Inspiration

• Watching a whole bunch of crafting vids on YouTube, wanting to make any kind of house.

Howto

So to build this I used a bunch of fat Balsa wood beams, these are very easy to cut. Also used foamboard (without any paper attached) to make the floor and walls. I don’t think it’s normal to make a floor tile like this to go along with your building? However I wanted an open shed, so added the floor for stability.

1. Floor
   I started out with a floor tile. For those I use 3-mm foamboard and glue it to some plastic sheet for extra stability. Then I cut the brick pattern. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to seal that and so when I primed it the whole floor kinda melted a bit. It’s still ok but it did look nicer before. So make sure you seal off foam before spraying it with primer or finish. And when you do spray, do be patient and go for thin layers, that should also help. Paint grey.

2. Beams
   So cut your Balsa beams to shape. Also maybe cut off some of the corners to make them look hewn. Use a wire brush to add some wooden texture. The middle beams are glued onto the foamboard after that was added. Wood too should be sealed, since it can drink up your paint like a thirsty Viking warrior lady. Paint brown.

3. Walls
   Cut 3-mm foamboard into shape. If it isn’t perfect and you get some gaps between the wall and the beams, it doesn’t matter so much. After the glue is dry, I used Vallejo white stone texture paste to achieve the plastered look which I like very much. Also you can use the texture paste to fill in any gaps that you are unhappy about. Seal with mod podge and paint with an off white, then use some sepia wash to get that aged look.

4. Roof
   Ah, shingles. Like bricks, they are good fun laying out but no fun at all during the prep stage. You will need to prep a bunch of these. So you know how they’re selling these ice cream sticks everywhere nowadays, even in the Supa? Yeah, those. Choose a size fitting your building and go to work. You need to cut off the round edges of these. Since they are some sort of hardwood, not Balsa, that is no fun. I used a big old wire cutter to do it but still. No fun. Make some flat beams from Balsa and glue them on sideways; these are for holding the shingles, so do try it out before glueing. Once that is all dry, you just lay the shingles row by row, starting at the bottom. For paint, I used a weird variety that looks better than you’d expect. Yellow, orange, red. The trick is using a wash to finish this off.

5. Painting
   With this one, I finished all the construction first, then painted. Might have mentioned this, but you should start out with a mod podge (or similar) seal. Then prime black. Paint the parts and add some dark wash at the end to make it all come together. Add some flocking and grass to the corners. I used a blueish green flock and put some yellow ink on top, which makes for a very nice green in the end. Once you are satisfied, finish and play. ^-^ This shed makes sense as a small stable or something like that. However, I added a scriptorum because that makes the least sense and I did take a holy oath. ^^.