Stretching the Foamcore Dollars (Houses)

Hello Gamers!

This is Part 3 of 3 for my big Terrain Tutorial day.

Today I'm going to show you how to make five 28mm houses cheaply from scratch with a single piece of foamcore and some other bits and bobs.

Materials:

Foamcore/board - 1 sheet will run you around $2.50

Skinny Sticks - Discussed in previous Tutorials, used one bag at $2.50 Edit: a TMPer named MajorB recently made me aware that wooden coffee stirrers would work just as well and they're free!

Wallpaper - I used a 50 page book of Scrapbooking paper with cool designs which I snagged for 5 bucks at my local craft store.

Razor Knife - For cutting stuff (but you knew that already)

Ruler - For measuring and straightening cuts

So we're at 15 dollars right now. 15 dollars is less than the cost of a single commercial building, and I'm going to get you 5! Here's how:

Step 1: Building Layout

If you're going to do all this on a single sheet of foamcore you should draw your design out carefully. My buildings are roughly 6" x 6". Lay out the four walls and nothing else. To save foamcore I did not make any rooves. I will get to that later. Anyway, after laying it out it should look like this.

Step 2: Cut out the pieces

Make sure you do this carefully. Cut along your ruler, a wood or metal edged one works well for this. This step is super important so take your time. I find that using two or three shallow cuts works better than one deep cut. Anyone who has worked with foamcore before knows that it is posessed by voodoo magic and will dull your blades with unbelievable speed. As soon as you notice the cuts getting more difficult, you should change your blade otherwise you will rip the foamcore. Anyway, you should be here:

 Step 3: tracing out your windows and doors

This part can be a challenge if you don't approach it the right way. I trace a grid over all my building pieces in 10mm increments. It takes a while but it makes window and door placement very easy. A simpler option is to make a "window range".  If you want to copy me, just put a mark at 20mm and 40mm along each side of each piece. Connect the dots and you'll have a 20mm thick strip going across each piece. This is the "window range". If the bottom of your windows is 20mm off the ground level, and the top is 40mm, you will have a perfect 28mm window. Anyway, here's a picture of what I'm talking about.

The door is just as easy. If you made a "window range" as above then just put two squares stacked on each other stretching down to ground level to make your door outline. Here's a pic:

Here's what that looks like with a 28mm Wargames Factory American for reference.

Step 4: Cut out all the pieces. Just cut along the edges of all your windows and doors. Do not worry if you cut a little onto the wall around the window, we're going to cover that up anyway!

Step 5: Cutting the slots

This step is optional but I strongly insist that you do it. Cut a 3mm channel along each side of two pieces. These slots allow the walls to fit together snugly. If you don't do this you will end up with foam showing at the joints when you put this together. Make sure you remove all inner foam from the channel, but DO NOT REMOVE the layer of paper.

Step 5: Wallpaper

This is a new thing I'm trying to add texture and color to my buildings with minimal work and spending. I picked up a book of 50 double sided scrapbooking sheets and flipped through it to find the ones I wanted. I took the selected piece out and glued the building pieces to it. Please note, I used Liquid Cement for this. I tried plain old pva but the paper got all soggy and ripped during cutting. This is what you get:

Step 6: Interior Detailing and Flooring.

This part is optional, if you don't want buildings with playable insides then feel free to skip to Step 7. For those of you who do, get your skinny sticks out. Take your skinny sticks and start slapping them all over on the inside walls. Window sills, door frames, and wall frames look excellent. Just make sure you test fit the pieces as you do this. Nothing is more frustrating then having to chop your design to pieces because it's blocking your walls from fitting (been there, done that)

I skipped this step out of laziness but here's a pic from a previous building of what I'm talking about:

To do the floor, get your ruler out and make a 6" x 6" square out of cardboard (which is free from any dumpster or grocery store) test fit your wall pieces around it and "shave" the cardboard as you need to so it fits snugly. Now lay down the skinny sticks as planks and you're good to go. Picture for reference:

Step 7: Glue it!

Pretty self explanatory, glue the pieces together. I find hot glue guns work best because they're cheap and they work extremely fast. If you'd rather use PVA or Tacky Glue either wrap the building in rubber bands to hold it together or insert pins into the pieces after the glue. Once fully dry, you're almost done!

Step 8: Outer planking. This is exactly like step 6 but for the outside walls. Just lay on the planks as you see fit. If the pieces are too long glue them on anyway and trim the excess after it dries. Here's a picture of mine while the glue dried:

Step 9: Base it, or not.

Basing your buildings is entirely optional. I base mine because I like to add little bushes and wells and gardens and such to them for character. I used little wooden chalk boards I found at the dollar store.

That's it guys. You now have five buildings with interior and exterior detail that just need a bit of flocking and you're good to go! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I wish you the best of luck in your terrain making endeavors. Just remember you can always stretch that dollar further!

OK, so sorry guys I forgot to mention the roofing. This is step 9.1.

Step 9.1: Roofing.

To do this, simply cut out some more cardboard and test fit it to your completed buildings to get the desired size/shape. Go finish off that box of Raisin Bran Crunch and cut the box to little rectangle pieces. Glue these pieces onto your cardboard roof pieces and paint them your desired color. Done! Free roof!

Happy Gaming,
E

Here's another pic of a different building I did like this. If you followed all these steps you'll get five smaller versions of this for 15 bucks.