build by starting to paint the smaller of the two structures. To be honest, it took me a little bit to start painting the terrain. I cleared my workspace by cleaning up the area. I then gathered materials like paint, brushes, water cups, paper towels. I even got out my DIY wet palette that I made from a plastic closing clamshell printed photo holder (whew! that was a mouthful). You can see how I made this wet palette HERE. I even started setting up my recently upgraded airbrush setup. I placed the small structure on the workspace. I got out my camera to help document the progress. And then…

I sat. Staring. Pondering. Frozen. It had to have been at least 10 minutes, by my reckoning. I got lost in thought. What colors should I make this? What combination will look best? Should I use the newer paintbrushes that I just bought? What if I get paint all over my workstation? Should I just airbrush the whole thing? What about the details?

Slap!

I felt the imaginary hand strike me across the face as I heard myself calmly say. “It will be fine. Just start. Trust the process. We can adjust, if we need to, along the way.” And with that bit of wisdom from my inner voice, I started.

Enjoy the progress pics. More to come.

Happy crafting!

Hi. Happy Wednesday evening. Today I went about addressing an issue I found with building the duplex rowhouse with a front overhang. It tends to want to lean forward because of the weird center of gravity being that it has an open back. I added a little “foot” that sort off prevents the structure front going past the tipping point – at least for now. I clad it with thin EVA 2mm sheet (in green). I carved the stones with a blade and used a heat gun to open the cuts and seal the foam. This is a trick I learned from years of using EVA foam in my cosplays.

I added additional perch areas for shooting/observing from high vantage points. Basically, just glued in some makeshift platforms made with stir sticks/hot glue.

Priming and Sealing time! I mixed up some prime sealer – this is a combination of 1 part PVA glue (you can buy by the 1 gallon jugs or 3.7ish liters) + 1 part black acrylic paint (cheap craft paint will do just fine usually under ~ $1 USD) + water as a thinner. Mix well (I have a lot stir sticks lying around for some reason). I then painted both structure without trying to get too messy. I used a combination of a foam brush, an inexpensive bristle brush as well as a standard paint brush to apply the paint to all the nooks and crannies of the builds. I will let it dry overnight before continuing the paint phase.

Thanks for reading.

Happy crafting.

Hi. I’m back with another update to the Mordheim (Old World, DnD, Frostgrave, WW Europe, etc.) rowhouse/terrain build project. In this update, I worked on the smaller of the two units. I added a second floor and roof wall as well as included windows and a sharpshooter’s nest. On both structures, not having square stock .25 balsa strips on hand, I improvised and used the foam core from the foamboard. I removed the paper layers on both sides of the cut beams and used a pen to simulate wood grain. You can see these in action as “support angle beams”.

I did not post Monday because I was simply too tired to do a write-up on this blog as well as Insta. I did the work last night and spent some time today as well to get to where I am. Are they ready for paint? Maybe.

Pro tips: Try to keep you workspace clean-ish during your workflow process. Organize your materials and tools. At stopping points, sort and clean up your scrap materials. I use my kid’s old plastic meal trays as sorter plates. I try to keep my tools in one general area of my workspace. If I can use bits, I will keep for later, otherwise in the trash bin it goes. I keep a 13 gallon (50 liter) bin close to my desk. Keeping it close encourages me to discard waste whenever appropriate.

That’s all for now.

Happy crafting!

Hi. It is technically still Sunday as I begin writing this post. I worked on completing the roof shingling this night. I cut strips of thin cardboard using the pinking shears to get that shingle edge look. I then cut slits into the strips to give the appearance of single shingles. I then embarked on the task of hot gluing the shingles to the roof in appropriate areas, but not before I gave each strip a bit of a curl because medieval/olde world materials tend to do that sort of thing.

Also, I am thinking I may add another flooring level or makeshift platform in the “attic” areas to all shooting vantage points out of the ruined roof top.

I finally had a small photoshoot with some minis to see what it looks like (before priming and painting). Check out the small gallery. BTW – I left the doors off for now, so I could paint the interiors easier. I will then glue them on ajar to give the appearance they were kicked in or maybe just left opened by the previous occupants.

That’s all for now. Have a great start to your week and I’ll write more soon.

Happy crafting!

Hi. It’s late. I know. I seem to be doing this a lot to myself lately. However, no matter how much turmoil life throws at me, I keep telling myself it is all for a greater purpose. One side of the roof is complete-ish.

I had this notion to create a network of beams that “supported” the roof planks. But then I thought, nah. I just cut out a section of cardboard to fit the roof area. A little bit of glue…see what I did there…and viola’ – a foundation to glue my roof shingles.

