IM 16, and this is my first attempt at making and painting a house, its a Verlinden building called the Ruined Mansion i think.. Any comments are welcome, good or bad, i have to learn!! Oh and its not compleatly finished yet but i thought your comments might give me some ideas. Also ideas on what sort of diorama this could be used in would be really helpful because i didnt think that far ahead!!

Thanks

Klown

I'm new to the hobby and haven't really completed anything yet but I think you did a great job. The weathering looks realistic to me. Matbe you could scatter some more debris around once you set it into a diorama. Because I'm partial to WW2 I think this would make a great ETO piece for some Allies ambushing some Germans or vice versa. I can't wait till it is done.

well i still need to get rid of all the little white specks, etc.. i was thinking about putting the house on a street corner, but what else to do i wasnt sure about... and i plan to add a lot of brick rubble as it quite a destroyed building. i just need to know where to get brick rubble from, or how to make it

It could also be a temporary command post for a platoon leader or a place to care for the wounded or just a place for some soldiers to relax and eat a meal, etc. Endless possibilities with this one.

Hi Klwon, it's looking very good so far! Like the boarded up windows, and the weathering looks very decent.
Now, rubble. LOL I make mine out of several different things, almost a recipie of sorts....
If you have any plaster kicking around, I would suggest pouring a couple of sheets, you can add craft paint or terra cotta colour powder to the water to create a brick coloured piece of plaster. When it's dried, smash it up into oblivion, and store in some ziploc bags for later.
For my rubble I use, smashed plaster, painted and broken flat toothpicks (paint ahead of time several different colours, break and store in a baggie) scale bricks, or I cut up pieces of cork to brick size, fine sand ballast that you can get from the scale rail stores.

I pour a little of each "ingredient" into a jar, cover and shake well. Then I pour onto the base into piles, add bigger pieces of lumber here and there. I lightly mist on some water to dampen everything, and then I add my whtie glue/water mix to every square inch of rubble. After a day, I add another shot of glue/water. Once cured, I add a wash of artist oils to it all, and finally top up with some mig pigments brick dust.

Here's a sample of my rubble for you....hope this helps!

First off let me start by saying you have a great start! Excellant work so far. You seem egar to learn so I will try to help. Let me ask what kind of paints are you using? Acylic or enamels? Either way your "white spots" were probably caused by one of two things. The primer coat, if you did one, was not thick enough to cover the plaster throughly. Second your paint might have been too thick to get in the crevices.I would suggest when working with these plaster buildings that they always be well primed. I myself use thinned acrylic based house paint. The spots you have now can be taken care of by thinning your paints down so they soak in. You may have to repeat this process to get the colors to match back to the original state of the other surrounding areas. For brick and rubble I would use a combination of cat liter or rough sand. For the brick I would purchase some cork which can be bought in different sizes. Take a "pattern" from the buildings bricks and cut the cork to the size of the brick. The other thing I would do is go back with a wash of creame colored paint in between the bricks for the mortor.

My other adivce is to look around you at other brick homes to use as a reference to compare to. As for a diorama idea you have not committed yourself yet to anything. So take sometime, go to a library, or look up photo's on the net. Find something you like. Look at figure sets that are available to you and "invision" them in your scene. After you make those choices, I and others here will continue to ehlp and support you. You may feel free to private messenge me anytime for ideas or help.

Paul

Wow thats really good especially for a first attempt, for rubble I simply use crushed brick, it looks very realistic and creates alot of dust too.

nato308 = All i used was some humbrol enamels to paint the house. I painted it with the red colour then got some flat black mixed with white spirit to use as a wash. And the reason i didnt have any ideas for the actually diorama was because i never actually thought i would ever make the house! although i do have some american assult troops lying around, so i might just use them and do a little diorama.

KellyZak = Thanks, your rubble looks really good, but just how do you go about pouring a sheet of plaster? i dont have any but im sure i can get some from somewhere!

And thanks to everyone else for your comments its much appreciated.. As it happens im already half way through my second diorama aswell (which i actually planned this time)

Oh and one more thing, what would you recommend to use as a base for the whole thing as im not quite sure.

Thanks again

Klown

Hey Ashley,
Thanks for the comments, that pic is from my latest dio, i've submitted it to the Photos on Display, so hopefully soon they'll be up.
Anyhoo, All I do when I pour plaster is make a form out of the big size kids lego building blocks. You can make it square, rectangle, whatever works. I make sure I use a old piece of glass, or plastic to put the form on so the plaster will not stick to the surface. Mix up your plaster to a soupy mixture, pour it into the form, and let it dry for a day or so. Note, this also works good for making walls as well. Pour a 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick for walls.

Bases: I usually use old pieces of the pressed board type of furniture pieces, these have a laminiated surface which usually does not warp when you are adding glue/water mixture. I always cut flat edges along the edges of the wood, as later I make display cases for the piece. You can also use insulation foam purchased from the local building supply outlet. Make sure to look for either pink or blue foam, it is real dense. It cuts like butter when run through a table saw, and carves pretty good too. Plus, using this as a base cuts the weight of your dio down considerably.

Here's a source for a good mould for rubble.

http://www.kencali.com/Wallsections.html

Check out the "Kancali Mold Set for rubble", at $40USD it looks like a worthwhile purchase.

