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Alright, so I'm no terrain wizard right? I do okay on painting and modeling, but the world of foamcore is definitely new to me.

With that having been said, I present my newest ruined building here, based on a building in an old BGIME magazine, with the hopes of securing advice on how to make it look sharper.

Here are the WIP shots:




Aside from total reconstruction, how do I make it "pop" a bit more? Even if your advice can't save this one, maybe the next will look better!

Dan

Im thinking it looks pretty cool. Nicely built, and it looks well executed. My only thought is i believe foamcore warps when spray painted.

looks real nice to me!
thinks i would add would be:
the front side with the door: you did it out of two sheets of foamcore... maybe a bit of "plaster" to smooth the edges down a bit so that the two parts are not seperate to view?
overall walls? you did realy artful with the corners... maybe you could add some patches of naked stones in the walls where the plaster was lost due to punishment of war^^ also bulletholes are alwas nice or burnmarks...
personaly i wouldnt do graffiti but that is up to you...
if you have ol school files with seethrough parts of realy thin plastic, then you could do window panes and then you could do mosaik painting on it...
and lastly: the floor... you could also make a mandala like floor cunstruction .

and afterwards i suggest the heaviest weathering of this raw beauty^^

good luck

The front looks great, one of the things that is really hurting it is the top double layer of foam. To cover it up on the less wrecked half you could build a little bit of a destroyed roof. for the wrecked half you will either have to cover it with thin card or construction paper or change the full way you have shown damage.

Normally when bricks are broken out they tend to shatter and break. In yours it almost looks like they have been removed carefully by hand. I suggest you go along with a sharp knife and weather the edges so they are not so pristine.

Also to really add some detail you are going to have to add some texture to the walls. I suggest you get a dull pencil and start drawing in the bricks nice and hard. It should indent the foam making it look like you actually made individual bricks. Then hit them up with a texture spray and start painting.

Next time I suggest using some thin card instead of another layer of foamcore to do the windows, you can get a lot better detail out of it.

The thing that strikes me is the Lego like damage to the walls

Talking of Lego the rear wall damage is unconvincing because you know how you alternated lego for strength when building? That would include going around the corners. So there should be a bit of a corner as per the front end with the quoin stones that you have added, which will provide strength.

Best I could find for illustrative purposes with apologies to the owner of the image:


But for someone who says that they are no terrain wizard that is jolly D and I love the Romanesque arches!!! Please take the criticism as constructive to think about with your next project cos there is a lot of ability showing.

great work, love the front of the hall type thing

Alright, I took what suggestions I felt I could implement without tearing the thing apart. I decided the building is built of some sort of light clad material over brick, so I stripped a layer of the card in areas and used the pencil method to carve in bricks. I then weathered all the corners with a pair of clippers - you're right, it looks better that way - and added a stained glass window. The double layered card look was fixed with some glue and masking tape - once it's painted, I think the layers will be invisible. Next time I'll try and work on the lego look some more - oh, and add a roof.

Here are the pre-paint pics:




I'll take this building as a lessons learned project - I think I can make the next one a good bit better.

Thanks for the input,

Dan

The plaster look looks great, a good way to texture the wall without doing the full wall. When do we get to see it painted up?

The reason it took a bit to update this again, is that I finished up another, simpler building. The idea behind this stuff is to make it fantasy or 40k compatible, so I'm trying to make it a bit vague with respect to time period.

I messed up on the bricks on the 2nd one - they're a bit big - but esso es vida I suppose.

I painted all the exposed foam in the hope that it'll keep the stuff from warping when I prime it, but we'll see!



I'll post more pics once they're done,

Dan

I love that griffin, too bad it is such an expensive kit for the one bit.