Dark Age Buildings for 28mm wargaming- Part 1

Hey, so for this post I'll be showing some of the buildings I've been working on for my 28mm dark ages wargames. 

Theyre a mix of wattle & daub, log and thatch buildings made to represent scandinavian buildings from around 900AD

Unfortunately I hadn't taken any pics of the work in progress to get to the stage the models are at in the first pictures, but I'll cover them in a later post :)

Both the main shell of the buildings and the bases are made form 5mm foamboard. 

These are actually scraps left over from my brother's Warhammer 40,000 bunker set he sells at Famous Gaming (check him out!) but can be bought at most craft and modelling stores. They're cheap enough online too.

The building is a gable ended long house with vertical sides at about the same height as a figure. The door may look small, but you wouldn't want big doors in the freezing north! I added some beams to the roof for support and to give it a more scandinavian feel. The card on the foamboard was peeled off so a rough plank pattern could be ethed in around the model.

This is the equipment and materials needed for the roofing: hot glue gun, scissors, scourer pad without sponge and a building without a roof

The scourer sheets were 4 for 99p in a local discount store- a great bargain and addition to any scenery maker's workshop! These ones were thick enough to be peeled in half to allow for extra layers and wispy bits to create realistic clumps. Also helped to fill all the pesky holes.

I cut the sponge into strips just about an inch and a half x the length of the sponge, which happened to be roughly the same width of the building. Give them a it of rough treatment to ruffle the edges and give them a more natural look.

  Then add hot glue to the vertical side and the cross beams and layer on the scourer trips. Once both sides were layered and dry, I thought it looked like it needed some kind of ridge beam to contain the thatch so I added a few spare foamboard rods and chopped into them a bit to turn them into planks.

Added a few more tufts here and there to give it a wilder look, some gaps will be filled later with a pva and fluff coating.

Ready for painting and a PVA wash to keep all the fluff in place.

This is a triangular house. Judging by a few sources these seemed a popular structure in the dark ages, as people would store their possessions in the corners and then sleep up against them. Would also be a good foodstore.

I began trying to thatch it with the tufts cut form the shower scrubber used in the crop field build- What a ballache! Definately worth switching to the scourers!

I proceeded to cover the building in layers in the same way as the first building, adding extra fluff to fill gaps. 

Finally, this is the beginning of a corral or vegetable patch to go with the buildings. Its just a section of 5mm foamboard, cut with a bevel edge and some cocktail sticks chopped and hot glued in. Soon to be based and either filled with modelled veg or some pigs. On the hunt for some cheap small farmyard animals!