Medieval Village - pt 1

[weareblind]

Some words about this thread.
I translated a thread started in an Italian forum (Triplo zero - Triple zero) by a totally crazy guy (you will understand why reading and seeing THIS thread - he's one of the best painter-builder I've ever seen).
Because of my job, my under construction REAL house and my just built new daughter, and, last but not least, my not-so-good English, you'll find errors (ok, a lot of errors...  ) inside my post.
Please, send me a PM to correct it.
If some part it's not so clear, please send me a PM again.
Now let's go!!

Medieval Village – 1st Part
      


This guide is thougth to show some fundamental techniques about construction of scenic elements, simply using polystyrene. You’ll find some hips & tips about how to work with this material, and a step by step guide for scenarios.

Inspiration.
Every project needs an idea or inspiration to start. Surfing through the web, I found some months ago this awesome website of a German artist: http://www.fantasy-gelaende-modelle.de
Searching between his works I found, in the fantasy section, an awesome and beautiful village, and I decided to construct it with some differences, adding of course this guide.

Because of my “professional deviance”, I decomposed the principal structure in smaller blocks, to be built one after the other. So this project is divided in different posts, and everyone of them will show one block, one step by another.
Don’t worry, every section can be developed with very small variations as an autonomous scenic element.

Usually, when I build a scenic element, I start with a short-cut model to bear clearly in mind the dimensions of the piece. Because I am not able with free-hand, I use to create a CAD version. From some months ago I’m working with the very light, transportable and free SketchUp (GoogleTM).
In a while I have created a first version to well understand volumes of the pieces to build up.


This first post shows the entrance tower. Compared to the German website model, I have decided to reproduce a tower that seems like a building I know very well, the Floriańska tower in Cracovia.


The guides will be useful only to build the necessary pieces. You’ll think about painting when the model is completely finished.

First part – the Tower
Materials needed:
- Polystyrene: thickness 2 cm (note of the translator; 1 inch = 2,54 cm, so we’re talking about 0,8 inches)
- Polystyrene: thickness 4 cm = 1,6 inches
- Cornflakes cardboard (or similar)
- Cutter
- Vynil glue or hot glue
- Polifilla or putty (optional) (note of the translator: Polifilla is a commercial brand of cellulose powder filler/putty)
- A stone (optional)
- Balsa wood: thickness 4 mm (0,16 inches)
- Plasticard: thickness 1 mm (0,04 inches) (note of the translator: Plasticard is a commercial brand for polystyrene thin sheets http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticard)
- A hard plastic tube, with a 2 cm (0,8 inches) or more diameter
- Sandpaper
- A pen

The very first thing to do is to create the tower central body, with the underpass. When you’re working with polystyrene, to achieve a more realistic aspect you have to camouflage junctions between polystyrene plates. To obtain that, usually I create buildings with “slices” one over the other.
Junction between two plates will be, once the piece is texturized, the dividing line between two lines of bricks and, lead on the eyes (note of the translator: I’m not able to find a better translation, but I don’t like it), it disappear.

[weareblind]

Usually the most difficult things to achieve are cuts exactly perpendicular. I tried to do them freehand, but I’m not able to reach the “90° perfect angle”.
So, I’ve by-passed this problem making custom-made rulers in MDF (Medium-density fibreboard), 2,5 cm (1 inch) thickness.
To make a perpendicular cut, it’s sufficient to lean the steel blade of the cutter on the ruler, and use it as a guide. Be very careful when you’re cutting this way. Get a 2 inches large ruler to have the right space to handle it in safety condition.


Start to cut the necessary “slices” from polystyrene with thickness 2 cm: 8 squares 12X12 and one 14X14. Cut a small square in two equal parts to get two rectangles 12X6. They will be the walls of the tunnel. Cut, from the 4 cm polystyrene, 4 stripes of 1,5 cm; two of them will have a 14 cm lenghth, the other two 11 cm.
Assemble without glue to verify the rightness of our pieces, as in this pic.


Now we have to create the arch, that’s quite simple. Draw an arch on two sides of the square and then start to dig the inferior part to create a passage. This phase could be difficult because of the particular form of the arch. With a simple tip we can resolve everything in a second. Get a plastic tube, cover it with sandpaper and use this tool to sand the inferior part of the arch, moving along the principal axis. The round shape of the tube will help us during the creation of the arch.


Glue 7 squares 12x12, using for last piece the one with the arch, then sandpaper all the surfaces (polystyrene pieces also). This procedure will grant us a base-level texture and an amalgamation over all sides.

Start now to create the wall bricks effect. Over all the surfaces trace down some lines with a 1 cm distance from each other.


Create, with low precision, a personal draw for the wall bricks effect. For this piece I used a rural style.


