Medieval Gates 4 - Tower Roofs

Once the black spray primer is fully dry (24 hours to be sure) then the real painting can begin. 

The end colour is to be some sort of a wood colour but to be honest is is a bit of trial and error. I will work up from dark brown to almost white. 

The first colour is raw umber. This is dry rushed from ridge to eaves down along the length of the shingles. The brush is a half inch artist brush. The dark brown is hardly noticeable over the black. Leave the black in the recesses.

Hit the woodwork around the roof also. 

Start with Dark Brown

Next up is a dry rush of earth brown , making sure the original layers are dry. Make sure the brush is really dry before brushing. Woodwork as well.

Move to lighter brown, drybrushing from ridge to eaves

Next dry brush a tan colour. Keep going with the woodwork too.

Drybrush lighter tones.

The roof is changing colour nicely but is still a little uniform. Use washes in brown, yellow and green to add variations to individual shingles.

Washes are needed to add variation. Add a little at a time.

Wash the woodwork too.

Washes can be added in layers giving darker and darker effects

Finish off with a light dry rush of bleached bone over all edges.

Finished roof below.

Drybrush the lightest tone in all directions to catch all raised edges.

The roof looks good on the tower.

Finished roof on tower.

Next time maybe I can do the wood a slight different colour to the shingle to separate the two elements.

One side of the gate.....looks good.

All in all I am very happy with this roof. Now only to make one for every tower.

See you next time.

Medieval Gates 3 - Wood Beams

Next step is a couple of sturdy wooden beams at the front of the gate wall. These are made from balsa wood. The wood is cut to size but needs to be distressed to represent a well used and weathered wooden post. A wire brush and scalpel are idea tools for this task.

Basic tools can add effects to balsa wood.

Run the wire brush up and down in the direction of the desired wood grain. Do all four faces of the post. Do the ends of the post as well. 

Distresses (top) vs new (bottom)

The post will also benefit from having a few chips taken out of the corners to simulate wear. Use a scalpel to chip away the corners.

Chipped (bottom) vs no chips (top)

The beams are painted in brown ink, brushed on with a small paint brush. Once dry a very thin wash of black ink was added to better define the grain.

Painting on wood stain by brush can lead to some desired variation in colour.

The beams are to have big cast iron bolts securing them to the wall. Those can be formed perfectly at miniature scale by using fishing split leads. Cut each lead in half through the split line using a scalpel. 

Fishing leads are cheap and widely available

Test fit the position of the bolt heads and put a small pencil mark where the bolts will go.

Putting the cut fishing leads on the wood implies bulk and the need for bolts.

Once the wood stain is dry dry brush a selection of greys over the post, starting with darker grey and working up to the lightest grey. Once the dry brushing is dry, finish off with a few washes of Browns, flesh tones, yellow etc. This will give a little variation to the post colour.

Glue the posts to the outside of the gate wall. 

Why are these beams outside the gate....who knows ?

In order to allow the gates to be open or closed and to avoid having to use any complex hinge system, the doors were mounted onto a thin piece of clear plastic. This will allow the doors to stand unaided in any position required.

Clear plastic stands are almost invisible when the model is viewed.

The plastic is a hardly noticeable once the doors are standing. Great for replacing a good door with a door ruin if the game explodes in the doors.

The doors can be exchanged for other opening fillers as required.

That's it for now. Check back again for the next post.

Medieval Gates 2 - Buttresses

I forgot to show the construction of the underside of the roof pieces so here are a few pics. Note the scored eaves wall....this is just a sharp point scoring the balsa wood to form planks.

Roof Detail..primed and unprimed

The balsa form is just glued to the card roof....I needed to use contact adhesive here as the PVA glue was not holding.  The end pieces are glued to the card roof but the two side pieces are glued more to the end pieces with only a small bead of glue affixing to the roof. This is because there is not much contact area between the sides and roof....it only contacts along one edge due to the roof slope.

Underside of Roof

Contact adhesive is cheap and cheerful from Lidl.

contact adhesive...apply to both surfaces, let get tacky, stick together

Moving on....tonight is about the buttresses. First I printed out the Dave Graffam paper skin. Then measured out the dimensions of the card former I would need taking into account the thickness of the card used. The patterns are cut from the paper sheet using a scalpel and the backs scored along the appropriate lines to ease folding. Each crease was folded so the paper takes the shape of the final pillar.

Typical printed page from Dave Graffam Card Models

The buttresses formers were made in two halves. Each a right angle piece.

Forms made from 1.5mm artist card

The angle was ensured by gluing in a right angle former...i.e.  a Lego corner.

Lego makes a great right angle corner

The glue used was PVA adhesive brushed onto one piece with a small paintbrush. Try to keep the glue on the card on not smeared onto the Lego corner.

Plastic clamps are invaluable to hold things together while glue dries

Once the pieces had dried a little, they were removed from the former so any smeared glue did not dry onto the Lego. Any glue blobs were brushed with the small paint brush. The two pieces were glued together to form the full buttress. A small piece of card was added to the top and bottom to close out the pillar and to ensure the paper skin has a surface to glue to. This all takes time but ensures a strong finished part.

Glue parts together and add end cap

End caps on all boxes give a surface to glue the paper to.

Finally he paper skin was glued to the pillar formers. The finished parts just need any white paper edges touched up with a dark marker or paint to hide the seams.

Making square forms ensures the paper wraps squarely around the parts.

The buttresses will finally be glued into the corners between the wall and tower.

Adding butresses mimics real walls where they add support.

Putting butresses into corners gives additional strength.

See you all next time.

