Cardstock buildings

 Why Cardstock?

Over the years I've tried all sorts of building methods. The one thing I've very rarely done is bought buildings. Being hard up,I'd far rather spend my hard won cash on figures rather than scenery items and so I've built them.

My preferred method used to be making a simple framework of mounting board or sometimes just cereal packets, covering it with a mixture of plaster and PVA and inscribing the detail into it before painting whilst still slightly damp. The results were quite good, though my artistic skills were lacking -either that or I was just in too much of a hurry-and the models were certainly durable. These ones were made over 30 years ago now for a huge inter club "Waterloo" game between mixed teams from the Lincoln and Scunthorpe clubs at the "Black Eagle" in Lincoln (Ah! happy days!!) Aside from re-painting, the models are still fine despite being in a damp shed for a few years.

These are of course built for 15-18mm figures. The only trouble is they are quite heavy and don't respond well to being dropped!

At the Gainsborough club, we built a huge 8x18 foot table. It was supposed to be done with moveable terrain, but one of the lads "Capability Ken" went in and did it himself. It wasn't moveable but looked pretty good and he populated it with whole communities of "Fiddler's Green" postcard houses. 

A little later, my friend Mike Garrett from Lincoln asked me if we could put on some games for a show "Small World" he was organising at Lincoln Castle, in the rooms above where the Magna Carta is displayed. It was an interesting idea -not just wargames, but model railway clubs, dolls' house collectors and toy collectors were also represented -anything to do with the world in miniature.

We committed to two games, a 20mm ww2 game and a fantasy game of my own devising set in Vietgnome, or simply "The Gnome". As we needed a lot of buildings for a small French town, I decided to use cardstock models intended for model railways and fell in love with the 3D look it was possible to get from such a simple material, so I added to the bought ones -the only ones I've ever bought. I forgot about these!!- with my own hand crafted versions.

Of course, what really allowed me to start using cardstock buildings was the advent of the PC, drawing programmes and the internet. It suddenly became possible to plan a building, colour it using textures from CGI sites or even just photos, and to layer them up, print them off and build.  You don't even need to make your own -you can find some lovely buildings online and all you have to do is print them onto card and put them together. I've built a few of these though with a lot of them I've "re-skinned" them using CGI textures rather than the finishes they are made with.

The thing is, cardstock is cheap, versatile, surprisingly durable and can look very realistic -take a look at any good model railway layout.  Even a navy is possible using card!

A simple village forge, printed on one sheet of card

This "fachwerk" house is from the Projekt Bastelbogen website, re-skinned.

These are a German farm from Bastelbogen Monsdorfer. I've started to re-skin parts of this so it can be built on the flat and with coloured eaves etc. This was my first attempt and it's a pig to build. Next time, I'll know what I'm about with it!

These are of a first fit model of a generic farm in 15mm. the roofs need extending, eaves colouring etc, but the inset doors and windows are working well. It would help if my mathematics skills were better so I could work out the size of roofs needed instead of using trial and error!

La Belle Alliance

Finally, these are the nets for La Belle Alliance and a couple of illustrations I took it from. Print out on A4 card or paper and glue to card. Use a fixative spray or matt varnish and colour cut edges. Again, this is for 15-18mm figures.The extra doors etc can be cut out in blocks and stuck to the back of spacers to give depth. Don't forget to add tabs! It's best to use a separate strip of card for these as it doesn't distort the shape.

MATERIALS

Materials.

    Probably the best place to start here is with a quick look at the materials I use.

Paints

          "Certain companies" will try to tell you that only their particular brand of paints are any good. That's a load of rubbish. Most good brands of acrylic paints are absolutely fine.

The most common are those of the "certain company" -Games Workshop, which though undeniably excellent quality, are very expensive . There are also Vallejo -excellent, Humbrol/Revell, Coat d'Arms, Ral Partha's "Miniature Paints". I've not used the Reaper Miniatures paints yet but they are supposed to be really good. I use all of the above with a preference for Ral Partha because of the price -there's a chap on Ebay selling 30ml bottles (TWICE the size of most others) for £1.75 each.

         In addition to these, there are various ranges of artists acrylics, oils, inks and alkyds, modelling enamels and craft paints, all of which have their place in a figure painters armoury. Even decorators emulsion has its uses.    

