Friday, June 26, 2020

Swamp Table Project: Shed

To go along with the farm house, I wanted a smaller building.  This time a shed.  My reference material were google searches for sheds in swamps / bayou. 

I used mostly craft sticks for this build.  With some balsa for the corners and door frames.  The base is foamcore and more foamcore for the walls under the eaves in the front and back. 


The roof is decorative paper that is corrugated on one side.


The roof just fits on top and can be removed for easier inside access.


More pictures.




Higher resolution images here.

Trees are the next big thing I tackled.  And I'm super proud of them but before I finished them I had a side quest to build some objectives.  So I did that next.

Thursday, June 11, 2020

Swamp Table Project: Ruined Farm House

A couple weeks ago I introduced the work I've been doing on a Swamp Table for my miniature gaming (mostly Infinity).  That was about some alien looking bushes.  This time I want to show off what is one of the main pieces for the table: a ruined farm house.

Sure, farm houses are not very futuristic but I wanted my table to be versatile and maybe this alien world was colonized by people who liked farm houses.  I wanted something reminiscent of a early 1800s southern farm house.  Not a large plantation home, more of a smaller structure.  I ended up finding some good source material online for inspiration and this is what I ended up with.


It is mostly a foam core construction on a foam core base.  This corner is the most intact part of the building.


The small balcony is actually pinned through the front wall and into the second story floor with a couple of toothpicks.  The railing uses balsa for the main support and thin wire for the smaller details.  The floor of the balcony is edged in craft/popsicle  sticks.


The front porch uses larger craft sticks supported by more of the smaller sticks.  Additional craft sticks became shudders and window sills.


A good look at the second floor from the back side.  The stairs and some other bits of that middle section are what I could have done better.  The whole area could have been planned better but I think it came out well enough -- especially for my first serious building construction.



More views of the interior via the backside of the building.  Lets focus more on the chimneys... which are my favorite part of this piece.



I used the technique of striping on side of the foam core off and then carving into the foam innards for the brick work and was really happy with how it came out.  Some of it was a little uneven, but I like it.  The actual flues at the top are my favorite plastic tubes from inside a roll a dog poop bags.

 Higher resolution images here.

The next piece I finished for this table was a small swamp shack.  Pictures of that in a couple of weeks.