Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 28 October 2013

Brickwork and Walls

So as part of my next model project I needed a perimeter wall, I've been experimenting with mesh fences but have gone instead with more brickwork, after my demolition site model.demolition-site model. As an interim blog "filler" here's a brief explanation of how I do my walls.
I needed 3 long walls and several shorter walls for this model and used three bits of scrap foamcard for them.
The walls have to show brickwork on both sides so I've used two pieces of wall glued back-to back.
The internal wall measures 20mm high whilst the outside measurement is 25mm as the outside wall will butt onto the 5mm base of the model whilst the inside wall will sit on top of the base.
The photo above shows the basic wall uncut from the foamboard. I've measured off the walls in 5mm strips horizontally and then sliced through the top layer of card with a scalpel.
Next I ran a very sharp pencil through the scalpel cut to get a rough deep channel through the foam.
The white squares will be the caps of the corner stones.
The final stage, after making 1cm  marks across the top of the sheet, was to pierce the top layer of each alternate strip vertically down through the top card layer and into the foam below, using a larger, blunt craft knife and then repeat for the un-pierced layer, making the brick pattern. This method gives the typical stretcher bond (the way the bricks are arranged) that we associate with a brick wall.
The long walls are about 14" long (350mm) and the short ones were cut to fit as necessary.
I also wanted to make corner posts, rather than have to rabbet the wall corners together and needed another large section of walling with a height of 35mm and a footprint of 25mm so they would stand out. (These corner pieces were a pain to put together).
It may sound like it would take an absolute age to cut, slice and form the individual bricks, but it really took no more than a couple of hours.
The bricks are of course over-sized; in reality to a scale of 1:60 (30mm represents 6 foot) these bricks would be 2 foot long and 1 foot thick and would be OK for stonework, but making anything smaller is beyond my meagre capabilities.

This model is well on the way to being completed and I'll be posting more about it next week, but it is currently only one of several other projects I'm working on, including the features that the walls will surround.

That's it for this week and yet again I must say welcome to my latest followers "Fred Jackson" and "Zombie Ad". I hope both of you and my regular followers find something here of interest.

Finally, as always, your comments are both welcomed and appreciated.

24 comments:

  1. I'm gonna have try my hand at making some walls. Very helpful info!

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    1. Thanks "Wolfie", tmy method may not be the best but it gives the right effect imo.

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  2. That's good work and a great idea!

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  3. Yet more good stuff, Joe. Nice work.

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    1. Thanks Bryan and it does feel like work at times !

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  4. Damn neat, yep I agree with your working, good stuff.

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  5. I imagine that cutting the brick pattern was quite time-consuming? Still, it'll look good :-) .

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    1. I probably spend as much time measuring as doing the bricks
      I'd avoid the whole thing if I could.

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    1. Thanks LW, it just shows I wargame on a shoestring !

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  7. Great tutorial. I wish I had your knack for making terrain.

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    1. Thanks Brummie, you do have the knack, you just don't know it yet.

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    1. Thanks David, how helpful it'll be to most people id probably debatable.

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  9. They certainly look the part, great recycling Sir.

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    1. Thanks Michael and nicely put - recycling indeed !

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  10. I can imagine the time spent making the "bricks". I appreciate the patience you must have. I think I would struggle to do so well and just buy some embossed plasticard. Nice work Jo I look forward to see the next step.

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    1. Thanks Clint, but embossed plasticard is obviously the way to go, but at least this gives me something to do. Cutting the verticals for the bricks was quite theraputic, not unlike knitting I guess and didn't take more than a hour.

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  11. Brick are always tedious, but those look great. Have you thought about peeling off the card layer? It exposes the soft foam core, and that you can score mortar lines in with a pencil. Downside is its soft, so it needs sealing. I also made a "brick tool" by rectangling a brass tube. When you press it in to something it embosses a brick shape. By doing a few bricks here and a few there, it gives the illusion of a brick wall without all the work.

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    1. Hi PS, yep brick can be tedious. I have actually peeled off the card in previous attempts but as you say the after prodcut needs sealing and I also found that the resultant bricks seemed huge and my current brick efforts are big enough. I have actually used the peeld off method for the next part of this build though. In my early scratchbuilds I used the "random bricks here and there" on several models (using very thin card), but was never satisfied with the overall result.

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  12. These look great and re: the scale front, that's what matters for gaming terrain, if it looks right, it works!

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    1. Thanks ZA; I'm with you on the scale front matter too, besides I can't do smaller.

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