Living in a Box

For the last post in ‘Buildings’ month here at the Buffet, we will be looking at the final, and probably most common type of building, what I like to refer to as the Shoebox. Basically, this type of building is a hollow shell with integral floor and removable roof, to allow access to the interior – exactly like a shoebox. To illustrate this type of building, we will be using my scratch-built ‘bar’, which when we last saw it, looked like this;

Previously owned by a gentleman of Polish extraction, who ran the place as a bar, this particular property stood empty for a number of months, until recently purchased by Harry Valentine, owner of the restaurant chain Cupid Burgers. Repairs have been made and the initial company livery applied to the shell. The contractors still need to install the doors, complete the interior and add the signage and fibre-glass “Cupid” mascot…

So, the walls of this particular building are made from a single piece of foamcard, with the corners mitred. This results in stronger walls, as the exterior is a single strip of card, and all the walls are attached to this, rather than individuals ‘walls’. The windows and door holes were cut out whilst the strip was still flat.

Once glued into the exterior shell shape, this was mounted onto the base, which was made from a piece of self-adhesive vinyl floor tile, sticky side up. The advantage of doing this is that you don’t need to glue the walls in place, as the glue is already there and as it’s designed to stick the tile to the floor, its pretty strong. However, the disadvantage is that the parts of the base where the wall isn’t attached are sticky, so need to be covered with something or they’ll attract dust, cat hairs, etc. A quick coat of paint or a piece of card cut to the right size can solve this issue.

As the external walls were a bit too smooth for my liking, I decided to clad them with sandpaper, to create texture and give the impression of stucco walls. Next, the window and door holes were lined with lengths of wooden coffee stirrers to create window frames and doorjambs, with additional lengths of coffee stirrer used to create the external half-timbering.

The drainpipe was made using the internal plastic tube from a ballpoint pen, cut to the relevant length and shape, with the end bent. And when you remove the ‘roof’, this is what the inside currently looks like;

Here’s a close up of the drainpipe and details of the textured wall;

The roof was made from a further piece of foamcard, with the roof edge created using ‘hobby wood’ and the roof texture created using a further piece of self-adhesive vinyl floor tile, which had the added advantage of giving the roof some heft. A plastic generator from a G.I. Joe action figure was then added to the roof, as it looked like an air conditioning unit.

And then Batman showed up, as he does…

Apparently, he’s quite partial to Cupid Burgers and had heard there was a new restaurant opening soon.  However, as they’d not actually finished the installation, whilst Alfred had provided him with his lunch money in his Bat-Purse, he couldn’t actually buy his favourite Cupid Burger – the Big Eros. Looks like he’s not too happy about it…

Luckily, Bats heard a scream in the alley behind the restaurant – “No Cupid Burger for Bruce!” he snarled, “Someone’s about to enter…A…World…Of…Pain!!”

For a more comprehensive guide to making foamboard buildings, check out this playlist from The Terrain Tutor – Mel knows his stuff and is a very entertaining host.

As most of you should now be aware, June is;

month, where myself and some of those within my blogging circle are creating 28mm versions of superheroes or villains that have yet to have a figure made of them or have, but it wasn’t very good. There is still time to join in, all you need to do is visit the ‘official’ site here, and make a comment on their stating your intention to take part. Even if you haven’t got a blog, Roger (who set up this site) has taken it upon himself to post entries from non-bloggers, details of which can be found in the ‘Contact’ section of the site. Some of those who’ve expressed an interest have yet to formally ‘register’ (such as Vampifan…tsk, tsk!) so if you haven’t done so yet, go and do so!

As this particular project will involve the conversion of a quite a few Heroclix figures, if you prefer them in their unaltered state, I would suggest you take a look at the latest post on the All Things Dungeon Crawl blog, which features a comprehensive overview of the Heroclix brand and a rather interesting batrep.

That’s all for this month – join me next week, when I will be taking a selection of cheap Heroclix singles and attempting to turn them into completely different heroes!