Storage Box Buildings!

A whole lot of building, for 95 cents!

On a recent browse at my local dollar store ("100 yen shop") here in Japan, I was amazed by my good fortune.
What did I find?
Rows and rows of different-sized cardboard storage boxes designed like wood-beamed buildings, which looked like they would be about right for 28mm wargaming. There were several different designs, in black or brown, ranging from long and slim to wide and flat.

OOOOOoooooooo! Buildings!

I excitedly bought a few and rushed home to see what I could make with them. After sorting them out and reviewing the different sizes I tackled the smallest first - a long, thin file storage box.

After scoring, cutting and folding the roof, it came together!

Some empire soldiers guard the front door.

I was able to score and cut the "Roof", folding it along the length of the box so it folded over. Using PVA glue I was able to make it pretty sturdy. As you can see from the photos above, these buildings aren't exactly 28mm scale, but they feel close.

For that first building (which I think makes a pretty good Merchant's House or Town House, I was so excited I didn't even give any thought to the inside! Consequently, the inside of the building isn't currently accessible...

So, for the second building (a pub or possibly a town hall?), I decided to see if I could assemble it so models to move inside. To do that, I bought the same building twice and cut one of the sets so that it would fit inside the first box, providing an "interior lining" of matching walls. I also added a "floor" using wood effect tape.

After lining the inside of the lid, it can be turned over to make a roof.

The door opens, and with the roof off, the interior is accessible
for adventuring.

"The ratmen think they have us cornered lads!"

This turned out quite well I think! This box is spacious, and the overall effect (considering the low cost) is acceptable. Granted, I'm sure it could do with weathering (or even more destruction) and more general detail added, but for $1.90 it doesn't get much better than this.

I bought a few more boxes, so hope to get those made up in the next week or two.

In the meantime, here are some photos of the packaging, just in case you are interested. The maker is apparently "Karinpia".

Cheers

Blackstone Buildings #3 The Wailing Watchtower

The Wailing Watchtower

"The old haunted place", as Old Dave (now deceased) used to call it, was built in better times (long ago). A screaming spirit is said to inhabit the tower, which may be why locals give it a wide berth except in the direst of circumstances! Unlike other buildings in the village, the tower has never fallen or been reconstructed, although whether this is due to sturdy construction, protection offered by the spirit, or invaders having better things to do, has never been established!

Making your three storey tower

++Before we start, the traditional important public service message++

Please note that these buildings are not "true" scale or carefully designed to match the scale of GW or other 28mm games systems building. True to this being "quick and dirty terrain" I put them together by just literally "eyeballing" a 28mm model and taking it from there! They are going to look bigger and rougher!"

Also, the measurements used all came out of having a large piece of black foam board, that was 0.5 cm thick. To follow the instructions below I strongly suggest using board of that thickness!!

++Thanks for your attention++

Note at this point that I have designed the tower to be:
1. Enclosed on all 4 sides, with the rear of the tower designed to swing open for access.
2. Have removable floors and roof that slide out.

This is different to the hovel and pub, which were destroyed enough to only have x 3 standing walls. To simplify the process below you could just have the tower walls on three sides.

As the process is more involved than the other models, I've divided the steps up below.

Step 1. Exterior:

Although not to scale, here is an image to help you visualize the steps below and the measurements:

Blackstone village tower exterior guide image (not to scale)

To open this image in Google drawings, click here.

The tower walls are 20.8 cm in height, 40 cm long total. You need to:

• Mark out and cut out a rectangle 20.8 cm tall x 40 cm long.
• Score (but don't cut all the way through) a solid vertical line every 10 cm, so the rectangle is divided into four (these are your walls)
• Each storey will be 6.5 cm in height, so score 3 horizontal lines all the way along the rectangle at the following heights: 6.5 cm, 13.0 cm, 19.5 cm.
• Cut out a door space on the second wall from the right (3 cm wide x 4.5cm tall). 
• Decide what shape windows you want, then cut out a window 2 cm wide x 3 cm tall in the center of each storey (I went with a more arched window)
• Every 2 cm around cut out battlements on the top storey 2 cm wide x 1.3 cm tall
• Cut out a base, either to fit exactly under the walls, or that extends slightly beyond each wall. Mine was 11.5 cm x 11.5 cm
• Glue the x3 walls to the base, being careful not to glue the back wall, you want it to be able to swing open.

