Miss Trude's

I've included this piece for completeness only. I'm not particularily proud of this piece anymore, and I will be turning it into a ruined structure when time permits.

The first piece I decided to build for my city gaming board was a base of operations for my gang of street girls and doms. I wanted to give them a fortified building, but a simple apartment building would have been too dull. I decided to go with a seedy gentlemen's club theme instead. Miss Trude's Live Nude Girls is a plain building with loud signs that attracts loud and unruly clientelle.

Miss Trude's is simply two foamcore boxes stacked on top of each other. The second floor and roof are removable to allow access to the inside.

The first and second floor walls were constructed by cutting a 1/4" notch off of the end of the foamcore, removing one layer of card and the foam inside. The outside layer of card was left intact and was glued to the edge of the next piece of foamcore. This allowed the exposed foamcore edge to be covered up.

A doorway was cut into the front and back of the first floor. Doors were built and installed, and then the first floor was glued directly to the 12" x 12" double- corrugated cardboard base (with edges covered with masking tape to cover the corrugations, as usual.) A floor was made of foamcore for the second floor, with a notch cut out for the stairway and a hole cut for the pole to the first floor. The roof was also made of foamcore with a notch cut out for the roof hatch.

The sidewalk was added my cutting into the cardboard base, then using a blunt pencil to push in the cuts to give the impression of concrete pavers.

Once the floors were assembled and dry the carpeting was put in place. The carpeting is a type of felt with an adhesive backing on it. I bought it at craft store for $1.00 a piece and the building required 2 pieces.

Thin card was used to trim the building. It also helped hide the seams between the stackable floors and keeps the roof and second story from moving around while the building floors are stacked on each other.

The doors were made by folding a piece of card in half and glueing a length of wire in the crease. The folded card was then glued to itself and the ends of the wire were inserted into holes in the base and in the top of the door opening.

The stairs were built by stacking varying lengths of foamcore and glueing them together. The interior walls are simply foamcore.

The stages are thick plastic card mounted on foamcore. Holes were drilled to accomodate the poles, which are just bamboo skewers. The stages were painted outside of the building and glued into place after the interior was painted.

Some other odd bits were added here and there; a hatch was added to the roof, a piece of model railroad track acts as the ladder to the roof. The vent- thing on the roof is just an old T.V tuner knob.

The sign on the roof was made of corrugated plastic and bamboo skewers for supports.

The exterior of the building was hand painted with textured paint. Two coats were applied for best coverage. The outside was then drybrushed a dark grey, then light gray and finally white.

The interior walls were painted pink. The paint was slopped on, giving the impression of worn, patched and repainted walls. The doors were painted grey on the outside, and the sign and vent on the roof were drybrushed silver.

The stages were painted with gold poles and red tops. The surface of the stages were then given a clear gloss coat.

The carpeting was drybrushed in browns and blacks to give the impression of lots of dirty feet tracking through the club.

The signs were created using Microsoft Word and the posters on the walls are scans of callgirl cards I picked up in Las Vegas (I KNEW those things would come in handy.) They were given a light gray drybrush to tone the colors down.

Technobridge

I picked up this Armorcast piece for a song at a local hobby shop. It is cast in resin and is a very nice piece. There is lots of detail, and cleaning was quite simple. The piece was primed black and then painting began.

I started off by drybrushing the entire piece silver, but seing that is was going to end to way too plain, even after detailing, I decided to do the edges in hunter green. The wooden parts were painted a very dark brown. Areas that were damaged were left silver, and a thin line of black was painted where the silver meets the green to give the effect of chipped paint.

The entire piece was given a wash of a mix of black paint, water and Future Floor Finish.

Once this was dried the silver parts were gently drybrushed silver again. The wood was drybrushed dark grey, then light grey. The green was lightly drybrushed again with Hunter green, then a slighly light shade was applied by mixing white in the base color.

