I love collecting, painting, converting and scratch building terrain. I even get to play a game once in a while. I'm a big fan of gamification as part of teaching - I'm an elementary school teacher.
This blog covers my hobby work and 'teaching through gaming'.
I've already build a bunch of small WW2 25mm houses from TTCombat. They were quick to build and very cheap. But I have also gotten myself a bunch of bigger row houses, in both two and three storey versions. These houses are a lot bigger and really give off that Baldur's Gate vibes that I'm going for.
The upgrads of these buildings are the same and I've done with the smaller houses. Stone wall ground floor, timber frame second floors, added plaster and lots of colors. The top of the roof is cobber, and would probably be all green from verdigris in real life, but that color clashed to much with the buildings. So I've only painteda bit of verdigris here and there.
For a tutorial style step-by-step check out this post here. And see all the collected fantasy city terrain on this page.
I've also made a YouTube video with these buildings:
When I bought all my city MDF kits, I also got a pack of TTCombat Streets of Venice balcony upgrades. It was pretty cool and allowed me to add a lot of balconies on these house. Some already came with balconies, but it's a seemless fit, so hard to make out which is which.
The awnings are originally from grey board, but I've tossed those out and found some striped fabric instead. These give a much more life like look to the entire building. I've also made some signs using an online coat of arms maker, those will be added one day when I get around to it.
All colors chosen for these buildings have been found with online research on real tudor or timberframed houses. And I've made sure to mix it up, so all buildings have different combinations.
It's pretty fast to paint these buildings, as most of the job is actually done while base coating with cheap rattle cans, then some drybrushing and was will make it all pop. Flock and posters add the last layer of life to them.
On my other houses I've made sure to add a 1cm flat area on the top of the roof, for miniatures to keep their balance there, but that's not needed on any rowhouses. It'll look great when I get around to painting the last 4 of these.
Check out the game Guilders: A Life In Shaows. A 28mm skirmish miniatures game, with lots of RPG elemenets. Inspired by my love of Frostgrave, Mordheim and the Warhammer Quest RPG book. All Guilders is collected here.
For the game Guilders: A Life In Shadows there's a few scenarios, that require play inside buildings. I've covered the build of this huge tavern, based on a TTCombat Carnevale set before in this blog. And covering some of the bits and bobs painted for the interior in this blog.
Now the entire thing is completed. Take a small trip through the build in this little video and read on for some words on how it's done. Most of the miniatures in there are from Dunkeldorf.
I 3d printed some flat doors found on thingiverse. Some of the prints failed, but since I don't like throwing suff out, it was easily fixed with some coffee stirrers.
I've printed out some floor details, found online somewhere. I printed them on a3 paper, so they fit an entire floor with having to make some funky line-ups.
I also found a bunch of pictures of carpets online, printed them out and glued them in place here and there.
For the stairs, I printed some I also found online, and to save space on the top floor I simply added a wooden trapdoor in the floor, that saved me from cutting actual holes in the terrain - that would serve no practical purpose anyway.
The walls are painted an off white that I mixed with cheap acryllics. It's painted on with a sponge, it adds a bit of a textured detail with the MDF shining through here and there.
I added rooms to the floors using thick cardboard. The doors don't open, but that's not really a problem during gameplay. The wooden beans are used coffee stirrers glued in place, but they really break up that MDF look nicely.
Normally I've been opposed to gluing terrain in place inside buildings, not wanting to 'waste' painted interior. But these days, I glue terrain inside. It's just easier and with 3d printing and a ton of terrain crate - I'll never run out anyways.
The top floor is a large suite, added some nicer looking interior details up here. Some a Dunkeldorf bits, some are from Mantic games.
Full topdown look on the 1st floor, with two small common room and one room that's a bit more exclusive.
This is the top floor suite, with one large room and a seperate sleeping chamber.
If you like my stuff, please consider following some of the SoMe pages, it'll all help once Guilders is released and goign into sale. You can also pop into the Discord, it's a very good little community of supportive hobby people. It's all found through my LinkTree.
This wagon was part of the Dungeons and Lasers: Encounters kickstarter, as a stretch goal. It's a nice kick and goes together well. There's a lot of honey and barrels on it, so it's a mead seller. Though the sign says 'Honey Ale'.
This was a really quick speed paint session. After giving it all spray varnish, it got a complete Vallejo Dark Sand drybrush, that does good to any miniature.
Besides being just an awesome piece of scatter terrain, it also serves as an objective in a Guilders: A Life In Shadows heist named The Carriage.
I've painted a lot of scatter terrain pieces over the years and I've really come to enjoy lots of colors on it. It just makes everything look so much more lively when playing, than all wood areas just being brown.
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Archon Studios and their Dungeons And Lasers kickstarters are absolutely insane. I backed D&L III kickstarter right after starting writing Guilders: A Life In Shadows. Which gave a ton of miniatures and ideas for different scenarios and instances.
There was a nice amount of market place pieces in the kickstarter, I've painted them up with lots of bright colors to add life to the city board.
The market stall is a nice little piece. It is however rather low, so I might add a few cork stones to raise it up around 1cm. I've seen other people do this and it works nicely.
I painted all these with Speed Paint for the over saturated look and brightness. Then gave them some layers of matt varnish, because that speed paint rubs off too easy I think.
The cart with all manner of wares is really nice as well, so is the wheel barrel thing. I deliberately went for very different colors on the stand and the cart. I remember I had this civilian guy painted i yellow and green, figured he'd make a good merchant. So a cart in the same colors is pretty nice.
I found it a bit hard to make out the details on all the stuff in that barrel. And it is a weird way to pack you stuff. But in the end, having a bunch of different colors in there makes it pop nicely.
