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BACKGROUND:
I've been remodeling my mothers house for 6 months now, all my stuff has been packed up and I'm getting the small scale building bug (laying real tile sucks). So I set up a small workshop to entertain myself when I'm not constructing (large scale). I love big miniture projects. Because I can't set up a paint area-instead of finished other projects like my defense laser, I'll start some other stuff. I can't paint because the big construction just generates too much dust, I'll have to wait until my model room is complete before I paint.

PROJECT:
I've got a bunch of COD stuff I want to build, I figured I would start with a 2'x2' city block with a ruined cathedral. I've been playing with some designs in Google SketchUp (great program!). I've never played with a building in which you could put troops in, due to the size of this piece I was thinking about having the first few floors in tact with the top and on side destroyed.

Here's my dilemma; should I ruin the complete interior, or have floors with shooting points? If it is destroyed, I could still leave catwalks, from a gaming perspective, is there any benefit to keeping an entire floor in tact?

Here is the initial idea for the first level.

[i]

Added more to finalize my mock-up, I high-lighted the area which I think would be good to destroy.


Here is some of the main interior, I'm thinking that I'll do the catwalks and some stairs with the rest in rubble. I'm still not sure if any of the other levels should have anything on the interior.


And here is one for scale. There are more images in my gallery if you want to see more views.

nice maybe you could also get some inspiration from the sister of batlle buildings in DoW\

(btw love google sketch i had to make my own modern classroom for a school project)

DOW or DOW2? I have the former.

Upon thinking about what I've already got ready, I'm reducing the size to 1'x2', I think this gives it more of that Gothic church feel.

Hey they look great, if you execute them properly they will look even better in RL, notrhing beats the old half destroyed cathedral on a battlefield

Looking through my piles of scratch build junk I found a perfect base to build on. Again it makes it smaller, but I would rather do a smaller one, then a larger one later-instead of just a middle sized one.

This is a 2'x4' cut of 3/8" MDF. I took a photo of the Imperial Eagle and created a scalable EPS in photoshop. I then printed it onto clear plastic projector paper. I taped it to the wood and used a dremel circular saw blade to cut through the plastic in effect transferring the pattern to the wood.



I drew in the parts I missed (like small curves). And went over it with a pointed router bit. This creates the embossed surface. I then removed all the excess material.



Finally I finished all the concrete sidewalk surfaces with the same methods.



So now I have a good base, just got back from walmart with some foam core, working on the foundation and first story walls. Hopefully I'll have the main structure completed this weekend. Let me know whatever thoughts you have, I'm completely open to the great input from the Dakka crowd (I'm open to the crap input as well

Damn this is going to be awesome!

Agree with everyone else, this is really cool!

May I throw in one suggestion? We all know the Ecclesiarchy is totally insane and built on spreading the good word... So perhaps as a little doodad if you put in some speakers and a podium on the balcony? Nothing too elaborate, but something so it's like the priest/preacher could just go off on an anti-heretic tirade and everyone could hear it. I think that would be super cool.

Keep up the good work!

What a start! I love quality terrain, there's never enough and same goes to blogs, so this is a very welcome combination indeed.

That is probably the coolest way I have ever see flooring done. I cant wait to see how this whole thing turns out. I may have to steal some of these ideas when I finally get around to making a table of my own.

agreed, that is an excellent idea for the flooring, I love it when people build HUGE relatively intact buildings, it adds a bit of flavour, I mean not EVERY building in the galaxy has been completely reduced to rubble.

will monitor this thread to see the outcome

migsula wrote:What a start! I love quality terrain, there's never enough and same goes to blogs, so this is a very welcome combination indeed.

I put as much work into terrain as I would any model. I just got back from picking up some bits from the FLGS and I was chatting with a guy about terrain and how having quality terrain really makes the game better. It's sad when you show to a game and the other guy brings no terrain or just some boxes that are suppose to be buildings.

So I've got the first level structure figured out. Mostly foamcore, some cake pillars. And the first two front towers are mostly cardstock.



I'm not sure what roof texture to use on the towers. I could cut shingle strips (which is the most work). Or I could use this plastic siding that looks like a metal roof. Or I could use any other of a bunch of different texture I've got laying around. Any opinions?

punkisntdeadyet wrote:May I throw in one suggestion? We all know the Ecclesiarchy is totally insane and built on spreading the good word... So perhaps as a little doodad if you put in some speakers and a podium on the balcony? Nothing too elaborate, but something so it's like the priest/preacher could just go off on an anti-heretic tirade and everyone could hear it. I think that would be super cool.