The rust effects were then added. Surface rust was added simply by stippling burnt sienna over areas of the bridge. The rust streaks were done by loading a brush, removing some of the paint, then gently working it down the slope in long strokes. Citadel Blazing Orange was then lightly stippled onto the flat areas of burnt sienne, and streaked the middle of the runs.

Hedges and Fences

These hedges and fences were constructed after reading through the Warhammer Fantasy rulebook and seeing the linear obstacles rule. I figured it would be fun to have some of these in a game. They are basically difficult terrain that you can hide behind. Great for archers and handgunners. Click images for a larger view.

The hedges are made from Scotch-Brite scouring pads. The pads were simply cut with a scissor at a length of twice what I wanted the height of the hedge to be.

After the pads were cut I glued them in hald with white glue. I used a couple of clamps to hold the halves together while they dried.

While waiting for them to dry I made some bases. The bases are simply foamcore. The edges were cut at an angle to get rid of the sharp edges. Toothpicks were then driven into the top of the base. The base was then painted black.

Once the hedges were dry they were pressed down onto the toothpicks on the bases to hold them in place. They were fixed to the base with white glue.

The bases were finished with my favorite flock mix and the hedges were coated with course turf.

All in all they turned out OK, but the look sort of pathetic. I didn't need to use the scouring pads due to the heavy turf. I could've used blocks of foam and saved myself some cash. The course turf needs to be mixed with some other ground cover to give it some variance and a more natural look.

I had tried using the same ground cover on the hedge that I did on the base, but it looked stupid. All- in - all a great learning experience.

The fences are based the same as the hedges are. The fences themselves are constructed of craft sticks (toungue depressors.) I simply measured the height I wanted on the fences and broke the sticks at that length. The craft sticks were also split the long way to make the boards thinner and more man-sized looking. It gave them a hasty, unskilled contruction look.

I then layed out enough boards to cover the length I wanted the fence and then glued a piece of chopstick along the length to act as a rail. Two more chopstick pieces were added as posts. Once the setup was dry it was attached to the base with superglue. Once the glue was dry the fence rail and posts were whittled at with a razor blade to give them a rough look like the boards.

The fences were stained with a brown India Ink I recieved in a trade. It was very red once dried and I would never use it again. After the ink dried I drybrushed the fence from a dark brown to a light brown. The base was finished in my favorite ground cover mix.

I really like how the fences turned out. I would use a regular brown ink or even diluted brown paint next time to stain the fence, and maybe split more of the craft sticks to make the rail. the chopstick is too big.

Fences and Walls

Fences and walls are handy terrain pieces for breaking up line of site and directing enemy units into firing lanes. Here are some items I purchased that were made for Christmas dioramas that work great for 28mm wargaming. Click pictures for a larger view.

These fences are Lemax White Rail Fences. Only a small selection of what I have is pictured. I was debating to repaint them in a natural color, but decided to leave them in the white paint they came in. There are also two pieces with swining gates in them. The only thing I had to do with them is remove the "Made in China" stickers from their feet. Leaving the fences as is and unbased allows me to use them in any terrain I may want to.

These are Lemax Colonial Stone Walls. They are made for a snow scene and have little piles of snow on them in various locations. I simply glued some ground cover over the snow with white glue. It is starting to flake off and show the white underneath. They will have to be scraped clean, painted black and have ground cover re- applied. I will use some coarse turn the second time around to get more realistic looking growth.

Feed Store

This building is an O scale train set building I picked up on Ebay for little money. It is supposed to be a train station, but I bought it without the platform. I call it a Feed Store now because when I added the loading dock it reminded me of a place I'd seen a long time ago that sold animal feed in bulk. Click pictures for larger views.

The kit came assembled in the mail. Whoever assembled this thing must have gotten into a fight with the glue bottle and lost; there was glue everywhere on the inside of the building, and to top it off some of the assembly was done with hot glue. Certainly not my first choice for assembling plastic models.

This building had no floor. I traced the shape of the interior of the building on a piece of foam core and cut it out. The floor was then glued in place with hot glue. Still not my first choice, but it seemed it would bond to the foamcore/ plastic better than superglue or white glue.

