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Final structure with broken walls

FINALLY!!! Now that we have a finalized idea for our Flagstone, we can start building buildings and other terrain features to fill the blocks for the table.

So far the first building has turned out well, although I built it completely backwards. For starters I glued the entire house together before cutting out the windows, or “breaking” the walls, which just made it more time consuming then if I had cut them out when the walls were still flat.

Currently the house is very clean looking and still missing many details, I plan to add more trimwork around the walls, and I have already started making the the floor look like wood planks, as well as trimming the corner pieces slightly so they dont look so perfect (which will be seen in the next post).

The Bottom Floor of the building

Floor for the second level

Floor installed into slit of second floor

Full second floor

Both floors resting on cobblestone

Setting up the second floor

Both floors (unassembled)

Basic house stucture w/ windows

Side view of house w/ windows

In the following picture you can see where the door will be eventually, I havnt removed it yet to keep the walls sturdy while I worked on the rest of it.

Final structure with broken walls

Close up of broken floor and model for scale

So here is our first 2 story house on one of our 6×6 blocks. I will take more pictures of the progress and post them up soon!

Natural light, angled.

Natural Light, straight on

In direct sunlight

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Flagstone

Yeah, I decided to use the actual name for this instead of calling it cobblestone again, mostly because it actually looks like Flagstone now instead of funny shaped cobblestone. I did some work last night with texturing and painting the stones and it looks even better than before. We finally have something the looks random and rough, and not so uniform.

While working on a house last week with Tewfik we put together a small block to use as the base for the house (this post is coming soon!). After painting the flagstone it just looked too bland and uniform (and not so much like rocks) when put together with the house and miniatures. I got yet another idea from my girlfriend for painting though. This new method is quite a bit of work (it took me several hours for a 6″ block), but I think it looks excellent. I’m sure with some practice I can get the painting time down to something more reasonable.

Unfortunately, I had a bad day with the camera so I apologize for the quality of these pics. I plan on taking some non-blurry ones in better light today, it was just too late last night to re-do the pictures.

In addition to testing out the new painting I also decided to try out some different texturing techniques as well. It’s hard to tell here but the right piece of this was actually sanded to be a little more rough.

Tracing the grout with a pencil

There was another minor change in the method that seems to have helped a bit as well. Instead of tracing the grout with the marker first I am using a pencil. It’s a harder and sharper edge so it cuts into the foam better.

Testing out different bases

I tried out using a base of black and a base of gray. I figured using a gray base with this new method might remove a step by not needing to go back over the grout.

Flagstone!

I then put down some gray, blue, and black paint and went through the process of hand painting each and every stone, constantly mixing the three colors to achieve tons of different shades of grays and blue-grays.

Flagstone

After the rocks all dried I drybrushed a light gray and a white on top to add some highlights and texture. I think I went a little heavy on the white at the end, but overall it looks excellent.

Tracing the grout

And finally I traced over some of the grout with the marker to see how it looked with a darker grout. This picture is a little blurry but if you look at the left side you’ll see where I traced over the grout with the marker. I like the grout being a little darker, but I don’t know if the marker is the right method. It seems to get on the rocks themselves too much and I think just using a darker gray as the base might fix this.

You might notice that the sanded side (the right side) didn’t really seem to benefit much from the sanding. Simply using a stone to press into the foam for some texture still seems to work best. Also, the black base looks a little messy in some spots. The gray base seems to work just fine, though.

So there you have it… flagstone! A few minor tweaks and this could be perfect. Keep an eye out for another post coming soon from Tewfik about the 2 story foamcore house we built last week.

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Spackled

I have been able to do a little bit of work on the foamcore building recently. I am in the process of testing out various methods for the walls right now. I picked up some lightweight Spackle for texturing and so far it seems to be great. The textured look is great, and it seems pretty tough. It’s also really easy to carve out of if necessary.

