Cardboard Buildings

Make Your own buildings, cheap, easy and qick. [but forget about reliefs, fountains etc.]
I know, that turning piece of cardboard into building isn't something horribly hard... but i think there are some tips everyone could use.
at the beginning.

you can build anything, but remember- a building you wish to put any minis inside should be easy to access. I use ruins with 2 or 3 walls only to have point for interferences... and to determine the LOS. And also put less than half of area under any type of celling.


1. on piece of clean [it really helps ] cardboard i make few horizontal lines:
To imitate a civillian buildings i use 4 lines to mark every floor:

*ground line
*line marking a bottom of the windows [2cm above ground line]
*line marking the top of the windows [5cm above ground line]
*ceiling line [6cm above ground line]
*next floor ground line put ab. 0,5 cm higher.
of course industrial buildings will have ceilings higher, less windows...

you can make as high building as you want... but i must say it- i made few 5-6 floors high buildings... and no miniature EVER go higher than into 2nd floor. It looks nice but is tactically useless.
Also is nice idea to glue some metal plate into floor to make them more stable

2. windows: at such prepared wall make vertical lines: width i leave to your personal sence of harmony and geometry. I make 3 to 2,5, with 2 cm spaces between...
usually.

places that you managed to be windows mark in any way. When you're making same huge building its easy to get confused. work smart, not hard.

2.5 If You want to make kind of ruins- take a pen or something and make some irregular lines- thet will be your edge-line. Don't worry if it go through the window! it's OK.


3. simply cut off the windows [or doors] and through the edge mentioned at 2.5.


4. put the walls tohether [they can be fitted... but don't must ], glue additional floors.

I use a painting tape, because it's a lot easier to paint it later.
I also use it also around the edges - it looks a lot better... and take the most time

5. to make the surface more rough i use PVC glue... or wood glue.

just spread a thin layer over the whole wall bu scrap of cardboard [ex-window area for example] and leave to dry.
If You put too much glue and wall looks like melting... just paint the chaos symbols at the end

6. glue additional elements like rubble or boards.


7. paint it. I use black spray to layer everything, then drybrush over the walls by grey paint with large brush, just to exposure the uneven surface. Details painted with smaller brush.


8. The posters I glued I Take from GW supplies… can’t remember from where exatcly, but i throw it HERE


and small reqest for moderators... make a little revision of my crappy english, it's 2 at night and i KNOW there will be a lot of mistakes...

Somehow I missed this!

This is great for those tyring to get their own terrain.

Thanks for sharing.

Keep us posted on any other ideas.

Dude this is awesome! Certainly doesn't look like cardboard when it's finished!
Makes me wish I had some cardboard laying around...only thing I have is foamboard, so I may attack a sheet of that & follow your guide tomorrow!

I've made a few buildings similar int he past; but they were only single story, no windows...etc lol
I've got a WIP building from the 40k rulebook...started it a few weeks ago but not got around to finishing it yet! Maybe I should finish that before starting other things...but, this is, so cool!

hehehehe... you know, taking a 2nd look...

See if you can make a checkered floor to 'break' the floors visually. Anyhow, your work is amazing!

WOW....love the simple constructions techniques......

I once knew a guy who could literally take anything lying around the house and turn it into a piece of terrain.....sadly....he has moved onto the 3d realm of video game design......

Excellent work!

P.S.........don't salamanders have almost charcoal black skin? Had something to do with how the geneseed effected the pigmentation of each member....

they had... and mines had it too... about 2 weeks. i couldn't look at them this way they look more Aryan

DoZer wrote:

P.S.........don't salamanders have almost charcoal black skin? Had something to do with how the geneseed effected the pigmentation of each member....

How the hell you know that? Dude... Get a life!


PS: "Get a life!"... coming from the guy who wakes up at 3am with the thought "Ohh... gotta check the forum, finish checking the CC and Kroot, read advancements on the FiCQ and Adeptus Arbites AND the make the list for the items for his Prisoner Exchange! I need a life...

You can get molded sheets of styrene thats meant to be for model railways, if the checkering didn't turn out well, pieces of that could look good as the flooring maybe...
Even if it wasn't entirely covered with the sheeting, just patches of the floor

Great tutorial,thanks .

I actually prefer the card buildings to the plastic store bought stuff. It's a lot like the super graphics on the new video games. At first you are impressed at how great it looks. But after five minutes of playing, you completely forget about how pretty it is and concern yourself on how good the game plays. Plus, now you aren't out $100. I like to use the foam board with paper on either side. You can use sewing pins to reinforce them and it come in black so you don't have to prime it. A quick gray drybrush, and it has a pre fab look to it.