Steady progress on the Dwarven Mine (SITCBH - part 2)

This weekend I made a steady bit of progress on my dwarven mine set. I added sand, a small railway and detailed the accompanying sheds. Without a lot of further ado. Here's a group shot that doesn't quite cover all the work that's been done. The pictures with the buildings as they are now can be found lower in this post.

My Dwarven mine is slowly coming together. 

Last weekend I started building an old Dwarven mine, based on plans printed in White Dwarf issue 132 (1990). Ah the joy of keeping old magazines around... This is part of the Second International Townscape Challenge - Beyond Human. The Periodic Painting Table, The War Crow and this blog all have until the end of December to finish a non-human building in the style of the Townscape. 

I'm of two minds where adding sand is concerned: on the one hand it is easy and quite relaxing, on the other it makes a humongous mess and cleaning it up sucks. 

I picked up my mine and started adding 1mm cardboard roof shingles to the sunken roof. As this was a small roof and it is supposed to look very weathered, I cut the corners of every single shingle on both sides. With the tiling in place I added a first layer of sand and small stones on the polystyrene. Both to help inter the roof into the hillside and to get a proper first gritty layer. As I said in my previous post: on a project of this size it's better to add sand in layers. 

Always cut bits of your balsa wood or it'll look odd on your model. 

Before adding the sand I prepared the railway ties. I cut a 5mm square balsa rod into 2 cm pieces. I cut bits of the top to weather the wood and added them to the MDF base before adding the first layer of sand (two pictures above). I did use the same layer of PVA to attach both the railway ties and the sand. This way I didn't have to mess around with a brush to add glue between the ties. For those of you who never added sand to a piece of scenery before: you apply PVA and then dump a lot of sand on top, allow the PVA to drie and then tip the excess sand in a box lid (and put it back into your tub of sand). Then look at your work area in despair as sand is coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere. Either join the dark side while screaming 'no', or get to some interim cleaning after each application. 

And to think I was worried the railroad ties where too big. 

After the PVA dried and the excess sand was removed I added more PVA and glued bigger stones between the tracks. Up until this point I was worried my railway ties where to thick, but now I was rather relieved as they barely stick out atop the rocks that lay between them.

All this setting needs is more sand, a lick of paint and a model of an old prospector. Any suggestions for an appropriate model will be highly appreciated in the comments. Especially if its a dwarf.

To finish the track I took two bits of small sized h-beam plastic rod I had in my bits box. I sized them apart to hold my plasticard mine cart and glued them atop the tracks with more PVA. I set this setup aside to dry. 

Fun fact: people tend to think wooden shacks and houses are a lot of work. In truth its not THAT much work.  

Next up where the shacks. This turned out to be another interesting learning experience as the shacks are obviously rather hastily timbered together and ill-made. I used mostly coffee stirrers on both buildings, but added a few bits of thicker balsa wood to get variance. For the shack with the lean-to I made a lot of effort to be messy, placing two stirrers slightly too closely together and adding another one on top or consciously lining up planks slightly crooked. It took a few tries here and there not to go to far over the top with this.  

A more appropriate photo of my set so far. I found an old Dwarven Banner top to add to the mineshaft. 

As with the mine shaft I always cut the coffee stirrers to proper size after gluing them on. As the shack with the lean-to is especially messily built I did not follow my own precept to always snap planks in two. It looks more convincing usually, but for this shack it was just too much. I used a modern cardboard drinking straw for the chimney. As anyone with kids can confirm, these things are useless as straws (they get mulchy and stick together before the drink is finished). They are awesome for hobby purposes as they hold paint perfectly (as opposed to plastic drinking straws). 

I had too look twice to check if I didn't post the same picture twice, but this is the back of the shack with the lean-to. I think the clay roof will paint up to look like very interesting cloth (lets hope I'm right).

The last part of the shack with the lean-to was the roof. The instructions in the old White Dwarf mentioned they flattened air-dry clay, let it sit until nearly dry and then used clippers to cut pieces to size. I also used air-dry clay, but went with the side of a coffee stirrer to make pieces, ripping them across from the indentation left by the stirrer. Different method, same results. I added bits of rock to simulate stones holding the cloth roof in place. I used a scalpel and a coffee stirrer to make some rips and the like in the roof. I think it will look good, but paint will be needed to proof me right. 

Quinoa makes for wonderful rivets. I'm also still quite fond of my door handle technique. It just looks convincing (as far as I'm concerned).

The second shack featured slightly more balsa wood to simulate different sizes of planking. I found an old metal chariot wheel I'll be using to decorate this building. With a bit of sadness I've abandoned my search for the Dwarven tools I got with an old Ral Partha Kickstarter. I suspect I'll find those after I've completed these buildings. On the right side of this picture you can see that I found the last few Renedra Plastics barrels. I'll be adding a few of these to the final buildings. 

Never throw away old bits, especially not wagon wheels. Making spokes by hand is hard and unspoked wheels just look impractical. 

The most obvious difference between this building and most of my Townscape is the rooftop. I've used 1mm cardboard to simulate metal roof plates. I found them a bit too flat and boring for my liking so I took more quinoa seeds and added thick rivets to the plates. Now that looks like proper bit of over the top Dwarven field engineering ("None of that fancy Karak-stuff here, we just make sure it sticks together.") 

I almost sold this Dwarf (for silly money) luckily the prospective buyer was unwilling to part with that amount. Now it'll be in my collection forever :D.

Last, but certainly not least I added a few rocks to the mine cart. It looks a lot more interesting now that it actually contains something. I also picked up a Dwarf and set it up behind the cart to check scale (great timing halfway through the build *cough* *cough*).  Now that works properly if you ask me (note to self: do not mention the flop sweat here). Next up I'll have to cut two MDF bases to size for the shacks. Add even more sand and then I can start painting everything. It also means I really have to make a decision soon whether it'll be a Dwarven mine or an old Dwarven mine taken over by Skaven. The one other major change to the original White Dwarf plans I'm reasonably set on is that I'm going to make it a lot greener. More grass and more shrubs on the hill. Mostly because I like the look of that honest, but also because it'll tie in easier with the rest of my scenery (that's also green because I like the look it).