Heisler Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 (edited) The is the first of three or four buildings that I'm scratchbuilding for my wild west town of Calamity. The driving concept behind Calamity is a display board to be used at conventions to promote my local miniatures gaming club (The League of Extraordinary Gamers or LEG). I want it to be the kind of board that really draws people in and gets them fired up to learn and play a game and get introduced to miniature games. With that in mind my builds tend to be a bit more involved than you would ordinarily put into a building meant for gaming. That goes for all of my laser cut buildings as well, all will be dressed up when I start building the boards themselves. I opted for styrene plastic as my main material. Its easy to work with, readily available and the core plastic I can pick up for free from one of my friends in the banner printing business. This also allows me to use commercially available doors and windows from the local model railroad store. The Calamity Newspaper Office (although it could serve as anything, even a saloon) is based on plans from one of my model railroad books "Structures of the Early West", 2nd edition 1994, Joseph Crea and Elwood Bell, and is still standing in Crested Butte Colorado (its a restaurant now, another friend has eaten there and says they have great burgers). I don't think that this book is in print anymore but if you can find a copy it has a lot of different buildings in it. This building is built to 1/56th scale, which is about as close to correct as we get for our miniatures. The doors are all O Scale, or 1/48th scale, from Grandt Line as are the windows. I found that the S Scale, or 1/64th scale, doors were a bit to small in most cases but the S Scale windows work quite well. But the building proportions themselves are all set to 1/56th. Here is a picture of the building as it stands right now before any, major, exterior painting has been started. There is some test color for my weathered undercoat on the back wall, which I rather like. I have been covering building the Newspaper Office, and my trials and tribulations, on my blog. Here are the links from prototype to completed model if you would like to see this building's journey from matt board to final assembly. These are in sequence from start to current: http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2013/12/calamity-prototype-building-newspaper.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2013/12/calamity-prototype-buildings-moving.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2013/12/calamity-newspaper-office-cutting-parts.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2013/12/calamity-newspaper-office-time-for-some.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2013/12/calamity-newspaper-office-doors-and-more.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2013/12/calamity-newspaper-office-interior-work.html http://wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2014/01/calamity-newspaper-office-final-assembly.html Edited January 4, 2014 by Heisler 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spencerjohn Posted January 3, 2014 Share Posted January 3, 2014 Your going to knock their socks off, way to go! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KruleBear Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 That book sounds like a gret resource...and nice building. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr.Bedlam Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Dang. I'm impressed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KruleBear Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Heisler, what did you use or your roof shingles? I like the look better than things i have used before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edsterdoom Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 I love the roof shingles are they handmade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisler Posted February 22, 2014 Author Share Posted February 22, 2014 (edited) Sorry, I missed some questions in here. The roof shingles are a laser cut paper product from Wild West Scale Model Builders. They are a little pricey but they are easy to use and look good so I feel like they are well worth the price. I would use this or something similar (there are a number of other choices) on any of my "Hero" buildings, "Supporting" buildings are likely to just get tarpaper roofs. Here are a couple of other roof examples http://www.wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2012/11/battle-flag-saloon-adding-some-detail.html http://www.wargamesandrailroads.blogspot.com/2013/03/building-calamity-sarissa-precision_7.html Edited February 22, 2014 by Heisler 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KruleBear Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Bookmarked, thanks Heisler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaoshead Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Very nice work. Clean, straight cuts make this look great. Your use of products with different textures really helps the building stand out. That is going to be a fine looking demo board. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malgus Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Love the shingles... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisler Posted February 25, 2014 Author Share Posted February 25, 2014 Not sure if I showed off the finished building, or at least finished for now. From this To this 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willen Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Looks awesome! The red wall looks a little too... flat, when compared to the white beams? Are they weathered? I kinda miss a stronger contrast point somewhere there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heisler Posted February 25, 2014 Author Share Posted February 25, 2014 Looks awesome! The red wall looks a little too... flat, when compared to the white beams? Are they weathered? I kinda miss a stronger contrast point somewhere there. I'm not quite sure what you mean by the red wall looking flat. They are weathered the same way but the weathering doesn't show as much on the red as it does the white. Finally weathering won't be done until the board is ready to go. I need to blend everything into the boards so they match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willen Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Yeah, it probably looks like that to me because the weathering is a... dusty light brown, it seems? And it does not get picked up by the pics as nicely against the red :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fishnjeeps Posted February 25, 2014 Share Posted February 25, 2014 Man that looks just like some of the buildings around where I grew up. Nice job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.