Cabin In The Woods - Making A Balsa Wood House

 For a change of pace, I wanted to put my hobby time towards something else, other than painting...
Its arts and crafts time here on the blog!
I broke out a steel ruler, a new sharp x-acto blade and some balsa wood.
Here is my attempt at scratch building a medieval style house.
I only had one balsa wood panel though!
Which means I didnt have enough wood to build a 2 storey Tudor house like I wanted.
So, its a ranch style house then...

Here is my humble little house with the roof off.
Next time I think I will use bass wood instead, balsa is just too soft.
So turns out, maybe Im lucky that I only had one balsa wood panel.

The interior.
The roof will be removeable, so minis can be hidden inside.

The front door gives me a Evil Dead cabin flashback.
The wood timber frames are long balsa strips.
Thank Sigmar this exists, I would die if I had to cut those out by hand.
The door however, I cut irregular shapes out of to make it look more realistic and uneven.

The back of the house.

With the roof on.
I still need to get some cardboard off a cereal box to make shingles for the roof.

The window sill is great for putting pies on.
Or maybe its a drive thru window! 

The door handle is the opposite end of a paint brush.
I couldnt find a dowel anywhere, so had to improvise.

And here we have the completed house, with shingles and a gritty paintjob.

Im thinking this house is going to be used for Bree.
Sigh.
Breeland campaign here we come!
Painting assets are being relocated to some vintage Citadel humans.
The ones I have predate the Empire/Bretonnia distinction, I think.
Raise the army of Breeland!

Which means, the "Return to Moria" campaign will have to wait a bit...

Yup, if I can build one house, I can build a village!
Funny, how one balsa wood strip can derail the Moria storyline.
But thats how fickle the dice gods and the terrain making impulses are.

With the Shire campaign a bust for the allies, perhaps the humans at Bree will be more successful at fighting off the hordes of evil...


~~~~~


Sure, anyone can buy buildings from Pegasus or GW, but there is something special about making them yourself.
They might not look as good as Ziterdes or Tabletop World, but they will be uniquely your own.
And the scratch building thing is definitely more Oldhammer-y than buying commercially available terrain.

But, be warned, it was time consuming!
Time of construction was at least 4 hours.
But now that I know what Im doing, the next ones will be faster, or should be.

Also, I very much enjoyed every minute of constructing it.

Its yet another very rewarding addiction to add to any hobbyist's list of addictions...
Sorry if this inspires new potential fantasy architects out there!  ;p

Cheers,
Mar