Twilight Ramblings 6 - Empire Buildings

[Brandlin]

thank you ben and darth tater for your comments and support throughout this long thread.

Make me lots please

Well, the idea is that i sell you a kit (eventually) and you can make lots yourself...  although as an aside what would be the going rate for a completed painted terrain piece such as this?

[Brandlin]

Whilst working out costings for the PrynGul Tower and shingles kits I finalised the composition of the the next Kit in the range.

This is a stables/barracks.  The idea being the double doors on the ground floor open into an enuk stables and the stairs lead to knight quarters or barracks area above the stables.

lots more pictures from many angles and some more discussion on my blog

[darth tater]

That looks and sounds like a cool idea mate.

What do you reckon your pryngul kit is gonna cost?  I've been saving pringles tubes!

[Brandlin]

That looks and sounds like a cool idea mate.

What do you reckon your pryngul kit is gonna cost?  I've been saving pringles tubes!

Thank you Darth Tater! The force is strong in you!

I'm expecting it to come in between £12 and £16 per kit. but that depends on the final costings and stuff like postage, ebay and paypal charges which I haven't worked through yet.

It's a little higher than I was hoping but I hadn't really worked out all the "extra" costs, but i want to do this properly.

Having said that this is a large 4 storey building in heroic 28mm size (scaled around 1:50) - I went looking at salute for anyone doing anything of a similar size in resin and came up blank, the closest I found in size was 3 storey farm houses for WW2 retailing at around £70.

[Lord Abaddon of Wormwood]

Brandlin,

When you've worked out pricing can you quote shipping to Sydney Australia (postcode 2121) for one, two, and four plus sets. Am I right in thinking that these are just sheets of plascard or is the tube included (yes I read the whole thread but was drooling at the Terrain Porn for most of it)? If the tube is included it might be easier for me to source the tube here and just buy the sheets.


This is a great idea.


Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

[Carcharoth]

I'll let Brandlin give you a proper quote, but the basic idea of the kits is that everything you need is flatpacked into an envelope and you provide the tube. In this case the main structure is a pringles tube (I assume pringles crop up in most parts of the world...), but I gather that some of his other designs will use mailing tubes in standard measurements.

The nice thing with the flatpack design is that I expect postage shouldn't be too expensive.

[Brandlin]

Lord Abbaddon... and other fodders.

Thanks for the interest. I shall certainly sort out pricing for you! As Carcharoth (Mike) says the idea is that you buy flatpacked styrene sheet and a few small rods and tubes and provide your own larger tubes.

I'll probably do a discount deal for Fodders that order form here as I'll be able to avoid the ebay fees... so probably 10% off.

It'll be a week or two yet though before i get pricing sorted and then another week or two to get kits cut etc. 

baby steps.

[Lord Abaddon of Wormwood]

Baby steps - ok

Baby food - 



Look forward to them.


Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

[Klute]

Look great Brandlin .

Ive been thinking about the domed roofs and how you could do them. Ive a fair bit experience with full scale GRP mould making and done a lot of architectual stuff including domed roof segments, mosques mainly. When biulding the moulds for these it was always down 2 curved cross sections. Joined at the top and an outside diameter section on the bottom to form a kind of half orange segment. These were blocked in and plastered over to form the dome segment face.
Its impossible to form this using flat sheets.
I could see Fubarnii using a similar method. Erecting cross sections of the dome then lathing(sp?) around enough to take tile/shingle/thatch. The more segaments there are the more spherical the dome will be of course.

[Brandlin]

hi klute - thank you.

the problem with a dome is that its curved along 2 axis. you cannot bend a flat sheet along 2 perpendicular axis. its just not possible.

you can aproximate it though, first create a number of cross sections - a bit like orange segments. then you can either bend long thin planks horizontally around the structureto create a shape that would look like a planked ship hull; or you can cut orange segment shapes and bend them up the structure.

eitherway i think that once i've wrapped shingles around it you wont be able to tell its not a proper dome.

i think thats what you are meaning?

i need to get some kits available before i spend time on a new model though... but hopefully i'll get there...

[Klute]

Horizontal lathing of the framework is awkward as the lath will still curve unless its very flexable. Lathing between each section gets around this but the lath will be flat and not be forced to follow the curve of the dome.
If they had something like our willow they could use lengths of that to "spiral" around the frame from bottom to top, then tile/plaster/thatch onto that.

And yeah its pretty irrelevant once its covered.

[Rick]

You could always build them up over actual domes, or balls. When I was making planets for a starship combat game at my local club, I settled on 3 sizes; ping-pong balls, ball-pool balls and for the huge ones, those balls you get attached to plastic ball-and-chains around halloween, they were easy to obtain, glued reasonably easily and painted up ok.

[Klute]

For actual modelling of the domed roofs then I would imagine using a spherical former as a base for them. Im more discussing the actual method the Fubarnii would use to construct them if they were "real".  
Pointless as far as then end result is concerned but fun to discuss never the less. 

[Rick]

Oh, I see. My apologies. However, my question now is, why a domed tile roof - surely you lose any structural advantages in having a dome by using wood frame with tiles over the top. The clever fubarnii chappies obviously know this, have built up a dome of rings of brick, then attached tiles to the outside for the look of the thing!