I build this little podium, like you might see the pope out of. I'll put it somewhere right in the front. I'm not sure of any way to do speakers without looking cheesy, any suggestion?

It's not going on the tower, just placed there to take the photo.

jabbakahut wrote:Added more to finalize my mock-up, I high-lighted the area which I think would be good to destroy.

Allowing for the work you want o put into this I suggest you make the building out of 'sleeved' parts so the building can be shown in an intact or a ruined state.

Start with the base and a ruined ground floor with low walls and rubble.

On that add the main building in two sections that surrounds the rubble walls. either as a lower floors followeed by upper floors above that, or as a slifghtly overlapping front and rear section. Thus the building could be entirely ruined half in ruins or mostly intact.

Add the towers seperately, for convenience of storage mostly but also sleeve them so the towers cap over ruined stumps etc.

In time you could have an intact and impressive buuilding with a plethora of structure points and systermatically ruin it as it loses them to enemy fire.

any help?

Orlanth wrote:Allowing for the work you want o put into this I suggest you make the building out of 'sleeved' parts so the building can be shown in an intact or a ruined state.

Start with the base and a ruined ground floor with low walls and rubble.

On that add the main building in two sections that surrounds the rubble walls. either as a lower floors followeed by upper floors above that, or as a slifghtly overlapping front and rear section. Thus the building could be entirely ruined half in ruins or mostly intact.

Add the towers seperately, for convenience of storage mostly but also sleeve them so the towers cap over ruined stumps etc.

In time you could have an intact and impressive buuilding with a plethora of structure points and systermatically ruin it as it loses them to enemy fire.

any help?

That's a really neat idea, I'm going to have to put some thought into that, I like it though.

Dude those are some mad skills on that Aquila/sidewalk. Can't wait to see more!

Great job so far and thanks for turning me on to Google Sketchup.

I'm going to have to visit your threads on a regular basis, I always learn something.

Blackadder

Thanks for the positive feedback, it really helps to keep motivation on a project when people actually like what you're doing.

So here is what I've got so far.


For the tower roofs I went with this roll of kitchen drawer wrap I picked up for 5 bucks. It works as a tile floor or in my case-a copper roof. I trimmed the edges and tossed on some tower-things for good measure.


For the tower windows I cut some holes, put this metal screen mesh on the inside with a plastic back to it (so I could be painted from the front). Trimmed the window out with some plastic-strut pieces and topped them off with some bits out of the baneblade kit.


I wanted some doors for the second level and couldn't find my box of COD building bits. I just took this thick plastic cards, used all sorts of other plastic pieces and some of the metal screen I used in the windows. Even found some old handles from either the original ork battle wagon or leman russ tank kit.


So here is the front second level. I'm okay with it for now. No reason to get bits crazy yet, I still have the rest of the structure to build.


Here is an example of how sometimes just messing around I end up with something I like. Even though I started with a computer model, I ususally only use that to give me a direction. I found the more you plan, the more there is that can go wrong. Here I had some corner trim piece that goes in a house, I picked it up at the hardware store years ago cause I thought it looked cool. I started glueing different things to it and realized it would make a good top to my main tower.


After a few days of adding different things to it while I waited for glue to dry on other things, I ended up with it looking pretty good I think. I'll add some rubbled bits when that stage comes.


I've seen people in different threads ask about where you get bits to work with, or where inspiration comes from. Once you get a serious bit collection going it can get out of hand. Here you see that I could fill tables with just building stuff. Keeping stuff orgainized can be tough, but anything can be turned into the next piece of cool terrain. If you notice in the upper right corner on top of the horizontal drawers, next to the drawer tower, I've got one of those office building water jugs, I can't wait to figure out something for that.

jabbakahut wrote:Thanks for the positive feedback, it really helps to keep motivation on a project when people actually like what you're doing.

So here is what I've got so far.


For the tower roofs I went with this roll of kitchen drawer wrap I picked up for 5 bucks. It works as a tile floor or in my case-a copper roof. I trimmed the edges and tossed on some tower-things for good measure.


