Building the Tavern, part 3: finishing touches

In the final stages of building the tavern all kinds of details had to be added. First of all a big fireplace in the kitchen. Cut and glued from plasticard and smeared with the Faller stone plaster (see part 1) I made one for the kitchen and a smaller one for the guest room. The latter does not line up correctly for the chimney (which I had placed to far tot the left due to a miscalculation with the upper floor windows. But heck, there ain´t a loo either!

 I wanted a Green Man sculpture for the front wall. Unfortunately I could not find a suitable one so I had to cobble one together by myself. Using a Wargames Factory plastic Gaul head as a base I fiddled with greenstuff until it did look at least a bit OK to me.

Here´s the bar-and-beerbarrel (basewood, a wooden barrel model and some plastic tube) in its first stage.

Woodbits from the garden and an axe from the bitbox made this heap of firewood right around the corner from the kitchen door.

Thanks to Black Cat Bases I received their free cat and decided to give her a cosy napping spot on top of the chimney!

From http://www.mollys-house.co.uk/ I ordered a bunch of great 1/48 funiture for ridicilously low prices as well as this great pubsign. The text was to anachronistic as well as way too sweet for a Witchfinder General pub so I downloaded a picture of The Slaughtered Lamb (anyone remember THAT movie? ) as an adequate replacement.

So it was finished! Detail can be added indefinitely but well, the tavern has to be used in a game now. So here are some guests discussing something in the front doorway.

A well-known witch enjoying a brew with the local gentry and the landlord in the guestroom of the tavern.

 The kitchen staff in full swing.

 The upper floor rooms. Check out the great furniture from Molly´s. Furniture is mostly glued to the floor. Smaller pieces, like table-and-chairs, are glued to the carpet to prevent falling over and making it easy to remove all the furniture in one go should the need arise. The big pieces standing in the middle of a room, like beds and tables, are left loose.

 The stairway and the upper rooms.



And the finished model. Now for the first game! For evil lurks in the shadows......



Building the Tavern, part 2

So after the first sprint to get the exterior finished I started on the interior details. Firt of course I needed a stairway to go up. No rocket science here. A simple basewood model did the job. Just get all the steps the same size, mind, or your stairway will never fit together.

Then I added beams sticking out from under the roof (for the tiles to rest on) as a typical scruffy detail for a 17th century building.

I had saved some cereal packages as these offer the perfect brand of cardboard for tiles (thin and free of charge!) The method is simple. Cut out rough rectangles in copious amounts. Glue them from the lowest row up on the roof base and repeat until finished. Sanity rolls may be required with large buildings like these, as they take a zillion cardboard rectangles before the entire roof is covered.

The main window of the guest room.

The finished roof.

Then that magical moment was there: I could start painting! Here´s the result. 

Now "all" that remains to be done are the details. Furniture, a hearth, bottles and glasses, beer barrels etc etc . Stay tuned for part 3!

Building the Tavern, part 1

Having a few days off from work I managed to get some modelling work in. Bitten by he Witchfinder General bug I wanted to build a 17-18th century tavern like the alas OOP Tabletop World or Forgeworld Coaching Inn. I was lucky enough to find a picture with measurements on the interweb.

I decided on a foamboard core, based on a multiplex (plywood?) base. The first  floor would be wood-based as well. So after some careful drawing, cutting and sawing I ended up with these main parts.

The next step was making some detailwork before I started on the main model. I always rush when building and the little details suffer, so I decided to do this the other way around. I wanted opening doors so I made hinges from plasticard and plastic tubing.

The left part was attached to the wall. The right part was glued to the door made of glued basewood. This resulted in nicely opening wooden doors with heavy ironwork hinges.

The windows are made from blister plastic. To simulate the little diamond shaped lead/glass windows I drew the lead strips on the plastic with a CD marker. Then I added woodwork from basewood and (thank you Dutch Railways!) coffee stirrers. The sides remain open as that woodword will be glued to the wall.

Thus I was left with a lot of windows and doors.

Then I started assembling the floors and walls. To make the tiles on the ground  floor I bought this stuff from Faller that supposedly makes a natural stone surface an easy task. It look suspiciously like plaster but dries much slower and has a very sandy texture. I made the tiles before glueing the final wall to make it easier to reach. 

 I sculpted it into rough tiles resembling a slate floor.

And this was the result. The floor dried up pretty rough, but after some sanding I was left with a pretty convincing slate tile floor.

Then I glued the walls and floor of the first floor.

When building with foamboard I use quick-drying wood glue that works spectacularly well on paper as well as wood. Still I find it handy to keep the glued parts together with some pins.

Adding the timbering (base wood and even more coffee stirrers). See how the windows fit between the beams.

And finally I was done for the day. All the external timbering done, all doors assembled, interior timbering partly finished and a chimney made from Heki Stonefoam with a foamboard core. The chimney comes in half as you lift of the first floor. The roof is removable too, as I plan extensive interior details. So far only the cardboard roof base has been made.

And finally some 28mm figures for scale.

To be continued for the building of the internal stairs, shelves, roof tiles, painting and even more little details!