Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I wanted to make some destroyed open field buildings, can I have some help?

Perhaps you could clarify what you mean by field buildings. Field as in agricultural, or field as in military fortifications?


Additionally, do you mean for 40K, Fantasy or generic table top goodness?

Sorry about the lack of Detail. I mean architecture, and defiantly 40k.

Pick up the Cities of Death kits.

Hello Avrik_Shasla (sounds like a Tau name).

I'm assuming you're looking to scratch build from the ground up to save money for all the lovely 28mm goodies out there on the shelves.

I've tried my hand at some 'scenery on the cheap' in my university days and whilst no grand master modeller I can make some suggestions (although my own skill base is so-so). Ruins are arguably easier to make as any mistakes can be incorporated into the overall look of the scenery.

A lot depends on what you want your scenery to represent. Is it meant to be a ruined bunker, a chapel, a generator house, a warehouse or pumping station? Is the race who made it Imperial, Ork, Tau, Eldar etc? Do you want it to be pristine, lived in & used or the wreckage of ongoing conflict?

Don't throw away ANY extra plastic or metal bits from your purchases from GW or any other manufacturer. Those purity seals or ammo pouches you don't use today may be just what you need ten years down the line when you try your hand at something different. If offered odds & ends as a gift or as a swap from another player / collectors bitz box there can be unusual or hard to find pieces right under your nose to trade.

For comparatively inexpensive sandbags or low walls you can mold Blu-tack into the appropriate shapes & score them, or embed gravel chips into them for texture. A glaze of left over super glue will form a crust that can be painted over once dry.

Check out charity or £0.99 stores, garage sales or durng any other clear out for cheap plastic army men sandbags, walls, toys or gubbins that you can cut up & use to make something unique.

Corrugated cardboard from boxes can by painted in metallics & washed with brown & thin black inks to give an effect of corrugated metal, as used on shed / barn roofs or outhouses. A few vertical pieces and you have your walls and for roof sheets thay can be easily bent to shape.

Don't underestimate the humble match stick or iced lolly / popsicle (?) sticks. They can be easily cut to size to make ladders, window ledges, door sills, supports for walkways, bannisters etc. They can be painted to look like wood, stone or metal.

Chances are your garbage has a lot of plastics going out to be recycled. Do a bit of recycling of your own as things such as old camera film containers make great small tanks & silos, soda & tin cans can be used to make larger silos and margarine tubs can become the basis for a bunker.

I've seen several layers of breakfast cereal card stuck together with hobby / PVA glue then a light coating of left over drywall filler or patching plaster applied to give a rougher texture.

If you want to have an impassable ruin then cut up the sprues from boxed sets, paint them black & drybrush them in greys & browns and maybe some bolt gun metal and they make passable fallen timbers & support beams or a scrap heap. If you want the terrain to put models in you might want to make a base out of thick card for the walls & glue a layer of sand & small gravel chips to the ground. Hey presto - rubble your figs can stand up on.

It's worth bearing in mind that a lot of stuff GW make for scenic use can be bought from other suppliers, or in the case of their fine sands & grits for basing literaly picked up from the ground. GW superglue is the same as A.N. Other superglue just with a GW label on it & a significant mark-up for what you get quantity-wise.


Check out other sources for modelling across the internet & in modelling & hobby books for more ideas and tips. Just remember to ask before you use something, don't superglue your fingers together & have fun experimenting!

Thank you for the help, it helped and gave me tons of ideas to use; although, do you have any tutorials that could point me in the right direction?