Yeh i have seen that, but being young i dont have a lot of money... but i dont suppose you know if you can get these things in england do you?

KellyZak = what ratio do you mix your water with glue? is it half and half or more water that etc?

thanks again for the help

Hi Klow,

By looking at what you just did, I wouls not have guessed it was your first time. Anyway, here are some of my observations:
1) The board look artificial in a way because they look as if they were glued to the wall. I would suggest you add some nail marks or better yet simulate nails by drilling the wood and inserting some very thin wires..
2) The color of the bricks looks good, but if you look at brick houses you would notice that brick colors are not uniform in color or shade some are dark and some are lighter.

As the other mentioned, if it would be places in a dio better add some rubbles, wood and some furnitures...

If I were to build a dio...hmmm...get some Allied assault troops with bazookas hide them behind the house. Build a German AFV. Make it look as if the Allied forces were about to ambush the tank....just my 2 cents...

Cheers

Hoo boy, that's a toughy, I usually just eye my mixes for glue/water...I usually make it a little on the thick-ish side, say 60-70% glue to water, more of a soupy consistancy, I find if I mix it thinner, more applications are needed to get everything cemented down and hard as a rock.

Hi Ashley,

I have the same "ruined mansion" for my Ardennes Offensive dio. You did a very good job.

One thing I noticed though: you did not fill the seams where the pieces are supposed to be joined. You should fill this up with a little spackle.

I'm not sure if I'm right about this but those holes at the bottom of the structure are basement windows. Therefore, I believe that this structure supposedly has a basement.

Angela

Beside a few whitespots, you've done a wonderful job with that mansion.

Yeah i think the building does have a basement so i was going box in the windows from behind to make it look dark etc.

I have some other questions, like i said im new to this hobby so what is "spackle"?
And what is the best way to go about making a street to go infront of the house?
There was another question but i forgot it already!

re: rubble
I find that it takes a MUCH greater volume of rubble than you would think to make piles large enough to be realistic.
To that end, cut up styrofoam insulation, or electronics packaging material and build up stages in thin layers into a pyramid shpae, but don't make then too regular.

Then paint them a dark brown.
Now add kitty litter to fill in and start covering the edges, white glue water in place.

I have not tried it, but it would seem that white glue and kittly litter are water soluable, so thinned red brown paint in there should start to color the litter as well.. um.. brick litter. I use the REALLY cheap sutff, not the more expensive clumping kind.

The top layer is then made of plaster or cork scored bricks, wooden coffee stirrer planks, and microscope slide cover glasss shards you can use the plastic 'bubble' from kids toy packaging, but it does not look as much like broken glass as real broken slide covers do. (Use LOTS of broken glass, but make the pieces small, this is 1/35th of life size after all) plumbing/guttering bits (soda straws, plastic coffee stirrers, streched sprue, and or insulated copper wire), bits of wall paper (google "printable miniature wallpaper")

I agree with the suggestion to add nails to your boards, but they look a little thick to my eye. put a 1/35th figure up against them, imagine standing on a ladder nailing that bad boy in place...
Something a but thinner would do it.

Looks great for a start, but as in life, it is the little details that really matter sometimes.
This is one of those times.

Mike

Spackle is a material used for patching small holes in drywall, wood, etc. Almost like a putty. Apply with a spatula or putty knife. Once dry, it can be sanded, and if you end up covering brickwork, easily can be rescribed with a dental burr or back edge of a hobby knife.
For streets, you can buy sections of them from some of the aftermarket companies, or if you think your rubble may cover alot of the street, you could scratch your own. The first street scene I did I poured some paster onto my base, and when it dried, I scribed in all of the cobbles (took a while, but didn't turn out too bad) Kancali has some neat street sections which are made from latex rubber, so it's light, all you do is cut, glue and you're good to go.

Keeping in mind that this is your first piece, I think it looks very good. If I was to suggest something:
- in one post jackhammer81 (Kevin) suggested to place all the wooden boards inside the building as it would be kind of hard to place them outside. Also setting them in place using nails is not a very good idea (nails and bricks don't really go together very well, as bricks aren't the proper material). On the other hand if you were to put those boards inside, you could create some wooden wall covers, and than nail all the boards to that. But I know this might be a bit tricky to do as you already painted the model, so maybe try to imitate screws, to hold the boards in place
- I have to disagree with MLD (sorry mate:)), I think that the boards thickness is quite okay
- I would use the scribing method for the street, there are plenty of posts or articles that should help you make your own street, fast and inexpensive.

Other than that I think it looks very nice. Keep up the good work!

dsc.

I did actually use thinner wood for the boards, but to me it didnt look quite right so i decided the bigger ones suited better, well that was my opionion anyway!

As for moving the boards to the inside, the are pretty well stuck on and if i pull them off i have a horrible feeling that a chunk of plaster will come with it, and that i dont want! So i think it would be easiest to simulate the nails

If you want to simulate nails, all you have to do is to use tiny pieces of plastic made from the thinnest round plastic strip you can ever find- you can use a rifle if you want to- and cut a very small portion to immitate the end of a nail. then use superglue and CAREFULLY glue it to one of the ends of one board. Repeat this action twice in each side of each board, each time near one of the ends of the board.
Cheers and happy modellig!
Prato