Step 2. Interior:

Blackstone village tower interior guide image (not to scale)

To open this image in Google drawings, click here.

x3 floors. 10 cm x 9.8 cm

Nine support beams for the floors.
0.5 cm x 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm

• To mark out the roof, score one more line 17.5 cm from the base, all the way around.
• Cut out x 3 floors to go in each storey of the tower. Make these slightly smaller than the tower dimensions, so they will slide in an out easily. I did 10 cm x 9.8 cm.
• (Optional: cut an access panel/ hole in each floor where models could "climb through".)
• To support each floor and the roof, you will need x 3 horizontal supports for each floor, total x9. To make these, cut out x3 long rods 0.5 x 0.5 x 21 cm, then cut every 7 cm.
• Glue these just underneath floor level of each storey, and they will hold up the floor. You don't need one on the back wall IMHO
• OPTIONAL: x 2 interior window sills, 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm x 3 cm

Step 3. Exterior details:

Exterior beams (detail)

• Cut out x 12 wooden beams (10 cm long x 1.0 cm high x 0.3 cm deep). These will encircle your tower at each storey. They really break up the flat look of the polystyrene, so well worth the effort! Like a real wooden beam, carve away troughs, nicks and curves so you have a more worked or organic look. 
• TIP: My original foam board was 0.5 cm thick. so I cut out 6 pieces for these beams, then using my box cutter just cut right down the length, giving me x 12 beams of 2-3 mm depth.
• Hide the joins on each corner of the wall. To do this cut out x 2 long square rods. 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm x 20 cm. Carve, nick and score the rods randomly so they look organic, then cut up into random lengths.Glue into the gaps between the walls.
• Add bricks around windows and doors.

Phew, that's it for Blackstone village buildings for the moment. Now I'm going to focus on some scatter terrain and other bits and pieces. If you have any questions let me know!

Cheers,

EDIT: I forgot to add that this watchtower makes a natural partner for a hovel, (or hovel and roof) where it could easily make a chapel or village church.

Blackstone Buildings #2 - Village Pub

Fancy a drink?

"Welcome to the Lord Castellan's Head!"

Once the focal point of the limited social lives of the residents of Blackstone (and those wandering through), the traditional greeting of the publican can no longer be heard. This public house is now just a shell of its former self. No laughter can be heard within the blackened walls, and the once-admired floor paneling now lies dirty, stained and rubble strewn...

Following part #1 of the Blackstone building series, where I looked at the simple hovel, in this post we will look at a more grandiose structure, the village pub. This was actually the first building I made, but as it was more challenging than the hovel I've decided to put it as the second post in this series. It is distinguished from the hovel by having 2 storeys, ornate windows and doors, more floor space and...actual floors! 

For this building, the standard equipment is required (black polystyrene board, box cutter, PVA glue) as well as a roll of floor repair/ covering tape (or any tape that looks like wooden flooring). I got all these things from the dollar store.

Here are some more photos. Bear in mind that the goal was to have buildings to put on a gaming table at very low cost, in a short period of time, and with little to no painting!

Side wall, showing damaged window frames, rubble, and cracked plaster.

Front door, with brickwork.

Making your village pub.

++Before we start, the traditional important public service message++

Please note that these buildings are not "true" scale or carefully designed to match the scale of GW or other 28mm games systems building. True to this being "quick and dirty terrain" I put them together by just literally "eyeballing" a 28mm model and taking it from there! They are going to look bigger and rougher!"