Medieval Gates - Wall & Towers

The central part of the diorama is the main gate. This is basically a walled section with a large gate opening and a nice set of wooden gates set between a pair of stone towers.

The main wall is made as a card form approx 6mm thick. The stonework is printed and cut and then wrapped and glued to the card wall.

Card base with paper coating.

Wall standing upright.

There are wooden doors in the pdf file for printout which can be cut out but I decided to do a balsa wood version to get a more hefty version of the door. They are made from one main piece which is scored into planks and then top and bottom planks glued on. The finished doors are stained with brown ink, different planks with more or less diluted ink to get a colour variation. The door braces are cut from the printed sheets and glued in place.

Balsa wood doors add weight to the model.

The two towers are made also from card in a basic rectangle box and covered in the printed paper.

Card boxes make a sturdy base for the paper wrapping.

I managed to get one of the roof sections primed in black automotive primer. This is a solvent based primer which dries fast but can only be done outdoors in good ventilation. So no priming for me tonight....boo hoo !!!

The main gate section looks like this as a work in progress.

The individual parts make up the gate assembly.

It will eventually sit on a base of cobblestones or similar and will have an additional walkway above the gates plus doors , windows etc in the towers.

Next step are the buttresses so I can glue the towers to the walls securely.

Join me in the next blog.

Medieval Walls

Since starting to collect "Warmachines" models recently, I now need to set up a display shelf. I have a shelf but it is bare. I found these card models on www.davesgames.net and they seem perfect to line the back of the shelf as a mini diorama.

David Graffams Paper models are excellent

I bought the files which come as printable pdf files with loads of detail inside. Multiple layers being common to completely personalise the printout. At a cost of €4 it is really good value. Once you select which variant to print, print onto a good quality printer paper.....something Matt is best.

I use a canon paper on a canon inkjet printer MG3250.

Photo Matt paper costs a bit more but is worth it for the quality printout.

In my experience it is best to build a card model and then cover it in the printed out high quality printed skins. The card models can be built from good quality Bristol board......1.5mm thick is good.

On reviewing the models I see that the complete height is too tall to fit in my display shelf so I will use only the tower base and scratch build a shallow flat roof for them.

A little roof to top off the tower.

Once the tower bases are completed, I measured the available height for the roof and found a 10mm high roof would fit. I wanted to have the roof removable so I planned a 10mm deep skirt to fit down over the tower.

Since the flatter roof does not fit the printed skin, I decided it was an opportunity to try my hand at scratch building a roof with wooden shingles.

With measuring up, the roof panel was 70mm x 80mm , scored down the middle on one side and scalpel cut lightly on the other so the roof folded neatly in the middle and then glued to the roof supports. This allows a nice overhang all round, about 10mm on each side.

The roof supports are made from 2mm balsa. The "shingles" are made from 1mm card. Cut strips 10mm wide with a scalpel, then cut roughly with a scissors so there are random sizes.

Who knew scratch building a roof could produce such good results.

To support the first row of shingles, a 1mm strip of 1mm card was glued to the upper side of the roof. The first row of shingles was glued to this with the other end resting on the roof. This gives the correct angle for the shingles and allows subsequent rows to glue down well. Each subsequent row overlaps the previous row by half the tile length. The shingles on the upper rows cover the joints on the lower rows....just like in real life. Using different sizes and making sure the rows are not aligned perfectly adds to the realistic feel of the roof. The uppermost row is cut to whatever length is required to ensure a good fit.

Adding each row and gluing down soon builds up a decent roof.

The roof is finished with some card ridge tile caps and fitted to the tower base.....perfect !!!!

The tower looks great with its mini roof.

First Post

Card model Tudor House

Dave Graffam Tudor House Printable

I got a Dave Graffam paper model file recently and put it together.

The file comes in a PDF format and contains the outer skins of the building which you must print from a colour printer. The paper can be cut out and glued together to form a building but you get a more sturdy finish if you make a card shell and wrap it in the printed finish   

The fundamental of any building is square corners. The same is true of a card shell. I use a simple Lego corner and clamp my pieces to it while the glue dries.

Lego makes a great square corner

Then I re-enforce the corners with a small piece of right angle card....a couple per corner. this keeps the building square and provides rigidity once the building is complete. Once the card inner is fully dry, I glue on the printed paper outer skin. All the paper flaps are glued and folded over the card edges to cover the white edge with the printed finish. Note the two extra flaps....these form a floor of the upper storey where it overhangs the lower storey.

Lower Floor of the Tudor house wrapped in the printed paper.

The upper floor got the same treatment, a sturdy card inner form, covered with the printed paper skin.

Upper floor covered with printed finish

All inner corners were braced with a right angle piece of card.

Upper floor with all inner corners braced with a right angle piece of card

Since there is really no place for the two paper flaps from the lower floor to stick to, I added 2 fake bases -one at each end. This provides a stable surface to glue the flaps to and keeps everything square.

Fake base added at each end as gluing surface for lower floor flaps.

When viewed from underneath, it is now possible to see where the paper flaps from the ground floor will glue to the two new base points on the upper floor.

Ground floor paper flaps positioned to glue to upper floor.

A card base was added covered with a printed flagstone pattern.

House assembled onto base

Duct tape was added as lead flashing on the chimney and side window. The tape was washed in very diluted black acrylic paint. 

Right side and back of house

Balsa wood bracing was cut to size and stained brown to act as supports to the upper floor. 

Finished house from rear

Model eye view from front

Some items were printed a second time and glued to black card, cut out and stuck to the building to give a sense of 3D relief e.g. Door, window, brace supports. 

Finally a small bit of flock was added to disguise the joint between house and base. 

Model eye view from fronr right corner

All in all I am very happy with how this turned out.