In addition to the Spackle I also tested out a method for doing a chipped away look with the underlying framework showing. This consisted of cutting away the top layer of paper on the foamcore, then drawing in a brick pattern on the foam with a pen. When combined with the Spackle it really gives the look of a broken wall with the brick framework showing. You can also see on the left side of the window where I added in a small crack in the wall. This is pretty easy to do with the Spackle and a sharp knife.

Previous Foamcore Building Posts:
First Foamcore Building – Work in Progress

Building Laid Flat

Close up side shot

Spackled

Another with good lighting

I doubt this piece will actually get used for anything, as I realized that I messed up the dimensions when measuring. I didn’t account for the thickness of the foam so it’s longer than expected. It will make a good test piece for painting the walls and framework though.

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• First Foamcore Building - Work In Progress

Bear with me while I work on the downloads page, I know that the layout isn’t the most appealing right now. I’ll be moving things around and adding stuff until I’ve got everything up. As always, if you have anything of interest that you think we should host then let us know or email it to us. Thanks!

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In Natural Light

For some reason it looks extra blue

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Yet another view of the final cobblestone

Well, after some more messing around with the cobblestone I think we pretty much have the method figured out. While I really liked the last piece from the last post I felt like there was something missing. At the suggestion of my girlfriend I decided to try mixing in some blue and that seemed to do the trick. A little bit of blue mixed in with the gray gave it that extra nudge away from simple grayscale and made it look really nice.

I’ve been testing out various methods with the blue to see which one works best. I’ve found that washes on the cobblestone don’t seem to work all that well, probably because the imprint isn’t all that deep. The trick seems to be drybrushing, lots and lots of drybrushing. It also helps to rough up the surface a little bit first to give it more texture and make the drybrushing work better. I’ll do a short “how-to” on the methods I used for the final cobblestone if you want to try this on your own.

UPDATE: I should probably note that the colors are done, but we’ll probably be adding bits of grass/weeds in the grout and other small details later as well.

Various Tests

First, I messed around with some ideas on the old block from before. I tried out a few more grayscale methods and then added some blue over top of them.The top left was drybrushed with blue. The top middle and right middle have blue washed over them with a thick wash.

Some blue testing

This was the other side of the previous block. We based it black, drybrushed a bunch of various blues, and then tried some washes and other things on top of it.

Black Base

Before doing any painting I stamped the foam with our stamps. Then I went over the pattern with a marker to solidify the imprints. Any thin object can be used to press down the foam and fix up messed up sections. I use a marker because it makes it easier to remember what pieces I’ve done already. There’s more on that here. After the pattern is ready, it’s time to paint the base black. This gives it a good dark base to build on.

Blue-Gray Wash

The next step is to do a thick wash with a dark blue-gray. This gives a good solid base for the rocks that doesn’t feel so bland as pure gray. Using blue works well for a cool color scheme. If you want a warmer color scheme you could probably use a brownish base instead.

Begin Drybrushing

After the wash is dried it’s time to start drybrushing. I started with a medium gray here, and then added a slightly lighter gray on top of that.

More drybrushing

After doing a couple different shades of gray, it helps to top it off with a light pure white drybrush.

Second Attempt

The last method worked pretty well for a nice uniform looking set of rocks. However, it also helps to have variety. In the middle section here I started by using a medium gray to drybrush over the full section to paint.

Random drybrushing

I mixed up some lighter gray and drybrushed over a few random pieces of this section.

More random drybrushing

To add some variety I did the same random drybrushing but with a light shade of blue.

White drybrushing

After a couple sets of drybrushing random sections with various colors I topped the whole thing off with a white again. It’s hard to see in these pictures because everything is so bright, but the middle section looks a let more random and less uniform. There are rocks ranging from pure gray to a solid blue-gray.

