Oathgrave: 31. Modular wooden fort II.

Let’s continue last week’s project with building the more complicated parts!

The tower: I made it 1 floor high, and a floor is for 28mm miniatures approximately 50mm. So, for the walls, 100 and 110mm long sticks are needed (50-60mm as for the walls plus 50mm for the floor). But there has to be doors and windows! Placing the doors for the best versatility is according to this example (and sketch):

With this 3 doors the tower can be used instead of a wall section and instead of an outer corner (1 door will be needles for this, but you can make a puzzle piece or your fantasy to fill the opening). There is also need for windows and/or arrow loops, but make and place them as you wish. Before the gluing, its better to make a small supporting frame: I used 5x5mm balsawood cut into 4 pieces of 45mm glued (PVA) in the corners (standing columns), and 4 pieces of 130mm (with 45 degree cuts on the ends) glued as a rectangular frame on the top the columns. This frame helps to position the barbecue sticks, and will support the flooring on it. As the thickness of the stick seemed to be enough for the battlement, but too thin for the tower walls, a made them double (with a spacer), but that’s totally optional:

So, if the frame is ready, the 100/110mm sticks can be glued on the side of the tower. Flooring is also needed, but it’s a very easy construction made of chopsticks (with a hole for a ladder), the only thing where you really have to watch out are the outer dimensions: it has to fit in the tower, but shouldn’t fall from the inner balsawood frame (no need for gluing it in, so the inner parts of the tower can be reached later!):

The tower is actually ready, but I made a removable roof (balsawood frame with cardboard shingles on it):

As for the gate… Now this can be a bit complicated… I glued two very short (around 10mm) pieces of wall sections on the ends on a 130mm wide PVC board, in line (as it would be a 130mm wall section). I glued barbecue sticks on the short, front side, an on the inner side also (lengths fitted to the contour of the section). I glued two high columns to each side, and horizontal sticks on the top of them (height is so, that a mounted miniature can pass under it). Now the doors… I wanted hinged doors, so I bent small U-shaped (or more a double shafted P) parts from paper-clips, where a barbecue sticks fit in the U. Then I glued these wires to a fitting piece (2 door wings should pass into the opening) of cardboard (2 on each door wings) with superglue so, that the barbecues stick passes trough them, and the door wing can turn around it. These will be the bases for the doors. Now comes the gluing the stick on both sides of it, to represent the wooden structure of it. After the glue is set, I put a stick trough the U-shaped hinges. And then I glued the stick to the gate frame, but only the top and the bottom, the hinge has to be free of glue! If its made right the doors can be moved. I strengthened the structure with additional glued sticks (and added an oversized locking beam):

Only the destroyed parts are missing, which are the easiest to make. I Just take the foam pieces, glued them to the PVC board, and glued some sticks to it, pretty randomly. Remember, they are destroyed, no need to be too precise, it should just fit to the other wall sections (to replace a 130mm section):

I also made some steps and small watchtowers on some wall sections, but they are really only optional. They are very nice for variance:

Now, the structure of all parts is made, there is only 1 thing left to do before painting. The embankment is made of earth, but the insulation foam doesn’t really look like earth. Here comes my favorite basing material in: wood filler! Its cheap and creates a very nice, earth/mud like structure. I splodged everything (with exception of the wooden parts, but they got also some mud on them) with it. After its set is primed the whole thing with a mix of PVA glue, cheap craft paint and water: I can’t say the exact mixing ratios, but start with 1/3-1/3-1/3 and the goal is an easy to brush consistency, that’s opaque enough, and as far as possible, has a lot of glue in it (it hardens, seals and protects the surface). After its completely dry, I painted and drybrushed the wooden parts with different shades of brown, and painted a deep but vivid green on the lower parts (because of the earth backfilling, these parts are almost always moist, so a lot of moss is growing there). Last step of the painting was to add some dirt streaks and stains to the wall (and the shingles) with a diluted black paint.

Next step was to add sand (I collected it on the playground, washed and baked it after, to get rid of every living thing in there) and static grass on the surface: more sand on the top of the embankment, where the guards are walking, and more grass on the slope and in the front of the wall (in the tower just sand), but the coverage don’t has to be 100%, there can be mud-like spots (wood filler painted brown). I also added some grass tufts, small rocks and flocks to make it more realistic. And now, after soaking the grass and sand with scenic glue (PVA glue with some drops of dishwashing liquid and diluted with water to a milky consistence, which fixes and hardens them) and spary-varnishing everything, its ready to be besieged!

I will use it for Frostgrave (because my Frostgrave is not frosty), Rangers of Shadow Deep and Oathmark, but the basic structure, with some minor modifications and a different paint scheme can be used as a western or a jungle fort, and also for historical gaming. Here are some pictures of all my parts (its not the combination what I wrote in the first part, because there were lessons learned while building it):