Building the Market Hall

My Market Hall has already been seen here on Last Chance War as part of the Still Water scenario but I thought it might be interesting to look at the process of building it in the first place.

It was a long job that took quite bit of commitment and involved a long break in the middle when I couldn't be bothered to finish it.

The base was made from two pieces of foam board, one cut slightly smaller than the other to create a step up. I then drew a grid on the upper layer and scored along each line to make flagstones. At the corners of each flagstone I pressed down with the tip of a Stanley knife to make a little dip.

I used plastic cake pillars to support the upper structure. Originally these were much narrower wooden struts but they looked a bit amateurish so I dumped them. You'll notice on the picture that there are little squares of paper glued over some of the foam board squares. This was to cover the scar left when I pulled off the more numerous wooden pillars.

The staircase is shown here. It's basically cereal box card with balsa wood (bought from a model shop). I scored every piece of wood with my knife to give more natural texture. The door was carefully scaled to a Games Workshop door and made from balsa wood too.

The main body of the building was made from stiff card. I held the joints in place using pins while the glue dried then added balsa wood timber framing all round. The windows are made by cutting wire mesh into rectangles and gluing a frame round them so that they look like that nice leaded window effect you see sometimes.

When all the wood was done I used multi-purpose powdered filler to add texture to the walls (otherwise they'd have been too smooth).

The roof was made from overlapping strips of corrugated card I bought from Hobbycraft over the top of a bit of pizza box. I bent over the each end so that it would look a bit more ornate and old-fashioned. At this time I also added a tower. I felt it was a bit low, long and flat without it, although for the entire time I was building the tower I worried it didn't look so good.

I made the tower from foam board and used the same techniques as the main part for the walls and windows. The roof was made to be uneven with a gentler slope on one side. I also added an extra kink to make it look more interesting.

The trickiest part was the roof shutters. I wanted these to be opening and closing. I made the shutter and glued a piece of paper underneath it that stuck out almost the same length again. I folded the paper over underneath it and glued it into the shutter cavity under a piece of black card. That made a sort of hinge. I prop them open with half matchsticks but if they are removed the shutters close.

I wanted to go for a subdued naturalistic colour scheme so I used dark browns and dull creams. The red roof tiles match in with all my other buildings to give a unified look.

It's a bit of a monster but I think I like it. And it certainly dominates the battlefield!