Sunday 26 July 2015

Timberframed house - "How to"

Buiding permission granted, the next lot of building can begin. First up..an "out of the head" build.

Materials needed;
Card..Pizza boxes are great..but any heavy Card will do..even old LP covers.
Pen . Black is best.
Sharp modelling knife and scissors
PVA glue
Some flyscreen netting (or similar) and sellotape for the Windows.
Acrylic wall paint, White, dark Brown, bit of yellow...and a bit of talcumpowder to thicken the paint.
A bit of fine sandpaper.
Some polystyrene foam.

The plan of the house with all four walls. The side walls haven´t had the beam pattern added entirely as the house will be attached to another house on one side (and possibly both sides)
Roof isn´t included.
For 1/72nd it´s best to Keep the height of the floors between 3 -4 cm´s. It doesn´t matter if the bottom floor is say 3 cm´s and the one above is 4 cm´s, any combination of heights Looks normal.
Doors Maximum 2.5cm´s high and 1.5 wide. Windows?...if they Look ok sizewise.. then they probably are. Aesthetically,  it looks better if the window ledge starts at around 1.5cm´s above ground Level
This house will have two 0.5cm jetties (the floors that stick out over the floor below) and they will be constructed by simply leaving a gap (the strips with the arrows) between each floor. When it´s cut out I simply score along the lines and bend each into an "S".
The biggest I´ve made the jetties so far is 1cm deep, roughly 3 feet (1m) in reality..any bigger Looks a bit overbalanced.
Important to remember the jetties Need to be taken into account when drawing the side walls, and to take off the 0.5cm´s per jettie (1cm) when calculating the height of the side walls.
Example, front has three floors @ 3 cm´s + 2 jetties @1cm = 10cm´s. The side walls (if they aren´t to have jetties as well) will be only 9 cm´s high in total
The "T´s" represent the Tabs for glueing the walls together or to provide a surface for attaching the Roof .
The "squiggles" are where the doors and Windows will be cut out.
The front cut out, scored and bent into the "S" shapes to create the jetties
The Tabs folded and glued. The shiny side of the Card glues easier after a quick rub with fine sandpaper.
The side walls attached. I don´t attach the back wall as it makes adding the Windows difficult.
Painted. First I paint the Areas between the beams, then the beams. The Paint is normal acrylic based wall paint with a tiny pinch of talcum powder to slightly thicken the paint
Next..Windows. Bit of flyscreen cut to size and sellotape over the back. For Windows with a "Frame" in the middle (top left of pic) I add a smear of PVA to the middle.
Back wall can now be added. Now the Rooftiles/shingles. 1 cm wide strips marked off every 1/2 cm and then the Corners snipped out between each tile. A Mind nummingly boring Task.
The tops tiles are made with a 1cm wide Strip marked off every cm, then scored down the middle.
Before I paint the Roof I add the Dragon post Ends and the Dragon beams. All made from Strips of styrofoam.
The chimney. As the houses sometimes get joined together it means the roofing can´t always be finished until the next house is ready and attaching the chimney isn´t always possible so I create a handfull of chimneys at the same time.
Materials, high density polystyrene, the brickwork scored with a pen.
The doors. Scored Card, dark Brown base, dry brush with light Brown. I make up the doors in strips and cut off  sections as needed as it´s easier than scoring and painting each door individually.

That´s about it really. With drying times for the glue and paint, the whole Thing (except snipping the tiles) takes about three hours tops.