The Tiny Monkey Inn

I have a terrain-heavy seventeenth century 28mm skirmish project in mind, titled "Dark Nights in Trashburgh." It is mainly inspired by the Alatriste and Fortune de France books, and centers on urban combat, a sort of baddies vs. catchpoles/upright civilians type of game.

(The project title derives, obviously and sort of unintentionally, from Strasbourg, but it's also a sort of ironic reflection that most things we use for scratchbuilding would otherwise usually end up in the litter.)

For this, obviously, I need more buildings than the single guardhouse I built before, so I planned a few: an enlarged version of the old gatehouse I started in 1/72 scale, a multi-storeyed rich citizen's estate and a wattle and daub style inn, with accomodations on the upper floor(s). Some of these would have internal lighting and games could be played at night or dusk, using the light from the windows, bonfires, tokens with built-in LED torches etc. This is the first installment of the series.

As with most scratchbuilds, doing the inn was an on and off type of thing, with large intervals waiting for the glue and primer to dry, then shelving it for something else, all the while contemplating the next thing to do, but finally it turned out to be a rather handsome building. The most interesting and at the same time tiring part of such builds is to think well ahead about the construction process.

I started this project with my wife and the tiny monkey is sort of a catchphrase between us, hence the name plate of the establishment.

By now, thanks to the guardhouse, I have a tried and tested method for these types of buildings. I know some people prefer pink foam, but I can't house an adequate foam cutter, so the main material is corrugated cardboard. This is then layered over with PVA or acrylic sealant to accept the small rubbery foam bricks and texture paste (it's called stone effect paste in Hungary). 

I did the building in three subassemblies: ground floor, upper floor and roof. Once the two bottom parts were painted, I glued them together and touched up the gaps between them.

Fortunately I learned a lot about porous materials while renovating our current home, so I know the main thing with the texture paste is that it requires a very well primed surface to adhere to, otherwise it will crack badly. That's why I covered every outer surface with PVA or acrylic paste. Clear acrylic paste is also good to fill edges, window cutouts and corners of the corrugated cardboard, adding depth and making these parts easier to paint later. 

The beams are strips of balsa which I glued after priming the cardboard, but before adding the texture paste. Applying the paste itself is easy enough with a stiff old brush. You can wipe the excess off the beams with some water on your fingertip. After the texture paste dried I hit it with a layer of PVA again, then came the painting, a simple dark beige and some drybrushing, followed by painting the browns on the beams, and then a layer of matte varnish. This makes the thing very resistant to damage. I actually dropped the entire building once and nothing happened.

The ground floor follows the same pattern, it's just that the bricks were applied after the initial coat of PVA, primed again, and a very diluted wash of texture paste added after. The greys are a result of multiple layers of drybrushing up to a bright white, followed by a very dark grey wash. 

The chimney is made of two pieces of balsa glued together, carved and sanded to shape, and the same texture paste applied before painting.

There is enough space inside so that a small LED tea light can be placed within the building, but this means that it does not have a proper interior like the guardhouse does. I intend to follow this method with the rest of my Trashburg buildings, some will have a playable interior and some not.

The roof is stepped on the bottom of its edges so light won't seep through, and it's not fixed to the rest. I know some people do individual shingles, but from two feet up I don't think anybody can tell the difference between those and my chipped cardstock strips glued on top of each other from the bottom up. I liked the idea of an attic room (always enough space to strip money off paying customers, the innkeep's line of thought was), so I included a small triangular raise on the front side of the roof, which made covering it interesting, but not overly difficult. 

All the windows are covered with transparent genotherm plastic (front side) or baking paper, intended to simulate parchment, for the kitchen and cheaper rooms (back side). These were added after each subassembly was painted.

The windowsills were installed after the texture paste dried. The two ground floor doors were painted separately, then attached to the door frames. I decorated the base with a small wooden shed, a barrel, patches of static grass and a few pebbles. Then I also decided to add some wooden columns and decorations to the front, which are all made from balsa.

All in all I think the building is just wonky enough to not have that artificial feeling modern ones do, which makes it perfect for the 17th century.

This is how the tealight works. I painted it yellow because the original was too blueish for a fire burning in an inn's stove or candlelight.