Under Construction

I decided I wanted some ruins for my 1:1 games and although I considered buying some Form Tech ruins I found on eBay, expenses for attending (and being in) my friend's wedding in a few months caused me to reconsider. Certainly, making ruins must be easier than making complete houses? For one, you don't have the hassle of having to make sure all the walls and roof line up just right.

So, with a few bits of foamboard, I set about making the first ruin in about 15 years (when I first started gaming, I used cardboard, roughly hacked, and soaked with watered down black). It's still a work in progress - but I am pleased at how it is coming together. It is decidedly more "realistic" looking than my usual efforts, but nothing remotely complicated. 

Other than foamboard, there's a bunch of small rocks/gravel bits that I picked up in the flower arranging section of Michael's (a craft supply store here in the U.S.). The whole thing was glued together with a hot glue gun. I don't know why I suffered through regular glue for the last build I posted. Hot glue all the way!

All of the paint I used is Delta Ceramcoat - a craft paint that is not as widely available as I'd like in local stores!

I had meant to document all of the steps but that didn't happen. So, instead, here's the building after the first coat of paint was applied. 

The grey doesn't look bad on its own but I have plans.

The floor has been "etched" with a blunt sculpting tool and painted with a thinned Raw Sienna. The walls and rubble have been dry brushed (well almost dry brushed - it was a little wetter than that) Hippo Grey. 

Once the grey dried, I dry brushed with Raw Sienna over the grey. This time it was more of a true dry brush. The whole building began to look more like it was made of stone or had water stains or something. However, I didn't get any shots of the building in this state, because I went right on to dry brushing with Bridgeport Grey.

I like this picture. I think it looks better here than it does in-person!

This turned out to be a tedious process and I sometimes have a life outside of gaming related activities, so I didn't quite finish this step.

You can see the Raw Sienna without the Bridgeport Grey on the left.

My plan, which I mentioned ever so quickly above, is to go for something that will evoke ruins in Italy. Next up is to dry brush with offwhite and then a closer-to-white off-white, all the while leaving some of the more rock like stuff to show here and there.

At least that's the idea - we'll see how it comes out when I get there.