Now retrace every line with a cutter, cutting furrows not too deep. Retrace cuts with a pen or a pencil, to obtain rounded bricks sides.


In the end, randomly, push in the polystyrene some bricks to insert them in the wall and create an irregular structure. You may do this operation with every tool… I’ve used a sharped rock or a flat file for modeller, depending on the specific situation. If you make an error and crack a brick, or while put it into the wall you create an undesired furrow on it, it’s sufficient to use some putty to retexture every single brick (pay attention when ridefining stone border-lines).


Ok, time to start with the tower mean body. Draw some windows and texture as for bricks. In this model, a part of the left side will be covered by another structure. So, it’s sufficient to work on the zones that will be more visible when we’ll finish. Remember to push deeper windows’ furrows to create a better three-dimensionality


Time to work on the upper floor. On the 14X14 square, trace border lines with 1.5 cm of thickness, on which we’ll pose our walls. Create a leit-motiv on the stone and trace the trapdoor. Same texture as we’ve seen. Here we may hit materials with a small stone to create something different. Beware, don’t exaggerate!

We’ve created a very temporary trapdoor (probably later we could modify it, sculpting it), using balsa wood 4 mm thickness and a little bit of plasticard 1 mm thickness.

[weareblind]

For the walls on the upper floor, it is sufficient to create simple battlements, 3 for each side. Once again, make perpendicular cuts on the polystyrene stripes. This time I used a different technique: first I‘ve drawn the battlements with a pen, then I’ve traced a deeper path with a knife on these traces. These furrows are useful for the final cut with a modellist cutter. I made vertical cuts first, and then, with a scalpel, horizontal ones. With this sequence, structure will be more resilient and you’ll reduce to the very minimum cracking risks.


At this point I’ve glued the entire constructed structure. Then I’ve created some decorations/reinforcements for the tower’s upper floor.
Cut some little stripes of polystyrene with 0,5 cm thickness and 2 cm largeness. Draw some 1x1 cm squares. Sign a point in the very centre of them and draw 2 quarters of circumference. Cut 20 pieces of them.


Time to prepare our angles. Using Pythagora’s theorem and cutting a little bit our stripes (angles must not go out), create similar forms but with 1X1,4 cm dimension. On the smaller side cut a V, to grant adhesion to the tower’s angle.
When I'm cutting so thin pieces, using a modeller knife, usually I put a thick plate downside. In this way the edge will penetrate just to the plate, and I'm sure to cut correctly the small piece.

We’re entering in the conclusive part of the tutorial, but surely the most long and boring too: the roof. Draw on the cardboard a triangle with a 14 cm base and 9,5 cm height. Repeating this shape we’ll have a pyramid.


Prepare some 1,5 thickness stripes, cut horizontal incisions and make randomly little cuts on the angles to simulate tiles.


Glue row by row and cut along pyramid’s angles. When you’ve covered the four sides, glue reinforcement stripes.


Tower is finished. In the second part of the tutorial we’ll see how to build the entrance door of the terrace and columns for the right side of the building.

[falela]

wow, good job.
 

[Graeme]

wow, good job.
 

[dargrin]

Fantastic tutorial with jaw dropping results!

How are you cutting the slices?  Using a razor knife I found very difficult cutting anything greater then 8 cm.  The blade tends to bend and then giving a angled cut.

[Bahir]

 

Wow! Simply brilliant!

[Wildheart]

Love it! 
The brickwork is superb especially. No lets see some paint on it! 

[vampifan]

  Great work, Weareblind! I'll be following this thread with great interest.

[Vermis]

Om nom nom.  

One question though: why do you stack several squares to make the tower instead of sticking four sides together?

[weareblind]

I'm sending all the questions to the author 

[Vermis]

I translated a thread started in an Italian forum

Dur.  Sorry!  Completely forgot this bit. 

[weareblind]

Fantastic tutorial with jaw dropping results!

How are you cutting the slices?  Using a razor knife I found very difficult cutting anything greater then 8 cm.  The blade tends to bend and then giving a angled cut.

Answer
Do you mean 8 cm in length or in depth?
In depth is nearly impossible with this kind of razor knife. The blade is simply not long enough.
Instead, in lenght, just use a ruler (I have a MDF ruler as show in the picture), lean the blade and press it on the ruler itself.
Another advice is to avoid to cut the polystyrene with one single stroke of the blade. Just made a lot of passages cutting it deeper and deeper. In this way you can control the angle of the cut.
 

[weareblind]

Om nom nom.  

One question though: why do you stack several squares to make the tower instead of sticking four sides together?

Answer
I'm using this sandwich technique in order to conceal the joints of the plates. If I had used four sides, I would have four ugly vertical lines where the plates met themselves.
Of course this method works only if you don't have to create big windows or doors on the side of the building.