I went down to the LHS the other day to see if the remaining parts for my kitbash project were in - and they weren't. ALl was not lost, though - I picked up this kit of houses from Grandt line. I have been eyeballing this kit for years as these should be perfect little houses for a mining town. There are a few options when building these houses, but I will only use the pieces that are in the kit, and will not do any cutting or splicing of the walls. So, I guess that means I am in for the kitbuild challenge.

Neat little houses, certainly perfect for mining towns

Cool.....
How many houses you get in that kit?

eightyeightfan1 Wrote:Cool.....
How many houses you get in that kit?

There is enough material to build 3 houses, plus some sidewalk material. Mine came with an extra set of wall sections - so I could potentially build a 4th house, but do not have the roof or window sections to complete it. So, the 4th set of walls become kitbash fodder. The kit also includes 3 outhouses.

Now you're going to need to build those outhouse first. You know how those construction crews like to drink their coffee.

Here are 3 houses, 3 chimney assemblies, and 3 outhouses. I always prefer to do some assembly before painting, as that way I do not have to clean paint off gluing surfaces prior to assembly. So, I have assembled the walls, and then will paint them, paint the roofs and windows separately, and then do the final assembly. Things have fit together quite well with minimal need for filing.

The kit gives you two options for the lean-to addition (when I was a kid, we used to call them leanin'-tos). You can opt for a small lean-to, or a large lean-to, or perhaps even no addition whatsoever. And then you can choose where on the building you want to attach the addition. The concept is that originally, the houses were basic rectangles, and though time, additions were added. I opted to build each house differently.

I havent forgotten about these... I have painted one to look like it has been fixed up and repainted, the other two I wanted to give that dilapidated mining town look.

Here is another close-up. I make the peeling paint effect using the old "rubber cement" technique that I have read about for ages but not sure if I have ever tried. I think it looks okay, but in hindsight on buildings that small I think it would have looked better and been easier to just paint the building to resemble weathered bare wood, and then gone in an hand painted individual boards where the paint remained. After I painted them white, I also distressed a few areas by hand and then coated them with a black wash.

I still have the roofs to finish, and the outhouses to complete.

Great work Kevin!

Quote:I make the peeling paint effect using the old "rubber cement" technique that I have read about for ages but not sure if I have ever tried. I think it looks okay, but in hindsight on buildings that small I think it would have looked better and been easier to just paint the building to resemble weathered bare wood, and then gone in an hand painted individual boards where the paint remained.

I agree. I've never been able to get rubber cement to adhere in small enough globs, so I've never used it as a paint technique. What has worked for me is what you describe - painting or staining the surface first to resemble the material beneath, then applying paint over that. It takes longer, but building up several layers of drybrushed paint creates an effect with more smaller 'flaked' areas than fewer large areas with missing paint.

Even so, it looks just fine. Your joints are all tight & square, the windows & trim painted nicely. What will you do with the roof?

Galen

ocalicreek Wrote:What will you do with the roof?

Galen

I am trying painting the shingles slightly different shades of gray/brown. Just spot painting about 30% of them, and then applying a black wash to kind of blend the whole roof together. It looks okay. There are also chimneys that need to be installed.

Here are the completed one-holers. The rest of the houses are also done, I just need to finish putting in window glass.

WOW those are looking great!! I love the weathering on them, they look very old and rickety