++Thanks for your attention++

Step 1: Marking out and cutting

The pub walls are 15cm in length, 12.0cm in height total. You need to:

• Gently score and cut out a rectangle 45cm x 12.0cm high in your polystrene.
• Score a solid vertical line every 15cm, so the rectangle is divided into three.
• Cut out a doorspace on the left wall (4cm wide x 5cm tall).
• Cut out a window 3.0 cm wide x 2 cm tall on both sides of the door. 
• Cut out x4, 3.0 x2.0 windows in the center panel (2 on each storey) equidistant apart.
• Cut out x1 or x2 windows on the right panel (see image below)
• Cut away part of the far right wall so it looks like it has been destroyed or collapsed.
• Cut out a base, either to fit exactly under the walls, or that extends slightly beyond each wall.
• Glue the walls to the base.
• I don't add an extensive ceiling, as I want the inside to be accessible.

Although not drawn to scale, this will hopefully give you the general idea if looking from the front:

Step 2: Interior

Once you have your basic pub shape on the base, you need to think about the interior and second floor. As I want to keep things simple, I'm not going to worry about stairs. I just want a fairly solid place to put models or treasure. 

Mine ended up looking like this:

You can see a support pillar holding up the second floor, but what you can't see is the supports I glue horizontally around the walls at the 2nd storey levels. These supports make the second floor sturdier so I can place more models or treasure on there.

Here is a drawing showing these supports from an internal perspective.

For the flooring, I found some sticky-backed wood pattern tape. This is used to cover damage to wood panels in your home (at least in Japan). It comes in various patterns, colours and sizes. The roll I found in my local dollar store was 2 cm wide and comes in a roll several meters long.

Wood pattern tape (not sure what the official name is!)

Measure this out into the number of strips you need to cover the floors, and then stick it down. It looks bright, but I think that I can later glue piles of rubble and fallen beams onto the floor to break it up, or possible dull the colour down through paints or washes.

Step 3: Detailing.

After you have the walls on the base, and a second floor, you have a structure that you can already throw on the table, but adding some details not only looks good but is also satisfying.
This is very easy to do and literally only takes a few minutes for each wall. As a general rule, you are trying to avoid having too many straight edges or flat areas.
This can be adding rubble, showing plaster damage, or having simple cracks coming out of key areas.

Rubble: Strew the same bricks that you made previously for windows or doors around the base.

Plaster damage: Starting from an accessible wall edge, with a box cutter mark out the area you want as damage, cutting no further than 1/3 to 1/2 way though the wall. The carefully cut behind this, and lift off the damaged area. Keep the surface layer that you just cut away, and glue this to the base below the damaged area where it would fall to the ground (not shown above)

Cracks: Starting from a point where a crack might naturally occur, such as a joint around a window, score a lightning pattern extending away from the join.

Wall damage: Using a box cutter, carefully dig into the wall, and using a circular motion, gouge out some polystyrene.

Optional steps:
Depending on what you have in your Bitz box, you could glue shields to the internal walls, add a pub sign hanging outside over the main door, or add wooden beams to the exterior walls all the way around where the first and second storeys meet. For me though, I'll leave it there!

In part #3, I'll look at the three storey watchtower with battlements.

Cheers,

Blackstone Buildings #1 Peasant Hovel

In a previous post, I introduced the village of Blackstone to the world, while noting that I would post a series on how I put it together. In the next few posts, I will look at the process for each building type in more detail, with some hints on how I made the item, and some lessons I learned the hard way! Before we start though, let me say that these aren't 100% finished, as I could add more interior detail and I know that in "real life" these couldn't possibly work as living spaces, but I reckon these are good enough for a wargaming table now!

The Hovel

First of all, let's look at the hovel, the standard abode of the common fantasy wargaming underling. I made x3 of these, with one tiled roof. I recommend a minimum of x3, as that gives you lots of options to combine them into different buildings, some of which you will see below. Your imagination is the limit. Add scatter terrain like barrels, bodies and skeletons for more atmosphere! If you want to go crazy, make 6, make 12. Here are some possible combinations using using x3 hovels.

Option 1: The hovel.
This run down  derelict living space suits a small family, usually has one door and 3- 4 walls. It might also have once had a simple roof, but no more...

Option 2: The Long House.
For your better class of town-folk, this combination makes for a nice long space...

