DEPARTMENTS

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Experimental Buildings


For a while now I've been looking at the cheap, paper gift boxes found at craft stores. I've always thought they would make perfect fodder for quick and dirty 15mm terrain. Well I finally went out and bought a few and cobbled them together into the building above. Except for a wrong cut that I patched together for the sake of completeness, I think it worked out pretty well. 

I marked out the doors and windows in Sharpy and then got to work cutting and gluing. Each box comes with a lid and I found that if I flipped the box over and glued the lid to the top of the box it made a nice building with a rooftop patio. The style is slightly Middle Eastern and certainly could be used for any sort of indigenous adobe construction. Stacking a second box on top of the the first, allowed for a second story with a nice reinforcing trim where the stories joined.

Considering that these boxes come in a variety of sizes and shapes it is conceivable that an entire sprawl or vertical adobe structure could be cobbled together with little difficulty. Using a little filler or even some simply strips of paper glued over the joins between the boxes would give them a more solid appearance, but even without this, the effect is still pretty effective. Once painted and shaded it should be less apparent. 

One nice thing about these boxes is how solid they are. they require absolutely no reinforcement or basing and would be easily left in such a fashion that they could be plugged into any sort of scenery. With their bottoms open they can also be used to conceal miniatures for those occasions when you want your hostiles to be less obvious. As much as they do not need it, I do feel that a little creative basing with some scenic effects would bring these into their own, I think.

-Eli

9 comments:

  1. Great idea Eli! Have to try this sometime.

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  2. These are cool, way lighter than the plaster adobe buildings I made, I might have to make some of them. A nifty scenic base would definitely bring the building to life, add some day to day details like a small well and perhaps a cart.

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  3. Hmm may have to look out for some of these in the local craft store, they look pretty good.

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  4. Excellent idea Eli, I've walked past these boxes many times and this never occurred to me!

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  5. Sure beats cutting out foamcore, nice job!

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  6. You've got my vote. Hope to see they textured and painted structures. Have fun!

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  7. I just wish that I hadn't messed up the one cut

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  8. I've had a handful of these for exactly this purpose, just haven't gotten around to finding some appropriate greeblies to dress them up yet.

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