         It is possible to buy colours in sets specially designed  for shading with a "shadow", "base" and "highlight" colour to each set and whilst these will do the job, your army will come out looking exactly the same as everyone else's. Perhaps that's the way players like to be now though. I much prefer to mix the colours for each regiment as it gives them individuality.

        In addition to the paints themselves, I've found it important to have good quality varnishes - matt, as glossy as you can get, matting agent and something like a good clear nail polish which is ideal for coating printed/water based flags.

Brushes

    These are as important as the paints you use. You will need a selection of sizes down to 4/0 and in a variety of materials -good quality sable (take care of them) for most work, stiff, fine acrylic for spots of colour, cheap soft brushes for colour washes and cheap stiff brushes for stippling, basing etc.

I like the JP Perkins sable brushes as they are a good quality brush at a reasonable price. They hold their points well and don't seem to swell like some modellers brushes do. 

Pens.

      These are something that most people don't think about using on figures. Have a selection of waterproof drawing pens from 0.5 down to 0.05 in black, and 0.1 and 0.05 in red blue, green, sepia, "sanguine" and others. Perhaps one of the most useful sizes is a "brush" pen as you can vary the width of line by the angle at which you use it.

Staedler, Sakura "Micron" and Rotring Tikkygraph will all do. The best one is the Rotring Isograph but these are very expensive -particularly when you drop them point down! A black permanent marker (the chisel nibbed type) is also very useful for things like wheel rims and the iron-work on cannon. White "gel pens" in various sizes are useful for edging and lacing if, like me, your hands are no longer as steady as they once were and your eyesight has lost some of it's depth perception. All these pens are great because, unlike brushes, they don't spread if you apply a little too much pressure

Other Materials.

There are a few other things you will need..

Material for basing. I use mounting board for 15mm figures but something like 2mm MDF is fine for larger figures or larger bases.

Files, craft knives and side cutters for preparing figures.

A "dremel" type drill is very handy.

A selection of adhesives -PVA, Contact, "Superglue" and epoxy

A selection of railway modellers scenic materials -hardcore, scatter, static grass etc. plus tetrion for basing.

A number of corks (for larger or single figures)

Thin card -the backing card from figure packs is ideal. This is for temporarily basing figures during painting 

I think that's about it. I'll add more later if need be.

Austrian Staff

Bonaparte, Staff and Bodyguard

         One thing you really WILL need is a good book on the period. Start building up a library of books on the uniforms, battles, personalities and general history of your chosen period. These will help not just with painting your army, but in deciding it's composition, the tactics you will use on the games table and perhaps even in writing rules that suit YOU, not the ideas of some commercial rules/games company. 



Changing Tastes

Dutch Lancers of the Imperial Guard

   I painted these lancers about 30 years ago. At the time, I liked the style of the Old Glory figures and other 18mm figures as opposed to the true 15mm ones partly because of the detail and partly because of the variety in the poses of figures. However, as the ranges increased, so too did the scale and the exaggeration of poses.

  Maybe it's an age thing -nostalgia for a less commercialized era of wargaming, but I've now reverted to the older, more regimented style of figures. Apart from anything else they tend to be cheaper. What many gamers don't seem to realise is that you don't need top price figures if the paint job is right, but get it wrong and even the best miniatures look rotten.

  I'm now rebuilding my collection around some practically antique Heritage/Empire miniatures I've had for donkey's years. I've stripped them down to bare metal, drilled out hands with broken swords and lances and replaced them with staples and "Liquid Green Stuff" They look good as new now. The Austrians will be part of my "Army of Bohemia" and the French will become Neapolitan infantry when I get them sorted.

  I don't suppose I'll ever let anyone see this record, but if I do, it's an attempt to pass on a bit of practical advice on preparing for games rather than actually playing them -painting figures, constructing scenery, some ideas on rules, increasing "fog of war" in games (something I love!) and campaigns.

  Hopefully, I will be able to show how anyone can turn out an army and table to be proud of.
At it's peak, my collection reached over 10,000 figures, but as other gamers were always asking if they could buy whatever unit and I could never say no, I must have painted 100s of 1000s of figures over the years. I've probably used just about every make of figure there is at one time or another too.
Follow the simple methods I show to end up with results as good as those on my photos. I  know I'm not the World's greatest painter or scenery builder, but what I can show is achievable by all.






Restored Heritage Austrian Hussars



Lancashire Games Austrian generals



WHEN I WERE A LAD

Hi.

My Name is Mal.