For the shingles, I used the proven method of employing pinking shears to cut a scallop shape of my “roof plate” material. In this case, the material I am using is old, thin card tissue boxes I have collected over a few cold/flu seasons. They are easy to cut with the pinking shears. If you can’t get a hold of these specialty scissors, I have an affiliate link to some off the Amazon site.

Check out the gallery.

I also added windows to the 3rd floor, because the missing backside of the building wasn’t enough light for some reason.

See you next time.

Happy crafting!

Hi. Some more progress today – Friday the 13th – although this probably won’t post until after midnight. I worked on the second and third floors. Again taking into consideration playable terrain as well as access by the humans or other manner of beast that move minis about the structure.

I also redid the windows to better streamline the build process which left me gaps from the resized windows. I ended up adding trim to hide the extra gaps. Whew!

I also added the upper walls that would eventually support the rooftops. I wanted the smaller domicile to have a different roof pitch. I will start adding the supporting beams tomorrow?

On the second floor, I created a mini roofline on the front of the building to act as a slanted walkway. Maybe players can run along that roof to jump to other buildings or have an elevated shooting position? I still have to figure out if I will created a window opening or just cut out an opening. TBD.

More to come.

Happy crafting!

Hi. Just a brief update today. Started on the 2nd level with gameplay and access in mind. Can players access their minis on all the current levels? Is there enough room for player’s hands to get in and move minis about in the structure? Did I break off enough stir sticks to cause instant splinters for players? (Probably)

I spent a short time today adding a second floor. I had no plans. I winged the entire level so far after I split the structure into two sections as documented in my previous post. What am I even thinking? I’ll tell you. Just get past this first building build. I can do it!

I also realized there were no windows to enjoy the chaos occurring on the streets of the damned city so I started making windows. There are definitely lessons learnt on this terrain project. Making windows at this small scale is tedious. No 3D printer or laser cutter yet in the budget, but I always wanted to try molding and casting (like in the olden days)

Enjoy the pics. How do you address your window situations in your builds? I am curious. Leave your thoughts and comments below.

Happy crafting!

Hi. So I did some thinking. You know how bad it is when you get to the point of having to think. Why is it taking me this long to complete one piece of terrain? Granted, this is my first real foray into the fantasy world and mini-wargaming scale construction. I was on what I thought was a roll. Then that ol’ noggin’ started up.

I did stay up a little bit last night as well to start on the second floor. I though I should make some beams. Without having picked up some .25″x.25″x12″ balsa to use, I ended up laminating some stir sticks (4) into a somewhat square beam using dollar store wood glue. These would be glued into place to support the second floor much like a “real” home. I even started to lay down some flooring. And in the olde world fashion, I did break the boards for a damaged floor effect.

Silly me. Let’s make an elevated walkway for more player choices on the terrain board. Having done so, I again, called it a night leaving an update until today.

Which leads us to today. I looked the terrain piece and I thought this was a little too big. But how to downsize? Well, cut off one of the adjacent structures. Thus one building foundation, became two. And I basically spent the past hour adding stonework along the bottom edge, some inlaid wooden “planks”, as well as rebuilt the walls (out of foamboard).

I know. I am overthinking it. Just get this initial project done. Use what you learnt to make the next one better.

Thanks for reading and keeping up with this project. See you next time.

Happy crafting!

Hi. I know I said I would post yesterday, but I’m too old and I got too tired to post. So here it is. Worked on the front of the rowhouse ground floor some more. As I did, I started down the rabbit hole of doom scrolling the socials before I realized, I need to stop scrolling and make some progress.

Here is the facade so far. The first pic are stones drawn into the foam core (I removed the front paper layer). I just used a ball point pen to score and draw the stones of what I thought a good size would scale nicely with my minis (technically I bought the minis printed at 32mm scale).

As you can see, I also drew “stones” on the side as well. It actually took me some time. Don’t know if this is the most effective, time efficient method though.

Next is the middle house which was just clad in wooden stir sticks that were hot glued on. It also a little while because of the shorter pieces that were glued in place, then snipped to fit. I also added some EVA foam stones to the bottom as I guess it made more sense than just plain “wood” touching the ground. I don’t think they had pressure treated, ground contact rated lumber back in the olde world – real or fantasy – or maybe THEY DID?!

The remaining facade I simply hot glued some stir sticks to represent wall support planks that also offered some visual interest. I kept the outer wall blank for now because I am think to add some “mini-friendly” stairs or maybe a ramp to the second level? I am thinking in terms of playability. I used to play a lot of FPS like Counter Strike and watch my kids play Fortnite a lot, so I wanted to have that feel in the terrain where there are options for cover, concealment and access.

I also finished off the wooden flooring. I did not glue in the doors for ease of painting, but I am thinking to make hinges for them or maybe leave them unglued

Anyways, that’s it for now.

Thanks for reading. Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Happy crafting!