For the tower windows I cut some holes, put this metal screen mesh on the inside with a plastic back to it (so I could be painted from the front). Trimmed the window out with some plastic-strut pieces and topped them off with some bits out of the baneblade kit.


I wanted some doors for the second level and couldn't find my box of COD building bits. I just took this thick plastic cards, used all sorts of other plastic pieces and some of the metal screen I used in the windows. Even found some old handles from either the original ork battle wagon or leman russ tank kit.


So here is the front second level. I'm okay with it for now. No reason to get bits crazy yet, I still have the rest of the structure to build.


Here is an example of how sometimes just messing around I end up with something I like. Even though I started with a computer model, I ususally only use that to give me a direction. I found the more you plan, the more there is that can go wrong. Here I had some corner trim piece that goes in a house, I picked it up at the hardware store years ago cause I thought it looked cool. I started glueing different things to it and realized it would make a good top to my main tower.


After a few days of adding different things to it while I waited for glue to dry on other things, I ended up with it looking pretty good I think. I'll add some rubbled bits when that stage comes.


I've seen people in different threads ask about where you get bits to work with, or where inspiration comes from. Once you get a serious bit collection going it can get out of hand. Here you see that I could fill tables with just building stuff. Keeping stuff orgainized can be tough, but anything can be turned into the next piece of cool terrain. If you notice in the upper right corner on top of the horizontal drawers, next to the drawer tower, I've got one of those office building water jugs, I can't wait to figure out something for that.

Inspired use of crown molding.

I ended up waiting for a tile saw all morning so I spent it working on the first floor of the Cathedral.

I cut open windows into the main floor walls, inserted some COD pieces and trimmed everything out, added those supports which come out the side.



Then I did the opposite wall which will be partially destroyed.


First floor with the intact wall.


Rear side blown out wall. You can also see the stone wall things for troops to stand on-any thoughts?



I figure I'll block the entries with make shaft barriers. I could do some GS sandbags.

My only concern is that it might be difficult to move troops inside the first floor once the second floor is applied [Will the second floor/rest of the structure be removable?]

I like the stones in front of the windows, I suppose they'll serve as makeshift firing blocks for troopers to shoot out of the windows.

Otherwise I think it looks excellent. I really like the use of the CoD kits. Using them in conjunction with other materials really does seem like the best way to go about creating imperial terrain. Also allows you to get more bang for your buck with a CoD kit.

Lagduf wrote:I really like the use of the CoD kits. Using them in conjunction with other materials really does seem like the best way to go about creating imperial terrain. Also allows you to get more bang for your buck with a CoD kit.

I agree completely, and I'm working on how the second story will go, have been chatting some ideas with the guys at the FLGS. I was going to make the entire thing with sections you could remove to show damage, but that seemed like a lot of work for a little benefit. So I want to build a static model, but keeping the issue of troop movement as easy as possible.

Look at this, I don't really mind most of what GW does, I like their product and have few complaints. But just look how they cheap you. each bottle is like 1/3 full new.


So I'm figuring out how to do this second level.



I found something on the front that doesn't line up properly. I'm not sure if I should make it work, or rebuilt part of it again. Also trying to figure out what to do for the windows on this level. Maybe a door.

I think many are following along looking at what your doing and carying that to thier own terrain.

Update the blog as you see fit, but dont seek appproval as the reason to showcase your work, do it because your proud of it and dont give a dang what other say ..or dont....

It looks cool, and you shouldn't need feedback to encourage you to post. A lot of people just like to look. Let your page views pat you on the back

Can't wait to see it finished.

Don't get me wrong, I don't need feedback. In the end this will be much a much more detailed section in my next modeling guide (see link in my sig for my other work). So I'll document it eventually, and it will be much better. I'm thinking people would rather just look at the guide when it's finished, especially since I go into great details of "how to". I think I'll just space out the updates a bit more.

I am SO impressed with how quickly this is coming together! It looks fantastic too, and it's giving me lots of ideas as to stretching the CoD kits out for custom builds :]

One thing I always wondered with people who construct these sorts of terrain pieces, are they not a total pain to store?

Bottle wrote:One thing I always wondered with people who construct these sorts of terrain pieces, are they not a total pain to store?

I've broken my share of terrain. It's best to have a dedicated gaming room.

Looks awsome so far wish i was good with wood working , the plastic glue needs empty space in the bottle for the fumes .