The outhouse is a fun little miniature, though I hink it has a bit much of greenery on it. After painting some other wagons, I think it looks awesome with colors on it. But this blue is a bit too bright, so I'll probably tone it down with a layer of brown wash.
The pig is from Dunkeldorf Miniature, Big Bruno. It's a miniature invented for a Warhammer RPG campaign, then turned miniature and also written in as an event in Guilders.
I do all manner of miniature hobbying, gaming, painting and game designing. I write words and take pictures of all of it. Please consider helping this Bloggerverse (and the spread of my game Guilders: A Life In Shadows), by dropping some follows across SoMe.
This is kind of a summary post. I've finished up a full 3'x3' board of painted city terrain. This areas is what Guilders: A Life In Shadows is written for, so it's a nice accomplishment to actually getting around to finishing it. Now it's all just about getting more clutter, more life and variation onto it.
Here's a youtube video going over the different stuff.
I have collected all the different blog posts about this project on this page right here: Fantasy City Board hub.
When doing terrain I always take lots of photos and write step-by-step guides for it. My style is always simple and cheap techniques for huge upgrades.
Thanks for checking out the blog! You should consider checking out the Discord server, it's grown into an amazing community with some very lovely people.
So far I've build an entire 3'x3' board worth of buildings. These are more of the super cheap "25mm" WW2 house from TTC. The size fits well for both 28mm and 32mm miniatures.
For a full ste-by-step tutorial on how I upgrade these houses to something nicer, you can check out this previous blog post.
I also talk about the upgrades and show the buildings in this video:
The Swedish House
I try to mix up the colors for all my buildings, so I have as many different combinations of colors as possible. All houses colors are also some I've found doing research online. Another way to change them up, is I've placed chimneys differently and the board ledges as well.
The furnace is from Terrain Crate by Mantic Games. It was a quick little piece to do, but adds some nice life to the city board. Will fit equally will in a dungeon.
Shop
The other little building is a shop. I found some checkered fabric pieces and just for awnings. The buildings come with grey board, but a quick upgrade to real fabric does so much for the life of the building. I've used the online Coat of Arms maker, to make some signs for the buildings - that I'll get around to adding at some point... in some future.
Whenever I build some terrain I make sure to cover the build process with a blog post and step-by-step guide. So follow the different SoMe platforms, if you want to make sure to catch them.
Here's an executioner 3d printed by a friend. I had this printed up while waiting on the Dungeons and Lasers 3 to deliver (that also has a cool executioner in it).
There's a scenario in Guilder: A Life In Shadows where the guilds try to rescue a condemned from the gallows. I added small blue details to the executioner, so there's a small tie in with the guards of my city.
Gallows
This is a 3d resin print. There was a bit of warping in the platform and at the top beam. It was a really easy fix with a bit of greenstuff. The paintjob was a quick base coat, wash, drybrush. I added a bunch of wanted posters to the gallows as detailing and a bit of blood - this is also used as a scaffold for beheadings.
Thanks for reading people.
As always make sure to follow some different SoMe. I use all the platforms differently. And if you like a great forumstyled community, come check out the Discord. Best hobby people around are in there. It's a very nice place.
Back when I started writing Guilders: A Life In Shadows I needed a fantasy city quickly. And I've been wanting one for many years. So I bought a bunch of cheap TTCombat kits. Might even have been bougth at some Black Friday deal to get it extra cheap.
TTC have a line of super cheap small 25mm WWII building. The doors don't really look 25mm - but that's hobby scaling for you.
Video: I Did a small video talking about these buildings and what I've done to them.
Building: I've covered the complete upgrade from WWII to tudor style fantasy house before. So for the step-by-step you can check out this blog post. Same techniques used in this one.
Set: Village Bakery
The first kit is the 25mm village bakery. I've made mine into a smithy instead. Instead of the greyboard awning, I added some actual fabric for a more realitic look. I found the Griswold smithy sign somewhere online. Tweaked the colors a bit in google photos. Printed and glued to cardboard. It's simply superglued to the bbq stick I added to the house.
As with all my buildings I want to have as much of color as possible. I also look at the different buildings, so to mix up roof color, plaster and timber frame colors. The storm shutters and doors etc. I want it different across the entire city.
The forge is not glued to the building. It's a Mantic Games terrain crate bit, can be moved around. It fits nicely against the wall.
As always I've added walkways around some of the roof, for better thief acrobatic actions.
Also posters are always added here and there. This time they're all from first Dunkeldorf kickstarter.
Maison Belle
The second house is another Maison Belle house, also from the TTC 25mm WWII range. By mistake I ordered two of these houses. So I made sure the change the timberframe a bit, use different colors and put the walkway at a different height.
There's walkways on both sides of the house.
If you check out this shot, you can see how 25mm seems a bit of. The Fireforge peasent is 28mm (on the larger, heroic scale end) and he has plenty of room not to bump his head on the door.
Each time I do one of these house I get better at detailing the walls. The thick cardboard rocks, the cross beam. All details that break up the flat MDF surface nicely.
All buildings in my city have a 8mm-1cm wide flat top, so miniatures can walk across the roof top.
A quick side by side shot of the two Maison belle houses. It's before the new one was finished. But it shows the massive diffence in detailing from my pre-paint work. Coffee stirrers instead of icecream sticks. Stones added at the foundation and painted bricks on flat areas.
Thanks for reading people.
As always make sure to follow some different SoMe. I use all the platforms differently. And if you like a great forumstyled community, come check out the Discord. Best hobby people around are in there. It's a very nice place.
