So… when we left off, we had the basic houses stuck
together and made a start on the detailing. Now we’ll pick up, and start off
with the floors.
Again, doing this isn’t entirely necessary, but I figure
if you’re going to do the fire-pit, and have the nice painted internal walls
anyway, you might as well finish it, and do a beaten earth floor; after all it’s
not difficult!
First of all, I looked out black paints and some
nice earthy browns (Humbrols 29, 62, 98 and 189). First, paint the floor with
heavily thinned black paint, you want this to stay wet;
now open all the browns, and while the black is still
wet, start splodging them all on at the same time, so you get the colours all
blending into each other. Adding further thinners and swirling them about helps
a bit, and you should end up with something like this
Now leave it to dry, and while it’s drying you can
crack on with the roof. First of all, look out the teddy-pelt, and you’ll find
it’s already been cut into three sections. These are the exact size required
for the roof, trust me! The two larger sections do each side, and the slimmer
strip goes over the join.
Now paint the roof sections with plenty of PVA;
make sure it’s quite thick, ‘cos you don’t want it running off! (this is why it’s
important to key the roof well, as previously pointed out…!)
Now add the big sections to each side, like so
And then stick the narrow strip over the apex,
covering the join between the two sections of thatch
You’ll now have something like this
NOW LEAVE THESE TO DRY OVERNIGHT! Seriously, you
do not want to try and attempt the
next step while the glue’s still wet! That said, you probably could just leave
it at that (and I’m sure some will), and just have all your battles fought in the
midst of a particularly fierce gale… This will also let the painted floor dry
properly.
Now, once you return to your DRY roof, you should
find you have something like this; wee hairy hooses!
Before you crack on with the roof, it’s a good
idea to finish the floor. You’ll need to sit the floor off of whatever surface
you work on later, so won’t be able to access the inside for another 24 hours
once you replace it on the walls after the next stage.
Take the roof off, and your painted floor should
have dried to look a bit like this
Now, paint the floor with PVA, and dump on some
brown flock. Set it aside to dry, and
just before you go onto to do the roof, tip out the excess, and you’ll have
something like this
If you have gaps where the glue had run away and
no flock has stuck, the earth effect you painted on earlier should disguise it adequately.
You can put the roof back on now, ready for the next step.
Now, it’s time to trust the instructions and start
brushing the roof thatch with PVA from a toothbrush. I admit, I was highly
sceptical about this too, I just could not see it working! However, be brave,
and go for it; it works, trust me!
You’ll end up with this sort of thing
And yes it looks gopping, but you can see sort of
where this is going now…
Leave it for another day to dry, and you’ll end up
with this
How good does that look?!
The only slight problem id your apex may have gone
a bit bald where the fur has been pulled away to either side.
We’ll take a look at how to sort that out next time
round, and finish off all the other little details that will just lift the
house out from being just another piece of terrain to block line of sight and
hinder movement, to being a beautiful piece of scenery that really looks the
part.
Cheers
Iain