The glue was cleaned up a bit from the windows and doorframes and the doors were removed so they could be hinged. The doors had tabs that were used to glue them to the walls. These were removed. A length of floral wire was cut and glued along the hinged edge of the doors. A scrap piece of foamcore was glued above each door. The wire "hinge" was then jammed into the foamcore floor and piece above the door. The doors open and close nicely.

The platform is made of balsa wood. Sections of balsa were cut to the size needed and then they were scored with the point of a file every 1/4" to simulate indivual boards on the walkway. This was also done on the exposed outside edge. Chopsticks were glued to the bottom side to support the length of the walkway. The legs of the platform are also chopsticks cut to length. The front steps and ramp are more balsa wood.

The building and walkway were painted seperatly and assembled afterward. The platform was stained with brown ink, then drybrushed dark brown , brown and light brown. The building was spray primed black. The exterior was drybrushed from brown to tan to Antique White. The doors were painted yellow and drybrushed up. The interior walls are Antique White and the floor is light grey. the roof was given a coat of textured paint to give it an asphalt shingle look, then drybrushed dark grey to light grey. The chimney was drybrushed Boltgun Metal and given a rust treatment with a bit of Burnt Sienna.

Church

This is a Plasticville Cathedral painted up for use with my zombie games. Like my other plastic buildings, the doors have been made functional and the roof and steeple are removable for the placement of models. The piece was cleaned and assembled with super glue and a floor was cut to shape from card and glued to the bottom of the building for a floor.

The building was spray primed black and black textured paint was applied to the roof to give the shingles some texture. The roofs were drybrushed a light grey, the building was drybrushed from dark grey to light grey to white and the windows and trim was done in dark brown to light brown to tan. The front door was painted a dark red, the cross was drybrushed gold and the bell silver. The interior was given a flat brown coat. It is undetailed.

Small Store

The first building in the new and improved (or at least fully intact) city board. The store is a simple, single- story, single room box with a front and back entrance. I imagined it being a small boutique or gadget shop. Click images for a larger view.

This building is made from 3/16" foamcore. It is 6" x 6" x 2.5". I built these buildings a bit taller to make sure that figures with odd poses or super- tall ones could fit inside with the roof on.

Four equal- sized walls were cut out as well as a 6" x 6" floor and ceiling. Windows and doors were measured after the walls were cut out. The doors are 1" wide by 1.5" tall. Windows were sized to whatever looked good. I can't even remember what they are. I wanted large, display windows in this building.

The doors are made by measuring out a piece of thin card (in this case an old movie box) at double the width and the correct height of the door. I cut the shape out with a razor, scored down the center of the piece and folded it in half. When folding, make sure the glossy side is on the inside if the card has it. The paper side absorbs all the super glue and it won't stick, and the glossy side is impossible to paint.

A length of floral wire was cut and glued into the crease of the card door. This acts as the hinge. The door was then glued together with superglue. A small bit of floral wire was bent into a "U" shape and glued into place to act as a door handle.

The center of one door was cut out and a piece of transparency film was glued in the center for a window.

The next step was to glue the walls in place. The walls are cut to sit on top of the floor. The walls were pinned in place by halves of toothpicks set in the edges of the floor . A hole was punched in the floor and the blunt end of the toothpick was glued in place. The bottom edge of the was was given a bead of Tacky Glue and then pressed onto the pointed ends of the toothpicks. If there was a door in that wall, a hole was punched into the floor to accomadate the hinge. The other side of the hinge was then simply pressed into the doorframe in the wall.

Once the walls were in position another toothpick was driven into the each corner to hold the wall pieces together.

Window frames and the roof and corner trim are cut from thin, cracker- box card. The original plan was to have clear plasctic in the windows, so the frames overlap the window opening to allow the plastic something to glue onto. After seeing the door completed, it seemed like it would be too difficult to see into the buildings with the plastic in place. Plus it would be a pain to keep clean.

