Floyet House WIP #1

On my 'auxiliary' Battle Campaigns blog I hinted at a mini-campaign, comprising five scenarios, which would culminate in the siege of a fortified house. 

Thus I've started building the house in question, a distant relative of the Hungarian hussar fort, the Romanian cula and the English/Scottish borderland bastle house. This will be the most ambitious of my cardboard buildings so far, being quite large in 28mm scale, with a playable interior, LED lights, and many other features.

On the first picture, you can see the construction of the ground floor of the building. I drew the outline of the walls on a piece of MDF, which I then cut to size. The walls are made of thick corrugated cardboard, one layer 90° to the ground and another at a slight angle to the first one, so the construction is thicker at the bottom. First I glued in the inner wall, and then, mostly by eyesight, added the outer parts. Two servings of 3g superglue were spent sticking everything together: the walls hold firm.

Like my other period buildings, the guardhouse and the Tiny Monkey Inn, this is going to be a very sturdy construction, prepared to shrug off damage from handling (or dropping it, which happened once already).

Next I cut out the portholes through which the defenders can shoot their muskets, and the portcullis. I added another layer of carboard to the inside here, for increased depth.

Here follows the magic trick, which is, covering the corners with a piece of 80g paper soaked in PVA, and then dunking everything in thick acrylic paste. This acts as a filler and a foundation for successive layers of texture and paint. It is also good at sealing the edges of corrugated cardboard.

Next I painted the internal floor a dark brown. I will lay a thin balsa plank over it, but in case any gap appears, the dark brown bottom will help hide the fault. I'm planning some arches and raised musket stands along the walls, and a fireplace and a staircase at the center.

The building will be covered in spackle and whitewashed, mostly because I still can't properly work on foamboard to make detailed brickwork. But then most period buildings, at least in Central Europe, were mortared and painted in one way or another. 

In the next par of the series, I'll add smaller details to the outer wall, paint it with a mix of brown acrylic paint and PVA, then hopefully start applying the texture paste.

The top floor and the roof are both going to be detachable, so while parts of the ground floor are drying, I can start working on those too. I plan on some proper timber building for the roof section. Watch out for part two!