If you plan on building LOTS of ruins, head out to the local Home Depot/Lowes & pick up a sheet of pink or blue insulation. They sell it in 4'x6' sheets in thicknesses from 1/2" to 2" (I'd reccomend 1/2" for ruins). Pick up a utility knife and a drywall-T (basically a big metal ruler with a perpindicular ruler attached to the top- makes cutting straight lines super easy) and you're ready to go (when I bought mine, I used the T & knife to cut it into 4'x2' sections to fit in the car). To build the ruins, measure out sections as big as you want to go, then cut them out- pretty simple and as long as you keep one straight edge on each piece, you can match up 2 pieces to make a corner. If you want floors, match them up into this corner. Glue them together with elmer's glue and stick toothpicks in to reinforce the joint and you're done. If you want to make windows, measure out, draw, & cut out windows onto a piece of thick card (I use a comic book board) and use this as a template to draw & cut windows on the buildings. You can even use sections of the insulation as a base for the buildings. I've attached a few pics of my WIP city using these techniques below. At some point, I'll have to put up a full wriet up on it in the articles section.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Never use spray paint on the foam- it will melt it. Either paint by hand or completely coat the foam in elmer's glue before spraying.

That's alot of what I was looking for, just on a smaller scale, thanks a bunch.

btw great job on the sculpt of your city, it's looking amazing already.

I second the Citys of Death stuff i painted my first bit the other day. I think its good value for the flexibility and detail it gives.

Here is a pic.

Their is a special spray you can buy called H2O, it can be used on foam and it won't damage it or melt it. Its also rather affordable. Here's link to a spot you can get it http://www.globalindustrial.com/gcs/prod/30137547/i/1/productInfo.web?a=30137547&c=B37547

I gave a link to the black, if you want another color just search for H2O and it will give you about 30 different colors.

LuigiX wrote:

Truncated by gritz2m due to length of post

I second this method for on the cheap stuff. In fact, next week, I should be starting something like this. Thanks for some amazing inspiration.

Edit:

@ Bringer: How does the latex paint take the standard GW acrylic? I'm just curious about how well I could paint over the black.

I'd like to second the note about saving and using leftover bits on terrain... A few pieces of appropriate leftovers can help establish scale (I.E. if there's a lasgun thrown in a corner, you start to think of the building as in-scale with the lasgun) and a little appropriate techy bits make it look much more focused and less generic.

I'm not that sure. I've primered some of my foam stuff, but not painted it yet. Andrecus is the guy I borrowed it from, you could look him up on Dakka and PM him on it. Also, you could do two coats of primer, that being the first and normal primer being the second.

LuigiX, that's an awesome city. I would just be worried about the durability of a city made totally of insulation foam. How has it been holding up for you?

That is an incredible building

... i'm making one of those!

Scout wrote:LuigiX, that's an awesome city. I would just be worried about the durability of a city made totally of insulation foam. How has it been holding up for you?

Thank you for the compliment. It holds up very well so far. I've played a couple games testing out the layout before painting and nothing has broken. After the glue dries on each piece, I test it out with some firm pressure from my hand and it feels very secure- I'm confident putting my heaviest models on it.

What glue do use? I've heard that white glue is the best for some things (not minis, terrain), even though it takes ages to dry, and it holds very firmly.

Insulation foam is very durable, and very suited to something like a ruined building. The big issue is shearing, since it tends to snap fairly easily, meaning that you have to be careful how it's stored. That having been said, it's a cheap, light weight, easily painted, and "ruins" very satisfactorily.

I've got a ton of sites at home, but a couple nice ones for terrain:
http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/ (Good overall site, with dedicated forum)
http://www.terrainthralls.com/ (Very Warmachine focused, but lots of generic stuff too.)
http://www.ironhands.com/necro.htm (Tons of cool 40K terrain + step by step directions.)

The best glue is gorilla glue but use clamps as it expands but makes for very solid bonds.

I just use Elmer's Wood glue (or School Glue- it's the same stuff); it's cheap and holds foam very well. While still wet, I push a toothpick in to reinforce the joint- the glue will push in with the toothpick & hold very solid. I usually glue the entire building at once (the toothpicks hold enough to keep working without it falling apart) and let sit overnight to dry.

LuigiX wrote:I just use Elmer's Wood glue (or School Glue- it's the same stuff); it's cheap and holds foam very well. While still wet, I push a toothpick in to reinforce the joint- the glue will push in with the toothpick & hold very solid. I usually glue the entire building at once (the toothpicks hold enough to keep working without it falling apart) and let sit overnight to dry.

The toothpick idea is really good i'm going to have to use it in the future with foam.

what color do you guys use to paint the buildings?