2500kgm3's Gothic scenery - Sentry tower and other deviations

[2500kgm3]

Hi, everybody. Maybe some of you remember me from other forums. I have finally decided to settle here in Warseer too to show my work to even more people.

Some time ago, I designed a building out of cardboard:





Unfortunately, I was not satisfied with the level of detail, so I decided to buidl a better version, which will be bigger, and much mpre detailed, with more elaborate geometry, and with the posibility to move miniatures through it easily.


The temple would be composed of modular pieces, dozens and dozens of them. There would be about 35 types of pieces (gates, full walls, windows...) and they will be designed to be modular and interchangeable. I am building one single piece of each type, giving it enough detail, and then I will copy it in resin, to get the ammount of pieces needed for the full temple.


Since mould materials for resin are quite expensive, I have started by creating just 10-12 types of pieces. These are not enough in any way to create a full cathedral, but will be enough to build a Bastion style building for my marines.

I have worked hard on this project, and I have it in a very advanced stage. However, I would like to show you the full voyage, from start to finish, so I will start from the very beginning and try to catch up with the current events as soon as possible.



Here, you can see the first piece I built. Each piece will have different details on each face, to allow for some variety.

[2500kgm3]

Here is the cardboard base for the next piece! I still need to sculpt the detail on it, of course.

[nedius]

wow.....

Just wow.

I've never seen card used to create such detailed models. Plasticard, resin.. yes. Card? No!

Very, very impressive!!

[2500kgm3]

Here is the start of the first modelling in this piece. The ornaments are supposed to resemble long lost heroes and myths, therefore I avoided explicit power armour or such iconography, since these figures' real identity and appaerance would be lost in the past:

wow.....

Just wow.

I've never seen card used to create such detailed models. Plasticard, resin.. yes. Card? No!

Very, very impressive!!

I got a refund at a stationer's so I got a bunch of cardboard. After a year of it sitting on my house with no purpouse, I decided I could do something cool with it xD

[Nkari]

ok man, now all you need to get is a resin kit and start to crank out copys of those for us who want them.. letting you earn some money in the process.. :P

[2500kgm3]

That's the plan. Sculpting all walls one after another would be a nightmare. Moulds would cost me a lot of money, however.

Here is the result of sculpting on that piece!


I am thinking I should also create an alternative piece with windows, based on this one, just by getting rid of the big human-like sculptures.


Due to the height of the window sill, tanks would be able to shoot through these windows, while infantry would not, just to provide a different challenge on the battlefield.

[2500kgm3]

And here you have got the other side of that piece, so there is some variety when the tower is assembled. Do you think it is coherent enough, while still being different? or is it too similar?

[FluffyGoat]

They look like different wall sections of the same building, which I think is what you want from it, so no, not too similar

It really does look amazing, looks like what the Forgeworld version of some of the 40k building kits would look like.

If the cost of the moulding is the bottleneck for you, you might consider figuring out the costs for creating a set of moulds that would satisfy your basic vision and then set up a Kickstarter/similar site project based on that. And if enough interest is drummed up, the stretch goal system is exactly what you need for expanding that basic kit.

I at least would be very interested in such a project and I think the quality of your sculpts more than warrant a stab at crow funding

[2500kgm3]

Here you can see the next piece in line, a single storey wall:








I think it works well as a window to let light inside the building, but I doubt it will look good as a piece to take cover behind. Therefore, I am working on a replacement for it which I find more suitable for that role. In this piece, marines would be able to duck behind cover instead of trying to squeeze themselves behind a tiny pillar... Which would be quite comical, by the way. The brownstuff detailing is still missing, as you can see.

They look like different wall sections of the same building, which I think is what you want from it, so no, not too similar

It really does look amazing, looks like what the Forgeworld version of some of the 40k building kits would look like.

If the cost of the moulding is the bottleneck for you, you might consider figuring out the costs for creating a set of moulds that would satisfy your basic vision and then set up a Kickstarter/similar site project based on that. And if enough interest is drummed up, the stretch goal system is exactly what you need for expanding that basic kit.

I at least would be very interested in such a project and I think the quality of your sculpts more than warrant a stab at crow funding

Thanks for the feedback. Wow, I did not think I would be ever compared to Forgeworld!

I would not use a crowfunding site, since I am not confident enough of being capable of doing good moulds on the first try. It would not be ethical to experiment with someone else's money.

[Little Joe]

Stunning stuff with paper.

[2500kgm3]

Every storey needs a floor! This floor supports a full 10 man squad without any problems, or even a 5x5 infantry formation from Warhammer Fantasy Battles.

Stunning stuff with paper.

Tanks!

[Shadey]

I hope your masters are strong enough to survive the moulding process, I heard it isn't gentle.

I think your best bet would be to try creating a mould before you make a whole set of masters to see if the card will hold up or if something like plasticard would work better.

Excellent sculpting btw, and the design is very good too.

Have you considered having columns between each panel? The column would be for example, octagonal. This would let you butt the panels up against them flush and allow you to use them as corners, turning 90 degrees, or 45 or whatever you need depending on which column face you place the next panel. The outside face would also give you a facing to put buttresses on.

I'm keen to see some of your casts.

Finally, did you post this topic elsewhere on another site? The photos are really familiar, I swear I saw them months ago.

[Erazmus_M_Wattle]

Before you mould them make sure you seal them very well or the rubber will soak in and bond with them. It might sound like I'm treating you like a muppet but it's crazy the things you overlook when you are desperate to see your model in final resin format.

