ODELLIN
FANTASY TOWNHOUSE
BY DAVE ANDREWS AND PHIL LEWIS
This month we take a look at building a large town house for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
We take you through making the house with step-by-step guidelines and include templates
for all the basic shapes. All you need is stiff card, balsa wood, modelling knife and glue.
‘We've also included the templates for a variant town house with extensions plus notes on
how this differs from the basic house. All the techniques are straightforward, even for the
novice modeller ~ following our simple guidelines, you'll easily be able to make these
buildings and add them to your scenery for Warhammer Fantasy Battle.STRUCTING THE TOWN HOUSE
‘The first step in making the town house isto wansfer the design
for the building onto Your card. Photocopy the template and
then fix ito your card with masking tape or small pieces of
sellotpe. Now take a pin and make ahole trough the template
into the card at each of te corner point
For the roof edges, make quite a few holes along the length of
the edges so you ean easly join them up to get the right curved
shape
When you've pricked a hole dough all he points, remove the
template. You should find tat you've gota join-the-dots copy
‘ofthe template on your card. Take a pencil and draw inthe Vines
between the holes ~ you should have a perfect copy of the town
hove ouline which you cutout ready to assemble
Exploded view of Town House
[Now you've got the main pars of your town house cut ou, you
rnoed t assemble the basic shape ofthe building. Glu the four
walls to a ase of reasonably thick card so there's a fair-szad
Overlap al around te building. You need wo glue along the base
ofeach wall and long the sides where the walls mest ~ glue the
front and back walls £0 they fit inside the end walls. Don't
bosther putting onthe roo, chimneys or overhang floor ye.
MODELLING WORKSHOP
We've marked the positions for all the timbers on the
templates ~ this is just to give you a ough idea where they £9
tnd it doesn’t mater if you don"t match these positions
‘acily. Infact if you make more than one building it's a
00d idea to vary the postions of the doors, windows and
Timbers so that each building is different
“To got the length ofeach timber, simply hold picce of balsa
‘wood up against the model and mask off witha penil where
you've goto cut
“The end poss are made with two pices of balsa, one cut into
4 sirp half the width ofthe other. As shown in the photo
Above, stick the first piece on s0 i juts out fom the sie of the
building then simply but the second, thinner piece upto it
y
For the curved timbering that runs slong the wp edge ofthe
cod walls se the walls themselves asa template to mark out
the shape on a piece of balsa. The strip of balsa you cut out
‘should Took something like an upside down V ~ you may find
ita bit easier tout this timber out as two separate pieces.MODELLING WORKSHOP
Les
‘The door is simply a rectangle of thin balsa wood cut to size
nd glied in place — the existing timbering already forms the
door frame. Ifyou want, you can score tree or four lines into
the surface ofthe balsa wood to represent planks,
For the door hinges, glue thin strips of card or plastic into
place. For the handle ether glue a small blob of modelling
pully onto the door or push a round-headed pin through the
balsa and ear
‘The sides ofthe windows have already been formed by the
vertical timbering so to makes the windows you just need
‘id « window ledge. First cut oot x small secon of thin balsa
tnd roundoff the corners along one edge. Stick this to the wall
‘vith the rounded edges to the font to make the window ledge.
‘Another small suip of balsa glued vertically above the ledge
fives the impression of two thin upright windows,
z
[Now you need toad the floor tothe overhang. This just drops
inside the building and sts ontop ofthe ground flor Front
wall. Once you've checked it fits, glue it int place and then
lve on the timbering under the overhang.
Cut the roof out of thin eard and score it long the middle to
make it easier to bend in two I's also a good idea to curve the
‘ard by flexing it gently ~ this makes it easier to glue to the
‘erved rof edges. Before you glue iin place, cut Out the two
holes forthe chimneys.
Check the fit of the ro to see ifthe vertical tmbering gets
slightly inthe way. I's only the work of a moment to trim
these to the same angle a8 the slant ofthe roof by using an
emery board or sandpaper.
r
Tas chimneys are made from small squares of card, about 10
12mm (") square. Glue these together into a box shape
without base, then glue them into the holes in the oof Ifo,
‘want, you can glue small rectangles of ard othe chimney to
represent bricks,
We made the chimney pois from short lengths of hollow
plastic ube ~ you could also use balsa dowelling, the tops
from tubes of glue of anything similar. If you want to make
sure ofa secure fit, glue a short length of wire tothe inside of
the chimney pot and push it down into the card of the
chim.
(Cut the tes forthe oof ou of thin card — we made ours about
0am by 6mm (4" by 4"). You ean either cut the tiles out
individually, or eut thin slivers out of strips of card to make a
‘whole row ata time ~ use whichever method you prefer,
Always glue the tles onto the roof stating atte bottom and
‘working your way up. Each row should overlap the one below
~ stagge the cats between the tls so they dot Ine up.
For the ridge tiles, make a double-width row of tle and score
them dovn the centre 50 that they fold over the apex of the
roof. If you want you can glue an upright strip of card or
plastica along the ridge itself. This ean be cut, or filed if
You're using thicker plasicard, to give a pattem along the top
txge. A spike glued to each end ofthe ridge is ance finishing
touch,Before adding the upright poss tht support the overhang, you
‘might want paint the ffont of the ground floor ~ its abit
Fidaly to paint once the uprights are in place. Measure the
posts by holding them up to the building and marking the
Tengths off with pencil. A thin wash of Poyflla or Tetrion
‘inted onto the panels ofthe building give it textured look
En hide the cut edges of card that may stil be visible in one
fortwo places. Use an old brush of size 2or3 and thin the filler
‘down with water nil you get the right consistency
‘You can sprinkle small areas of sand over PVA glue on the
roof tw give the effect of moss (once painted) or on the walls to
represcat small growing plans and lichen. The base may also
be textured with sand and you can add small round-comered,
rectangles cutout of thin card wo represent paving ston.
PAINTING THE TOWN HOUSE
“The frst thing is wo give the building a white undercoat — matt
white car spray is good fr this. Next paint all the panos with
{light grey or light brown colour. A lrgsh brush (size 2 or 3)
is most suitable here.
[Now paint all the timbering ineluding the windows and
‘doorftames. You can get an old oak effect by starting with a
mix of Ghoul Grey and Brown Ink. A light drybrush with
[Bronzed Flesh picks out the grain of the wood. Ifyou want
black timbering use Chaos Black anda deybrish of Elf Grey
‘When doing the drybrushing, make sure you take as much
pain off the brush a8 you can or you're likely to get a streaky
finish. Although it takes abit longer, t's worth giving the
‘wood a drybrush~ it's easy to do and picking out the grain,
improves the appearance ofthe building no end
If you want to go a stage further with the walls, you can
stipple a lighter colour into the middle of each panel,
‘gradually fading out towards the edges wo give the impression
‘of the timbers casting shade.
For the roof, it's best to use a "of 1" brush. The secret isto