...put a third unit in, and it becomes even more spacious, with doors connecting each unit.

Option 3: The Merchant's store.
Combine x3 hovels, using one of them as a second floor, and you can represent a two storey building with an alley, perhaps I lead to a central courtyard. Perhaps the lower units are the shopfront, and the family lives upstairs. This could also function as a town gate.

Option 4: The "Wealthy Bastard".
Put x2 or x3 hovels on top of each other, add a roof, and boom!, you lord it over your neighbours. They hate you, but you don't care - the air is (marginally) cleaner up here after all. The lower floor could be the reception area, 2nd floor a kitchen, and the top floor is for you and your family.

So, how to make a simple hovel? Pretty simple.

Making your hovel.

In my opening post, I mentioned materials, so now all you need is a ruler, pencil and desire to measure, cut and glue. I find a box cutter to be best, but exercise extreme caution when working with this.

++Before we start, an important public service message++

Please note that these buildings are not "true" scale or carefully designed to match the scale of GW or other 28mm games systems building. True to this being "quick and dirty terrain" I put them together by just literally "eyeballing" a 28mm model and taking it from there! They are going to look bigger and rougher!"

++Thanks for your attention++

Step 1: Marking out.

Each hovel is 10cm on each side, 6.5cm in height, and has a base. You need to:

• Gently score a rectangle 30cm x 6.0cm in your polystrene.
• Score a solid vertical line every 10cm, so the rectangle is divided into three.
• Mark out a doorspace on the center wall (3cm wide x 4cm tall - but think about making it less! 4 cm tall can look really big...)
• Mark out a window to right or left of the door. (Option: mark out other windows on the other walls.)
• Cut out a base, either to fit exactly under the walls, or that extends slightly beyond each wall.
• I don't add any kind of ceiling, as I want the inside to be accessible.

They say a picture paints a thousand words, so:

Tips:

1. Have a model from your army close by to check the scale of the building. As you mark it out, does it "feel" right to you? I realized later that I made the doors too big on most of my buildings!

2. Do you prefer to have the hovel with walls all the way around? I kept mine open on one side to allow easy access for models and movement options in addition to always using the front door. In you want 4 walls, don't forget to factor that in!
3. Keep those off-cuts, they will come in later! e.g. When you cut out a door, keep it! Then, using your box-cutter, score some lines down the front to look like wood planks. Finally you can glue that to the floor inside your hovel, so it looks like someone busted down the door.

Step 2: Details.

You probably now have a beautiful hovel with smooth walls and unblemished surfaces, but what I want is a run-down, at best shabby or at worst abandoned vibe! The way to get this is detailing and adding some wear and tear. Detailing really adds a lot of character to the overall look. The good news is all you need is a craft knife and some PVA.
Here are some detailing options that I think add a lot to the model.

• Bricks. Add decorative bricks around the tops of the door. Using your craft knife, cut out 5mm x5mm x10 cm pieces of foam strips, then cut these down to small bricks. Using PVA, glue these stategically over the doors, and in the gaps between the walls.
• Window details. Add window sills, definitely outside, but also on the inside of the window if you have time.
• Wall damage: Using your craft knife, cut out wall damage, carving out uneven chunks of the wall from the ceiling to the floor. You can be as aggressive as you want, depending on your goals. You can see here that one of my huts is missing whole sections of wall. This not only looks better (IMHO) but it gives models more tactical options (FLEE through the nearest gap!)
• Missing plaster. First things first - to do this, you will never cut right through the board! To make missing plaster, first use your blade to outline an area, making sure you can access it from one of the edges. Cut NO deeper than halfway into the board. Then, slide your cutter into the board from the wall edge, slowly slicing through the board where the plaster will be missing. Finally, lift away the top half of the board. You should not have an area that looks like it was under the plaster.
• Cracks. Using your craft knife, starting from any wall, score some cracks into the wall.

You can see that I like my hovels to look abandoned!

That's it! Quite simple, but a good place to start. Let me know if you have any questions.
:-)

In part #2, we will look at a larger building - the village pub!

Cheers!

