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Monastic Ruins (alternate) Part 1 Rifler or Needle Files
Monastic Ruins Building Instructions
Preparation and design Remember that the older a ruin is the more likely it is to be little more than a very low wall covered in grass, for gaming purposes though we have some leeway in combining a "realistic look" with a piece suitable for gaming. As such one key attribute is that it should be easy to reach into the piece for moving figures about, another is to remember that the taller a wall is the more likely it is to be damaged and finally, and most importantly, we only need to REPRESENT what the original building might have been, as such most things can be represented by using "parts" of the completed building; for example we can represent columns by using very small smashed columns, we don't need to have great tall marbles, similarly we can represent statues by just having their broken bases: you will find that any gamer will be able to, and will naturally, "fill in the missing pieces" to get an idea of what the ruin once was... we just have to provide them with some clues. Next cut out an identically sized 3-5mm styrene sheet which you then glue down onto your base. This styrene (or cork, ceiling tile or EPS sheet) is there to allow us to give the ruins a sense of "coming out of the ground". No real building has walls that just sit on top of the ground and simply placing the blocks onto a flat base will always look artificial.
Construction So to make it look as though the bricks are coming out of the ground from their foundations we mark around the dry-build structure with a marker pen as shown below and then cut out the layer of styrene. Next bevel the edges carefully with a very sharp knife (remembering not to cut towards yourself). Once this is done then lay and glue down the ground level ONLY level of bricks. Don't worry about having the holes you have cut for the bricks being a bit too big, we will fill in any gaps later and the styrene is only there for cosmetic purposes and not as a supporting element of the build.
With the first layer of bricks in place we can now glue down our other "ground floor" level of material which is the "wallboard": this material is about 2mm thick styrene that is heat-stamped with a pattern (in this case of square cobbles and rough bricks) so that it forms a textured surface. Wallboard is quite cheap and can be purchased from most good hobby shops in Europe and America. In the next image i have also painted the flooring black - but this does not need to be done at this stage and is only to help show up the ongoing changes to the model.
We have cut and glued down the Wallboard with the cobblestone pattern forming the floor between our outer wall and Inner wall and then added the roughstone wallboard as the floor in what would be the pillared central court.
Once this is done we apply PVA glue to all other exposed areas of the styrene base and then coat it with a layer of fine sand to give it texture. In the next picture i have added some light dry brushing to highlight the cut-out sections of the flooring and the edges of the wallboard: again though you do not have to paint anything at this stage and this is only for helping define what is being done.
Once we are happy with the ground floor we can no start to concentrate on the rest of the bricks. In the above image i have already glued together the remaining bricks but have not glued them to the model base itself. Whilst these bricks are in place take a moment to get down to the level of one of your figures and have a good look at the walls; imagine where they might be worn out by fire or fighting damage, by weather and where bits may simply have collapsed when the building was destroyed or abandoned. Once you have a reasonable image of what you want to damage the next thing to do is get stuck into really ruining the bricks:
To "ruin" fieldstone bricks i find that using a pair of small cutting sheers/pliers is best. In the picture above you will note that the "stone" i want to remove is the one on the top right between the cutters; the cutters flat side is facing away from the stone want to remove and the angled cutters pointing towards the stone - this "generally" means that that stone will be sheered off, but don't rely on it being guaranteed!
Ok, as you can see we have had a "partial" success with half of the stone being removed. With smaller stones it is fine to leave them in this state as the large stone in a fieldstone wall do get chipped in half or splinter in cold weather. Big stones though tend to drop off and so, in this case we are going to totally remove it by turning the brick over and cutting the other half of the stone away.
Continue cutting off stones from around the bricks including the ground level bricks. Remember to keep turning the model around so that you cut stones off from different sides and angles, one thing to aim for is that no matter which way the model is viewed from you should always see damaged stonework - even if its only one or two stones.
The above picture gives you an idea of just how much stone you need to cut off - remember not to throwaway the off-cuts as these will make up a large portion of our rubble later on. In addition if there are some bricks that you haven't really used for the actual structure itself you can always use them as "rubble". A classic example is the curved lintel-stone below. This is key piece or an archway that is likely to have fallen foul of natural weathering or destruction and has (in this model) fallen half way down the wall breaking into pieces. The original brick (on the left) shows what NOT to use: never use an unbroken brick to represent rubble! The picture on the right shows what you DO want - the bricks still roughly resembles the arch but is totally ruined, bits cut off it AND, on the smooth surfaces, lines have been carefully sheered into the plaster to represent the large stones that made up the brick (flat sides are a BIG no-no remember!).
Next we are going to glue on all of the damaged brickwork to where we want it - remember we are first going to glue down the major brickwork, then once that has dried we use the off-cuts and rubble to glue down at the ends of rows of bricks and along the edges to form piles of rubble where the walls have fallen down. Likely areas are highlighted in green in the image below. Once we have done that we then want to increase the level of "ruination" by decreasing the size of the rubble we add. TO do this we will first add Coarse Talus: using TACKY GLUE glue around the areas marked with pick; these will always be areas that you have already added rubble but will also cover other areas on the model where smaller stones and debris may have collected
The best way to get the coarse talus onto the glued areas is to place the model over a large tray and then simply empty the talus packet gentle over the model: it will immediately stick to the areas where you have put the TACKY GLUE, don't worry about excess talus as we will simply tip over the model so that the excess spills onto the tray. Use that excess to repeat the process until you are happy with the results; TIP - it is worthwhile keeping some of the coarse talus in reserve and you can add individual pieces of it later.
Once we are happy with the look of the model with the rubble and coarse talus added we now need to continue the "ruination" process by adding fine talus of sand. Once again this goes onto and round the areas where we have already added rubble and coarse talus (easily seen as the lighter areas on the picture below).
Adding the sand though requires a little more finesse than the coarse talus as we want it to go in very specific places. The ideal way to do this is to use TACKY GLUE but to apply it using a pin-point syringe. The Pin-point syringe kit allows you to place glue extremely accurately without any overspill, it also allows you to get glue INSIDE gaps and UNDER rocks and rubble which is ideal for the sand.
Above we see the syringe used to add glue to areas with missing cobblestones, other key areas are where rubble and talus are, along the edges of the join between brickwork and the styrene base, around the bottoms of pillars and along ALL straight line edges such as the edge of the wallboard flooring or where you may have cut into the base of styrene.
The image below shows clearly where the sand has been added on this model and note that it has also been added to the very TOP of the brickwork: this is possibly the single most overlooked aspect of making ruins: that over the years sand and soil works it way into the ruins and brickwork and sooner or later grasses will start to grow there - even on the very top of brickwork.
(the finished article can be seen here) |
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