Tinker's Tower
The above image isn't mine; it is one of the many buildings in Dennis Layson's amazing Mordheim Town. (
http://www.warfair.com/mordheim/mordheim.htm)I decided to base a terrain piece off of the blacksmith's shop and tower on the left side of the picture. Here's how it started.
I drew a piece similar to the blacksmith's shop and tower, but decided I wanted it to be a clock tower. Inspired by the Clockworks! tile in my Wyrdstone Hunt counters, I decided that the building next to it would be a tinker's house and shop. A clock tower needs to be tall, so why not raise this off the ground? All of my other Mordheim terrain pieces are flat based -- when this is done, it will really stand out!
Construction-wise, the first thing done was to lay out the approximate floorplan at a 1:1 scale. Then I managed to scavenge some styrofoam packaging. The side I cut on proved to be a bit of a challenge -- the foam isn't a solid inch thick and there are noticable gaps. Luckily, I decided I wanted a stone retaining wall on the piece, so this should cause no problems. I placed the floorplan on the surface of the styrofoam and pushed pins through the floorplan. After removing the floorplan, I connected the dots on the styrofoam.
Next the sides of the house proper were built. They were stuck onto the base with toothpicks and tape -- this was to ensure the fit of the different walls. Next, the windows and the doors were marked on the foamcore and cut out. The entire thing was assembled on a flat surface (not the styrofoam board). Construction began on the clock tower.
The tower itself was easy to assemble -- four basic walls, cut a broken bit off the top, cut an arch on two walls for the walkway and block off the inside walls for the archway. Next, the tower was set in contact with the house to mark the overlap. Using air-drying clay, a simple wall is built up around the base of the tower (up to about nine scale feet) and a stone pattern is etched in. Back to the house.
On the house, several timbers are added to the outside. For neat external timbers, I suggest shaving the edges off parts of the timbers. Once these get painted up, they'll look really nice.
Next steps: Build the small storage shed, seal the exposed styrofoam, build the retaining wall, stucco the house's and the tower's walls with spackle, and prime everything -- including the base -- in black. After that, we paint the ground a dark brown (not Goblin Green!). I was happy with the brown-based ground on the Tavern's base. Starting from brown and adding green flock makes the ground cover look as if it's rather muddy. Starting with green gets you a manicured golf course. Additionally, you can make more natural looking paths in the grass with a brown base than with a green base.
Traffic patterns: I'm planning on putting walking stones for the path between steps and through the tower. The area in front of the house (closest to the tower) will have more paving stones, like a porch. The back door will have one stone or two with a dirt path directly to the steps. There will be another dirt path to the storage shed.
Painting: Right now, I'm thinking of making the tower tannish or light yellow, so there's going to be about three layers of drybrushing on that. The house itself will be ruddy (hopefully). Both structures should be muddy. There's the storage shed out back, that's going to be wooden without any elaborate painting.