The roof trim is there to keep the roof in place. The corner guards are to cover the ugly joins of the foamcore. These are nothing special; they are simply card glued in place. The corners were scored to make them fold more easily around the corners.

Nothing was done with the roof piece except an old radio knob was glued to it. This acts as an HVAC vent and a handle to easily remove the roof.

The exterior walls of the building were painted with my standard textured paint. The trim pieces were hand- painted black. The exterior was painted Hunter Green and drybrushed to a light green. The interior floor was also painted Hunter Green and the walls were painted Antique White. The bottom of the roof was also painted Antique White. The top and edges, as well as the inside trim and tops of the walls were painted black. The roof vent, front door and door handles were primed black and drybrushed Boltgun Metal. The back door was painted dark brown on the outside and Antique White on the inside to match the walls.

Black model railroad ballast was glued to the roof with white glue. A layer of white glue was also applied to the bottom of the roof to counteract the inevitable warping of the roof due to the thin foamcore and the drying glue on top. The roof did not warp.

It was tempting to make diplay racks and mannequins for the store, but then realized they would make moving models impossible. They would be in place when the roof was on so you couldn't see them; and then when models entered the building they would have to be removed so you could move through it. They would be near worthless.

Apartment Building

The apartment building was built for zombie games, with plenty of places to search for loot and lots of opportunities for a zombie ambush. The apartment building is "L" shaped; 12" on the long edges and 6" on the short. Click images for larger views.

The basic construction of the apartment is the same as the Small Store. The apartment is two levels, so it's basically a "L" shaped box stacked on top of another box. Interior walls were added to each floor to form apartment units. The doors in these areas are constructed just like the others.

A strip of card was added around the second floor to hold the roof in place, just like the Small Store. I was going to add a strip to hold the first and second floor together, but after the construction was complete I noticed that the floors aren't exactly the same size and a really goofy- looking gap would show. I simply stacked the floors on top of each other. The top steps in the stairwells lock the levels into place so they don't slide around during play.

Instead of using card trim like on the Small Store I used masking tape to cover the edges. This was faster and didn't leave the gaps that the card would have.

The stairwell is made from 1" wide strips of foamcore glued on top of each other. Each step is 3/4" thick. Once the steps were glued and dry they were covered with masking tape. Masking tape has a nice texture to it that drybrushed well and also covers the unsightly edges of the foamcore.

On the second floor a hatch was added to the roof and a ladder was installed on the wall of the hallway. The ladder is simply a section of HO train track.

Exterior doors recieved handles like on the Small Store. The interior doors, both stairwells and apartments, were given doorknobs. These are simply seed beads glued into place.

The roof is like the Small Store. An old radio knob, a large capacitor and another electronic item were glued on top for handles to remove the roof with. A cardboard hatch was also added to one end to allow access to the roof. The hatch was built just like the doors.

Once construction was finished the building was given a coat of textured paint. the exterior was drybrushed from dark brown to brown to tan and finished off with a touch of Antique White. The original plan was to use yellow. I didn't think it showed up very well, so went to a tan color instead. The yellow didn't cover well and it shows in the bottom picture. Good thing this is ADD Wargaming Terrain. Otherwise, I would have to repaint it so it matches!! The doors were painted brown; the interior walls were painted Antique White, the hallways were painted Too Blue and the apartment floors were painted tan.

The stairwells were painted black and drybrushed dark grey to grey to white.

The roof decorations and hatch, door handles/ knobs and the ladder to the roof were painted black and drybrushed Boltgun Metal. The items on the roof were drybrushed a bit with Burnt Sienna to give them a rusted look.

The roof was given a covering of black model railroad ballast.

The Towers

I was thinking of ways to fill table space without using too many buildings and decided to add an industrial- style tower station. It takes up space, yet provides cover and is scalable by minis for multi- dimentional use.

The project was started by cutting the tops off of two saline bottles (for contact lenses) and sanding the edge down so they would sit evenly on the standard carboard base.