I have been playing with toy soldiers (ducks the eggs and rotten tomatoes) for practically as long as I can remember. I never was a closet wargamer. I was self "outed" from the start and feel a bit sorry for those who still feel that being a gamer is cause for embarrassment or shame. I think I was about 12 years old when the “Waterloo” film came out and the school book club had as it's quarterly special, the book of the film and another titled “The Uniforms of Waterloo” or some such. I forget exactly as the book sold out and I never received a copy. My interest was piqued anyway and the film confirmed my new addiction. A short while after, I went into town -Scunthorpe- and bought myself a copy of a wonderful book (in French Zut Alors!) titled “L'Uniforme Et Les Armes Des Soldats Du Premier Empire” by L and F Funken, which with my schoolboy French and the assistance of a French mistress, (French mistress, not French Mistress) I could just about make out.

My friends and I began with armies of Airfix highlanders and cuirassiers bolstered by Guards Colour Parties and ACW figures with blobs of wood filler on their heads as shakos. Then we discovered 20mm Miniature Figurines. I collected French, one of my mates the Brits and another the Prussians. We played using Donald Featherstone rules copied by hand out of a library book. Funnily, another group in school were playing ACW, again using Airfix and they declared that Napoleonics wasn't proper wargaming -only ACW. I never did get to play ACW. Except for the odd naval disaster. not out of any other reason than that I prefer the LOOK of Napoleonic figures. Apart from that, I always found myself more interested in our own history than that of the Americans.

I was never really satisfied with those early games played on my friends kitchen floor with barely painted figures, brown paper hills and cardboard rivers and roads so I've been trying to better those early attempts ever since. I hope this will inspire others to try out some of the techniques I've learned in over 50 years of gaming.  

I suppose it was my love of history that led me into wargames and the wargames that led me to look deeper into history. There seems to be the same kind of split between the players of the many rule sets available today as that between my school mates and us -a bit like the Reb and Yankee re-enactors that turn up at the "Triples" in Sheffield every year. I've tried most periods, put on big WW2 display games and even dabbled a bit with Sci-Fi and fantasy (not GW though) and even written rules for some-  including a set called "Dogface" set in Vietgnome -and firmly believe that playing any wargame is better than none, but never ACW. Daft isn't it. My great love has always been Napoleonic gaming and it is to that I have always returned.

The games of today are pretty different to those we started with all those years ago and even those I played during my last bout of the fever. They seem simpler now. "With a Napoleonic flavour" seems more popular than actual "history." Almost "dumbed down," with a concentration more on slick presentation rather than innovation and I do feel that the ubiquitous Games Workshop, having entered the historic games scene through the Perry twins and others, have taken away some of the chaotic individuality, inventiveness and drive of an earlier era. On the other hand, scenery tends to be better now! What I would like to see wargamers aspire to is the kind of quality of scenery regularly seen on good model railway layouts. I realize there is a difference in the durability required but it's possible to come at least close.

A lot of my approach to gaming has been coloured by various places asking my friends and I to put on display or participation games and the effort I expend on getting the figures looking as good as I can. Between these, they have led me to a belief that the table upon which the game is played is as important to the hobby as the game itself. The whole aesthetic is a vital a part of the game as the rules used. I can't get into something played on a bare table with a few bits of card marking hills, towns etc. They lack ambiance and if I can't get down amongst the troops on the table the whole thing seems almost pointless.

Being on a pretty tight budget for most of my gaming life, I've had to be inventive in the construction of scenery and terrain features that looked as good as my limited modelling skills allow. To that end, I intend for this blog to be about constructing all sorts of features vital to a good game and to point the novice gamer, both historic and fantastic to sources of materials and items as cheaply as possible. Most will be in my own chosen scale (15-18mm) but should be easily altered to suit other scales. Don't expect perfection in my work, time and arthritis now preclude that, what I'm aiming at is more a sharing of ideas, methods and resources.

Over the years, I've gone through periods where wargames weren't part of my life, but they are, (unfortunately perhaps) rather like malaria -once it gets into your blood you're stuck with it. You can go for years without playing or painting, but then, one day, something will set off another attack. It can be anything, a film, book, question on a quiz show, somewhere you've visited and before you know where you are, your fingers are twitching towards paintbrushes and dice and it's back as bad as it ever was. There's no cure so you might as well just get painting and enjoy it!

Cheers

Mal