Dwarf Smithy

This was the first scenery piece that I built. The basic "framework" for the building is made from foamboard (for the non-modellers out there foamboard is a thin sheet of polystyrene sandwiched between two layers of card. Think of a very thin ice-cream wafer sandwich that tastes rubbish but won't melt).

The foamboard is held together using PVA glue and tailor's pins. The inside of the building was painted black and then pinned to a base of thick card. Balsa-wood cladding was applied to the outside of the building and a chimney built from modelling clay (milliput). The whole model was painted black and the wood-grain brought out by a couple of layers of drybrushed brown paint. The stones on the chimney were painted in a few successively lighter shades of grey until they looked like stone. The roof slates are made from small, roughly-cut squares of card (a cereal packet, if memory serves) glued down with PVA and painted a grey-blue colour.

The pile of coal outside was built from fish-tank gravel, glued together with PVA glue (built up in layers). It was painted black and drybrushed with a dark grey to resemble coke or coal. The anvil was built from modelling clay (milliput again) and the blacksmith is an old Citadel Miniatures Dwarf Sapper model. The base has been coated with PVA glue, dipped in sand, painted green and drybrushed with a lighter green to make a sort of grass effect (I had been experimenting with the use of model-railway flock but opted for the sand finish as flock can - if not properly applied - develop "bald patches" over time).

I was very pleased with the result of this little project but noticed afterwards that there is a flaw in the chimney which should wrap around the side of the forge and doesn't.