Adding in marker for the grout

Finally, I use marker to trace over the grout to darken it up some and make it more distinguished from the stones themselves. It also lets me push on the imprint some again to ensure a nice deep, lasting imprint. In the pic above I only markered the bottom pieces of the painted sections so you can see the difference. I’ve put several more pictures of the final cobblestone below because I had some trouble getting the lighting right to really show off the middle section.

Another final view

Yet another view of the final cobblestone

And one more for comparison

Well, I think that just about wraps up the cobblestone saga. We have a good solid base for all of our blocks now. It’s time to start planning out specific blocks and building actual terrain pieces. We have a lot of cool ideas to try out for terrain pieces, so check back soon for buildings, details, and finished blocks. I’m also going to be converting some miniatures for my Possessed army using various Warhammer and 40k models, so I’ll post up pictures of those as well.

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Testing block

Over the last week I’ve been working to try and get our cobblestone (well, technically I think it’s flagstone) method just right. I’ve tested out a ton of different methods, so I thought I’d post up everything I’ve done up to this point so you can see all the iterations. I’ve tried drybrushing, washing, tracing with markers, priming/not priming, adding texture, and more. I think I finally got something pretty close to what we want, though there are still a few things to try out. I was quite surprised at how well something as simple as a gray marker has worked. I’ve been using it to add depth not only through coloring the grout, but to force a deeper imprint and fix up some areas that didn’t stamp so well.

The first thing I tested was using spray primer on the foam. I knew that this would eat away at it, but I was hoping that a light spray would eat away just enough to add some nice texture to the stones. I primed first and then used the stamp to imprint the cobblestone. As you can see, I sprayed too heavily on the sides here and it ate into the foam way too much. The middle section was “usable” but the texture from the spray was too porous and didn’t look very good. I also tested out tracing grout with some paint markers here.

On the other side of that block I tried out several different methods. For the top left section I stamped it, outlined the grout with a marker, attempted drybrushing and dabbing with a sponge, and then outlined the grout again with a grey marker. The top right section I painted black and then washed with a gray. For the bottom right section I traced the grout lines with a paint marker, painted over it with gray, then tried various drybrushing/washing techniques. I painted the middle right black, drybrushed with 2 shades of gray, and then outlined the grout with a gray marker. Finally, the bottom right section I pressed a stone into for texture, then painted it black, drybrushed gray, and outlined some grout with a gray marker.

Priming didn't go so well...

Testing block

The next several photos show a few stages of my next attempt. I traced the grout lines with a gray marker first. This helped me clearly define where the stones actually were. Also, for sections that didn’t make a deep enough imprint or where large/odd shaped stones showed up I simply hand drew a pattern in making sure to push hard enough to imprint the pattern. After that I just painted over it with black as a base.

Based

After that I drybrushed on two shades of gray. I didn’t drybrush enough or use light enough colors, because it still looks black.

Drybrushed with gray

And finally, I traced the grout on the right half here with the gray marker again. You can see the difference it made. The grout lines stand out more.

Tracing the grout

I based another corner of that block black (after tracing all the grout lines). I decided to try my hand at some washing. Here are several different washes with various consistencies and colors across the two blocks.

Lots of washing!

The last three photos are a series of photos showing off the drybrushing and grout tracing after the wash. This first one is after the first drybrush with regular gray and a second drybrush with a lighter gray.

After washing and the first drybrush

This photo shows after a third drybrush with a near white gray. I think this went a little too light.

After the third drybrush

And finally, I traced some of the grout line with the gray marker to make them stand out more. I’m starting to like the look of the marker, though I want to try washing over this with a dark gray to darken the grout some.

Tracing the grout

I think I kind of like that final test, although there are still a few things to try. I want to try the original wash with a darker gray, as well as washing a second time AFTER drybrushing. I also want to try out various shades of lighter and darker gray during drybrushing to see which ones look best. While this piece looks good, it’s just a little bit too bright. And finally I’d like to try out adding some more texture by pressing some stones on the foam before stamping it.

As always, let us know if you have any suggestions!

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