Cross- stitching mesh was cut and glued to the bottoms (which became the tops) to cover up the seams and recycling logo. Holes were cut into the sides of the bottles and bendy straws were pushed through them to create the requisite industrial pipes. Clothing snap studs were glued to the pipes to simulate valve handles.

The ladders were created by simply cutting a strip of wire fencing (the same stuff to be used for the perimeter fence) 4 squares wide. This width was appropriate for the size of the fencing I use. The center was cut out of the fence to create the rungs and the ends were bent 90 degrees in to attach to the tower. The ladders were superglued to the towers.

A walkway was cut from card to fit between the towers and then the towers and pipes were glued into place.

Cross stitching mesh was glued to the walkway. Railings were created for the walkway using matchsticks with the heads cut off glued to strips of card. The walkway was assembled and glued into place.

The fence was created using matchsticks for poles and wire fencing cut to size. A hole was cut into the back of the fence and a space in the front was left open for a gate. This allowed for movement through the area so it didn't become a death trap. The gate was created by glueing matchsticks to a square of fence. A hinge was made simply by wrapping small floral wire around the fence post and the gate section.

The sidewalk was created by cutting a shallow slit through the first layer of cardboard. A blunt pencil was then run through the slit to push the edges down and define each paver.

The piece was primed black. Two coats of textured paint were applyed to the base to give a concrete look. The towers were painted a light gray. The walkway deck and ladders were drybrushed silver, as well as the fence. The piece was given various washes, and any non silver parts were highlighted. The ground was drybrushed light grey.

The signs and logos were created on the computer, printed onto photo paper and glued in place.

Ruin #6

The last ruin in the set, and by far my least favorite. This ruin is the tallest of them all and a pain to transport. It usually doesn't get to play and was the last one to be finished. Standard packaging foam construction with this one. Click pictures for larger views.

The original concept for this building was a "Y" shaped factory with the center blown away. I also wanted to give it some color to break up the gray of the set.

Each "node" of this building has a ladder running up its height. A cell phone antenna was added to the roof, as well as a battery connector. Various metal bits and pieces were added throughout as well. Standard sprue rubble and styrofoam chunks cover the area as well.

The concrete sections and metal bits recieved a very standard paint job. The main color of the building was chosen to be green. A dark green base was applied and this was drybrushed progressively lighter shades of green.

Ruin #5

Another ruin! Yay! This is packaging foam again. The construction is similar to Ruin #3, with the rebar and grating. Drinking straws are used as pipes instead of copper fittings this time. Click pictures for larger views.

I wanted to add a pool of stagnant water into the floor of this building. After the painting was complete I heated up a batch of Woodland Scenics EZ Water and started to pour it in the hole.

I knew full well the liquid was hot. I also know that styrofoam melts at low temperatures. Yet it didn't dawn on me that the foam would melt when the EZ Water was poured onto it until my small hole quickly turned into a gaping hole underneath the floor of the ruin. That's ok, because it looks kinda cool with the cavern of death. The picture below doesn't show it like I thought it would.

The storage containers are simply two keyboard keys glued together and painted blue. The triangular logos on the side read "Marine Pollutant" and were obtained from a catalog.

Ruin #4

This is the first ruin created for the "I'm too lazy to make a full-blown city" city board. This piece is made from 1" thick blue insulation foam. Click images for larger views.

This is the largest of the six ruins, taking up the entire 12" x12" double corrugated cardboard base with the edges covered with masking tape to hide the corrugations.

The two tallest walls were cut to their full size and then windows measured out and cut out with a sharp razor blade. The lines seen on the outside walls are actually from measuring the windows. I figured they gave the building some personality and did not fill them. The shorter walls were made from offcuts of foam. Once the windows were cut the walls were distressed with a razor blade for large chunks and ruined wall sections and a blunt pencil edge for the small holes. Lots and lots of small holes.

**Tip: Small holes are hard to paint the inside of. If you make them, be patient with your painting!.

Chunks of foam and sprue rubble were added throughout for debris.

The piece was painted up the same as Ruin #2, complete with the stupid Japanese stickers.

This building is completely concrete and fairly plain.