Two Hour Terrain - The Village of Blackstone

Welcome to Blackstone!

A popular stop on the road to civilization (for fast-moving Marauder hordes, Orc warbands and herds of the shambling undead - who take a little longer to move on through), Blackstone residents spend much of their short, brutish lives rebuilding their burned-out, ruined hovels.

Still, if you are ever lucky enough to visit this little cluster of buildings on the dusty road to places far more worthy of pillaging, you'll learn the following from your (slightly-singed, recovered from-a-muddy-track) tourist scroll:

Why is Blackstone called Blackstone?
Well, every time the village is sacked, ruined and pillaged, the plucky (remaining few) residents pick up the blackened bricks and timber and rebuild. For this reason the whole village has taken on a perpetually soot-blackened, "Destroyed" (or "fashionably aged") look.

What can I enjoy during my visit?
Well, not much...
...but you might be interested in the following adventurer-friendly activities.

• Try a night in "The Lord Castellan's Head", our friendly pub. As it is only half-wrecked, there are still a few corners and rubble that any self-respecting adventurer can hunker down and shelter in (or behind). Guests will also enjoy the welcoming "Open Fire in the Rubble"*, over which warm meals can be mixed (and bandages boiled and cleaned).
• Climb the "Wailing Watchtower" (or "The old tall, haunted place" as Old Dave - recently deceased, used to call it). This three story defensive tower was built in better times (long ago). Locals attribute the fact that it remains standing to the screaming spirit said to haunt the tower, ironically said to be the lost soul of the landowner who sponsored it's creation....
• Enjoy a "Live like a Local" night. Choose an overnight stay at any of the three semi-dilapidated hovels on offer. Each offers limited shelter from the elements (available on three sides), and attractive rustic-style peasant brickwork. To round out your cold, damp evening, enjoy the pleasant views onto the main road offered via the crudely-created, solitary window and various cracks in the walls. (Human companionship optional)

*weather permitting. Note that in the interests of safety this activity may also be cancelled due to roving warbands or undead. In times of plague, meager supplies will be left out in advance.

Your friendly local "The Lord Castellan's Head"

The Wailing Watchtower

Peasant hovel (1 of 3)

What is the fascinating architectural story behind this village of wonders?

Well, as you asked...

***

...I'll be posting a series of posts looking at the different building that I made, but for today, let's lay out the basics.

First of all, I'm not under the illusion that this looks anywhere near as good as any of the building kits that are out there, or many of the scratch-builds that I have found online. I just wanted to get something that I can throw on the table without painting (but that could come later.)

This was my first attempt at scratch-building a few semi-modular buildings out of cheap polystyrene board. My goal was to start to put together enough building terrain to populate a 4' x 4' gaming board for a skirmish game of Frostgrave, and to do so in a short time, at low cost. Skirmish games usually require more terrain than a traditional battleground where you want to allow large units space to maneuver.

Time required: 10-15 hours if you have never done this before (a few evenings, but this is an estimate!) On average, I'd say it took about 2-3 hours for each building set to measure, cut, glue and add a basic level of detail (brickwork etc.)

Cost: 2-5 dollars for the whole lot if using materials from the 1 Pound/ Dollar store/ 100 Yen shop (200-500 yen)

Materials required:

1. Cheap polystyrene board, (x1 sheet maybe 4' x 3' or 4' x 4'). I went with black, which actually works well as I see less need to paint it than if it was white card.
2. x1 Cutter knife
3. x1 bottle of PVA glue
4. x1-2 pieces of thin cardboard (could be from an Amazon box or even better a cereal box.)
5. x 1-2 sheets of brown scrapbook paper.

What did I manage to get out of that board?

x3 small hovels, x1 roof, a two storey pub and a three storey watch tower.

Did I save time over buying professional pieces that I would paint? Overall probably, although the measuring, cutting and gluing takes a long time!

Did I save money? Definitely.

Do I have enough terrain now for a built-up area? No, but I'm a lot closer!

In my next few posts I'll look at the creation process for each of the kinds of buildings made. I hope you'll join me again.

Cheers,