Fantasy village scratchbuilds

I wanted some nondescript fantasy village terrain so knocking this together took me less than a day whilst listening to youtube.

The basic frames are made from cardboard, specifically the box from a brand of coffee bags (yep coffee comes in little bags now, just like tea bags) that with minimal cuts, scores and folds made the building shapes quite easily.

Using scissors and sellotape for this part felt like a total throwback to being 10 years old and was a nice little part of the process. 

Next up is essentially cladding on the cardboard frame - kappa high density foam board, with the satin card facing removed on both sides to leave only the foam. Then it's drawing, pressing and texturing the foam to make the stonework, windows, doors and wooden beams. 

Important to do this before you stick it to the cardboard frame!

PVA glue was used throughout, and dressmaking pins (1 inch long) were used to secure the foam joins.

The mode tedious part was the tiles, I experimented with simply pressing the shape onto some foam sheets but it didn't look or feel correct, so I resorted to basic cardboard chopped into strips with scissors. The cardboard was actually the box my plastic Frostgrave Gnolls came in.

Lots of patience with a scalpel shaping the tiles strips was required, then affixing them in place was a combination of PVA glue, a small strip of sellotape to hold cardboard stripe in place, then repeat 6-8 time moving up the side of the roof.

The chimneys and small walls are simply high density foam chopped up and impressed with stonework.

Finally, small amounts of filler were used where the roof tiles meet walls. Not an exactly precise construction... but that's what I want in a rustic fantasy village.

Next up painting! I'll be using these for Rangers of Shadow Deep and Frostgrave, or as my hybrid winter collection is known as: Adventures in Snow Deep.

(You'll see in the images there are 2 more building frames in the background, will come back to those at a later date.)