Starting a fresh fantasy terrain set part five - Building one (veerhuis) detailing

Yesterday I picked up a bushel of balsa wood (yes, I've decided that's the correct turn of phrase for it). So last night I could go in and finish the last two doors on my ferry house (veerhuis). Lets start with a 'final product' shot first. Yes there it is, ready to be primed.

Next step on this building will involve painting and flocking the whole thing. I can't wait to get started.

I followed the same technique I described here. The only difference  between previous doors is that I needed a sort of outline for a sally gate like construction in the gate. This is pretty standard on gates and large barn doors as you don't want to open the entire flipping thing just to let the stable boy in.

More doors. I decided to give the front door a nice looking doorknob in stead of a pull-ring.

I opted to make the small door in the gate slightly smaller then the actual front doors mostly to make it fit, but also to make it look slightly more insignificant.

I glued the barn door in place with a single drop of universal glue (for a quick fix) and a large dollop of PVA (for staying power).

After the glue had (mostly) dried I added the final two doors to their frames. 'Disaster' struck as I discovered my large barn door was too small for the frame. There the wisdom of working with two halves came to the rescue. I left it slightly ajar to cover that up. Now let's hope the stable boy will not get into trouble over the open gate...

Bending paperclips to 'hold the chimney in place'.

As per picture I bent two paperclips to make the steel bearings keeping the chimneys in place. This together with 'wall anchors' (ornamented steel bars sticking out of gables) is a pretty common feature on old Dutch houses. With the flat landscape here the wind has a tendency to pick up speed and blow over stone walls and chimneys unless stopped by either strategically grown trees or reinforcement.

This one seems to have squeezed the chimney to hard during fixing, I'll add some cracks before priming to cover that up.

As a final touch I took my pot of Vallejo Dark Earth paste and used it to fill gapes between walls, and add some interesting patches of flatter ground to the rather course sand I had on the floor so far. Right now I'm hoping this will dry up all right. Making odd mistakes is always a bit of a risk when my brain is producing Swedish cook noises as I bang materials together.

Green stuff and me will never fully get along. Let's hope it'll look ok when paint hits it.

A final touch I forgot to mention is the green stuff on the bell gable. I made a roll of green stuff and flattened it with a plain roller from Green Stuff World with these handy guide rings added. It isn't quite as neat as I would like it to be (lack of experience on my side), but it'll serve. I tried to make an ornamental bit on top of the ornamentation, but it will not stand up to close-up photography. Let's hope a bit of paint and weathering will make it look ok.

A quick shot of the inner yard. I used a wet q-tip to blend the Vallejo paste with the clay pavement.

Let's end this post with some pre-priming shots of the construction I'm calling finished.

I can't wait to paint my work.

Who left the courtyard door open? And where is the dog???

Now here is a last shot of the picture that inspired this build.

Here's the original I worked from

And an overview of the final construction. I almost forgot to mention the ridge tiles on top of the roofs. I briefly considered making individual plates, but ended up taking a lengthwise piece of my 'tile cardboard' to cover up the tops of all three major roofs (and the overhang at the gate).

And here's my result so far.

Next up priming with an airbrush and Vallejo Primer. If you've never made a foam board construction before and feel inspired to start a quick last tip (many hours were spent cursing to bring you this information). You'll find a lot of tips to use PVA to seal foam before priming with a rattlecan (or PVA and Gesso (there's probably a few mentions on old posts on this blog)). In my experience you'll never fully seal a construction made of polystyrene (or in this case foam board). For this building with all the carved in scratches and exposed brick I can guarantee spray paint from a rattlecan will hit the foam on the building and melt details I spent rather too much time adding. So if you don't want to destroy your building, don't use rattlecans. Just brush primer on or use an airbrush.