Tilean Houses

(As featured as tabletop scenery and photo background throughout the campaign posts.)

I will be the first to admit these are ‘basic’. But that was (usually) exactly what I was after – generic looking pieces that could be used multiple times in pictures by showing different sides, etc, and then could be used (in most cases) as scenery for the tabletop games too.

I used a variety of techniques. One was to buy cheap wooden boxes …

… then join them together into more in

teresting shapes …

… then cut the roofs to give some angled slopes …

… and finally to cut out the windows, add plasticard roofs and paint the walls in gesso.

Pretty basic, eh? And cheap too!

Here’s another, more time consuming method. I used a box as a basis, then added plasticard walls and roof, milliputted ridge tiles and edging stones, and plasticarded windows.

I did it on some other buildings, to make them match my bought model buildings a little better.

Here some are completed, while others are WIP.

Another method is to keep you eyes open for something that almost looks right in the first place, like this heavy ceramic tower (a ‘fancy’ candle holder).

I altered some parts – like making the roof match my other buildings better, and adding a door.

Then painted gesso on the walls …

Thus creating a building which fir in quite well.

Some buildings were created for one important story, like the big palace behind the Reman arch lector in the steam tank parade. It is one sided, like cowboy film scenery, as I never intended the rear to be seen. I took a whisky box (Mmm, Glenfiddich!) …

… and by the cunning application of bits of balsa, and straws, and plasticard strips, and old flattish models, and gesso, paint and a thin wash to weather it, I made this …

I did spend a whole looking at images of Italian renaissance palazzos on Google to get an idea of what I should be doing, that’s where I got the idea, for example, of having different shaped windows on different floors, and ledges running along the front.

Here’s a ruin that featured in an early piece about Khurnag’s goblins. I took an already painted railway modellers’ ruin (just a hollow, square stone keep) and added a partially burned timber floor (really burning lollipop sticks to get the effect), and made a base for is to sit on.

Then I added lots of rubble (inside and out) and burn marks on the internal walls, and cut through the model to add a ruined door, as well as fashioning up some steps to the door.