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Sunday, December 21, 2008

Lord of the Rings terrain - Rohan house

Another little project I was inspired to try out was making a Rohan style house.



Again I found the GW source book; the Two Towers, very helpful. I have made lot of other houses before, but they have all been the medieval style; wattle and daub style construction supported by wooden beams and posts. This is the first building I have done to look fully wooden.

This is the first of at least three that I need to make to complete sufficient houses for the sourcebook scenarios. Whether I go the whole hog and make a Hall of Meduseld later, we'll have to wait and see!

The house is constructed from 3mm card purchased from stationary store. I have usually made things from simple cardboard in the past, which whilst cheap (or free if scrounged) is not as easy to work with and you always need to fill in the cut ends. So the card sheet makes a welcome and easier change, and wasn't hugely expensive.

This was then faced with 3mm balsa wood, again scored to look like wood planks. Extra beams were added at corners and along walls. Windows and doors were cut out, and shuttered windows and a door were added. A small door handle was added using a tiny piece of plasti-card for a base, a ring of 15amp fuse wire, and a blob of green-stuff putty to hold handle ring in place.

The thatch was made from teddy-bear fur. (I hasten to add no teddy-bears were harmed in the production of this model!). The fur (from a haberdashery store) was cut and glued into place with PVA glue. Once dried this was soaked down with a thinned mix of 75% PVA and water mix. An old plastic fork was used to get the fur to texture as desired. This was left to dry. Due to high water content of glue ,it took about 3 days to fully dry before painting.

Painting was with the usual Hobby/art store acrylic paints.

Quite a pleasing result and several more to make.



Aragorn leads Legolas, Gimli and a warrior of Rohan, against the vanguard of the Uruk-Hai attack.



12 comments:

  1. beautifly done

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  2. I think this is amazing. If only I could get the stupid roof on mine as good as you did.

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  3. Thanks, glad you like it. Well, i did it by cutting one piece to fit across whole of roof, with a slight overhang, that could be trimmed later. There is also a further strip piece glued on top of this along ridge of roof. Once all glued into to place, the whole was covered in the thinned PVA, as mentioned above. Once dry, painted with dark brown paint. Then successive light shades were drybrushed on until a very pale yellow/cream colour was the final light highlight. Paints were just cheap artist student acrylic waterfast paints, from local stationary store.

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  4. approximately how long are the individual fur strands (i.e. long and furry or fairly short).....or does the teddy bear fur come in only one size

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  5. Hi, the strands were 'longish' and fur like, not 'short and fuzzy', maybe 1-2cm when held up perpendicular to material base cloth. It was quite a while ago that I made this, and the spare fur is 'somewhere' in the games room...

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  6. amazing work really!!..please can u tell me witch parts made of cardboard and which of balsa wood?..really thx
    ah an other question! which misures did u use for the house?
    thx

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    Replies
    1. Hi, Thanks for you comment. The core structure of the house was made from the cardstock (the 4 walls). This was then clad in the balsa, so it made it quite a strong structure. All the external wall detail you can see, laterals and uprights, and door and windows are all balsa.
      I cant recall the exact dimensions off the top of my head.
      The details were all taken from the Two Towers sourcebook.
      Hope this helps?
      If you need more info I will did out the sourcebook myself and see what I can find for you.

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  7. oh thank you very much, you've been very kind. now I think I can do it myself, thank you for the details and explanations. Keep it up the good work!

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  8. Hi,
    with your help i managed to finish (finally) my own rohan house!..hope u like it and thx again!
    http://postimg.org/image/q6slsziqn/
    http://postimg.org/image/cee6xcrz3/

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    Replies
    1. Well done Fabriz, you have done a fine job :-)

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