If you use tin cure silicone then pva glue would be okay for the job but with platinum cure it inhibits the curing. The surface in contact with the glue will literally never ever cure. Or maybe I got that the wrong way round. Either way it's important to seal your card.

I'm very impressed with what you've made just using card stock. The Walls all look great. I'd certainly be interested in buying your Walls off you.

[2500kgm3]

All gothic structure need buttresses! so let's have some! I have worked on several wall sections, sculpting was still pending at this stage.

Have you considered having columns between each panel? The column would be for example, octagonal. This would let you butt the panels up against them flush and allow you to use them as corners, turning 90 degrees, or 45 or whatever you need depending on which column face you place the next panel. The outside face would also give you a facing to put buttresses on.

I'm keen to see some of your casts.

Finally, did you post this topic elsewhere on another site? The photos are really familiar, I swear I saw them months ago.

There will be indeed octogonal columns among the wall piece. The column pieces will have the four diagonal sides sculpted too, with additional detail, so these will only allow you to create 90 degree turns. The length of the wall pieces would need to be different for any wall at 45 degrees, which is not worth the effort, currently.

And yes, I posted this topic on another site. As I said at the very first post on this thread, I have this project at a quite advanced stage, but I had never posted on Warseer before. I wanted to show my work there, but I also wanted to show the whole process from the very beginning. Therefore, I am posting at a very fast pace, in order to reach the current stage of the project as soon as possible.

Before you mould them make sure you seal them very well or the rubber will soak in and bond with them. It might sound like I'm treating you like a muppet but it's crazy the things you overlook when you are desperate to see your model in final resin format.

If you use tin cure silicone then pva glue would be okay for the job but with platinum cure it inhibits the curing. The surface in contact with the glue will literally never ever cure. Or maybe I got that the wrong way round. Either way it's important to seal your card.

I'm very impressed with what you've made just using card stock. The Walls all look great. I'd certainly be interested in buying your Walls off you.

I have made some tests, and yes, some original pieces were destroyed by the casting process, even after soaking them with pva glue. Fortunately, the mould itself came out fine. I might be open to selling some casts, if someone is interested, in order to recover some of the money I would spend on silicon.

[2500kgm3]

On this stage, I finished the cardboard base for all the pieces I need for this first "Pack" I am creating, since I need to stop building masters at some point, and start casting xD (I am still thinking about making a stairway piece, but I feel If I start building that, I will finish even later!)


In total, I needed four new pieces: The arc, One storey wall without windows, One storey wall with windows, and a two storey wall with windows.


I started "cleaning" and tidying up the pieces with putty, in order to avoid recesses that could be problematic for the silicon when I cast the pieces. It is a very tiresome process, but it is essential to do before sculpting starts.


Anyway, I am going to show you these four new pieces, one on top of another as if it was a tall tower (even if the arc at the top has nothing to do there xD). Sculpting is still missing, of course.

[Dannage]

Given you are working with cardboard, this stuff is amazing, though the wall sections are superior to your tiled floor, all of it is pretty great. You may want to consider starting small, to see if the interest is there. Make a much smaller modula piece, and then see if you can make casts of that and see if people buy them. You can keep selling those bits until they make you enough money to fund building another piece, which you then add to the selling collection and so on and so on. It's how I'm going to do it when I start up.... eventually...

[2500kgm3]

Here are two of the last four pieces I need for the modular tower. Both are really similar in both faces, so I am only showing you one face for each piece.








The last piece I will work on will be the windowless one storey piece.


I have thought about creating a "stairs" piece to be able to create a complex building or fortress. I find that would be great, and not that much of a problem. These are yet to be designed, however, and would require even more silicon. Maybe I could work on it as the first piece I work after the first pieces are casted. Maybe an "open door" piece would be great as well.

Given you are working with cardboard, this stuff is amazing, though the wall sections are superior to your tiled floor, all of it is pretty great. You may want to consider starting small, to see if the interest is there. Make a much smaller modula piece, and then see if you can make casts of that and see if people buy them. You can keep selling those bits until they make you enough money to fund building another piece, which you then add to the selling collection and so on and so on. It's how I'm going to do it when I start up.... eventually...

I would love to make all the pieces required to build a full cathedral spanning the whole board. That's my dream table. However, I will settle on a bastion-like structure for the time being. Creating the moulds costs a lot of money, but I need a range of pieces large enough to create a full building, if I wish to have functional scenery. I will sell any excess pieces I cast as Gothic Tower kits.

[2500kgm3]

I finally managed to finish another piece. This had more work going for it, but the next (and last) one will be harder to sculpt.


here are the pics of the piece. I am kinda fond of this one, since the windows prevent line of sight from infantry, but turret mounted weapons in tanks would be able to shoot through them.

[Daniel36]

Amazing! My mother's uncle used to make buildings out of cardboard as well. I kept one piece for a while, because it was cool, but ended up giving it away because I didn't have time to do anything with it.

This really reminded me of that. Good times.

Good luck on everything, you are really talented.

[2500kgm3]

Finally, I can show you the last piece I will sculpt before I try to produce the first terrain set. After that, I will have to make the moulds for all the other pieces and create copies.


One face of it has been already finished, while the other one is designed. I am not too fond of the lack of movement of the sculpted side, so I will go for more movement on the opposite one.








That is the last thing I would have to sculpt to finish the first batch of pieces and I can't believe this phase is finally coming to an end!

Amazing! My mother's uncle used to make buildings out of cardboard as well. I kept one piece for a while, because it was cool, but ended up giving it away because I didn't have time to do anything with it.

This really reminded me of that. Good times.

Good luck on everything, you are really talented.

Thanks a lot!