[manic _miner]

 Looking forward to gettting one of the building kits when they come out.

[Klute]

Oh, I see. My apologies. However, my question now is, why a domed tile roof - surely you lose any structural advantages in having a dome by using wood frame with tiles over the top. The clever fubarnii chappies obviously know this, have built up a dome of rings of brick, then attached tiles to the outside for the look of the thing!

No need for apologies 

I do agree that tiling a domed roof doesnt seem "practical" for the Fubarnii. I would think thatch or similar would be more likely. The good thing is the variation of the areas means that different structures and styles will be plenty. From mud huts to fancy city dwellings.

@Brandlin...have you looked at other Pringle like tubes ??  Thinking drinking chocolate, gravy granules, dried mash potato etc. All have pringle type packaging.

[Brandlin]

practical? PRACTICAL...  ???!!?

Do not talk to me about practical!!!

There is little practical about mike's view of furbarnii architecture!  for a start it wouldn't all be cylindrical!! and i wouldn't be struggling with fecking helical spiral stair cases and intersecting curved geometry!


There are always differences between model structure and real life structure... but I often like the challenge of simulating the real architecture.  I wonder if the furbarnii can produce sheet metals like zinc or more likely copper? If so that would make domed roofs more possible - or at least segmented approximations to domes.

The big problem with tiling a domed roof in real life is that the tiles towards the top do not slope very much and therefore offer little protection to driving rain and have the potential to be torn off when high winds get under them.

I'm shying away from domed roofs for the moment because I don't want to ship half ball shapes and although I can build a structure for the internal bracing of the dome, the whole structure uses a lot of styrene so starts to push the cost of a kit up just to get a domed roof!  I'm adding interest to the roofs of the next couple of models by adding 2 different types of dormer window. One square and the other a curved 'protrusion'.

Ping pong balls are one of the 'rubbish items' that i have on my list for possible uses. They're cheap, a consistent size, and available everywhere. I just haven't found a use for them yet! They're a bit small for domed roofs except on the small turrets.

I also have a 'watchtower roof' shape in design in two versions. They look like Hexagonal or Octagonal pergola structure with a wide brimmed awning over the top. This is the hexagonal one.

I'm making them so that they can be constructed with or without the 'legs', so they can be either an elevated protective roof as you might find on a watchtower or a hexagonal roof structure to a normal building.

Thatch is something i spoke to mike about a while ago He thought it likely but i dismissed it on my models simply because it doesn't fit with my view of lasercut kits. It seems likely that a material as readily available as reed, or equivalent stalked vegetation, should be widely used.

I painted the roof on my buildings as slate simply because i couldn't get a finish i liked for wooden shingles and I had plenty of wood on the model anyway. I think i always assumed they were slates though because that material and terracotta are more likely in the UK (and I think Europe) than wooden shingles - which seems to me to be a more north American building style.


@ Klute - yes im constantly on the search for additional building materials.  They have to be cheap or free, available globally in the exat same sizes, preferrably cardboard or styrene (most food containers are a pain to glue).  I even suggested a prize of a free kit to someone who had that awesome brainwave! The requirements are here...

B

[Carcharoth]

Not all buildings need to be round...
Carte 'dor (or however you spell it) ice cream tubes could be an interesting base structure. Not sure if they are at all universal.

[Brandlin]

Not all buildings need to be round...
Carte 'dor (or however you spell it) ice cream tubes could be an interesting base structure. Not sure if they are at all universal.

No, but i bet Ben and Jerry's are... or Haagen Das? they're international companies!!!!!!!!! 

[Brandlin]

Not all buildings need to be round...

Since WHEN??? 

[Rick]

Just gone back over some of the older posts and looked at some of the other threads - I think we're missing a vital building material - Mike mentioned fubarnii using resins to make tough, durable armour - I'm sure they'd use resin or reinforced resin/cloth sheets to build with. If you soak cloth in resin, then drape it over a mould until it's dry, you get almost any shape. You might need to build up several layers, but it could be done. Fairly lightweight too!

[Brandlin]

Not all buildings need to be round...
Carte 'dor (or however you spell it) ice cream tubes could be an interesting base structure. Not sure if they are at all universal.

No, but i bet Ben and Jerry's are... or Haagen Das? they're international companies!!!!!!!!!  

Ok, slightly surreal question here, but what sized cartons does ben and jerry's come in in YOUR country?

Here in the UK we have 150ml (which is frankly about a spoonful) and 500ml... but i'm presuming that in countries who desperately cling on to the antiquated imperial measurement system you have some other sizes. 

I need to know if the carton sizes are the same regardless of weight or volume of product.  Anyone in Canada USA or Australia help me out with some accurate measurements...??

[Bethar]

Before anyone gets carried away with the idea of thatch, the Fubarnii don't actually go in for much cereal crop growing.  But feel free to postulate some naturally occurring planty material that might do a similar job.

[Klute]

Thatching is the method used though. There would be a multitude of various materials used depending on location and natural resources.

[Rick]

Just going back to the old tube research idea - have you looked at powdered milk tubs? About 3" and a bit diameter, about 4 1/2" tall. Not, I'll grant you, tall enough for a tower, but about the right size for a building.