Now that the Wizard's Tower is finally finished I am moving on to some of the other scenario specific terrain pieces. My aim is to keep most of these pieces generic enough that they can be used for other games, as well as non-scenario Frostgrave games too.
The Mausoleum is a six inch square building with doors, or in this case, "exit points" on all four sides. Most mausoleums I know of only need one entrance (how many doors do they really need), so to make this work I decided that the side entrances could be either drains or skylights, built into the base of the building.
I also wanted a monumental look for the the building and so I decided there should be a platform and columns on the front. Finding the columns proved trickier than I first intended. I have used wedding cake columns before, but I couldn't get hold of any locally, so I was considering using pieces of dowel and working them up from there. Fortunately, a colleague at work suggest I 3D print them and with a quick hunt around I found some nice fluted columns and Corinthian capitals to sit on top of them. I scaled them and then printed 4 of each.
Time to start building.
As I mentioned, back at the beginning of this project, I am basing the buildings on 200mm square MDF bases. I sanded down the edges to merge with the table and this was just right for the 6" square building.
Firstly I cut a 25mm slab of polystyrene.
I marked the polystyrene with a line for where the front wall will sit. In front of that will be a set of stairs and the columns. The green square at the front is where the stairs will be cut into.
I used a hot wire cutter to cut a cube of polystyrene out. I then cut the steps into the cube and glued it back in place.
To differentiate between the floor inside and outside I scored into the polystyrene to give a flagstone effect inside the mausoleum. This is about as far as i can go with the plinth that the building stands on. Time to look at the walls.
The height of the walls has to be matched to the height of the columns. This is a little higher than I would like, but it does make for an imposing building.
I cut four pieces of 5mm foamcore overlapping the edges to the foam. In the front and the back i cut doorways. 50mm x 30mm for the front door and 40mm x 20mm for the rear door. I will need to add an external stair at the back, but that can wait until later.
To make access to the model easier during construction I have left the columns off of the model. I have added a first layer of the roof. This hides the top of the foamcore and will give structural support for the columns once they are fixed in place. I will build the roof separately so that there will still be access to the interior.
The next stage is to start adding some detail to the exterior of the building...
Nice.
ReplyDeleteTony