Intention
Having made a bunch of adobe buildings for Middle Eastern/American/SF use, I wanted to round them out with a few abandoned ruined structures. Maybe the settlement fell on hard times as a result of the depredations of Space Calvera. Perhaps, as was formerly the case in Greece, incomplete buildings are not taxed. It used to be quite a striking feature of Greece, that: perfectly habitable (and inhabited) buildings with a notionally incomplete upper floor. Hardly the Parthenon, I agree.
Beginnings
I carved a few bases from cake board (£1 from my local pound shop), two small buildings and one mid-sized. I bevelled the edges, and coated them with a layer of UHU. Not coating them would have meant they'd have been warped later on. With some polystyrene offcuts and some foamboard, I created the perimeters of the buildings, gluing everything together with the hot glue gun. I put in a little rubble (not enough to impede the occupation of the buildings by soldiery) and something in the way of tall grass. I coated this all with dilute filler (hence the earlier application of UHU to the bevelled edges).
Painting
I applied a coat of the same cream paint I've been using since c. 2003, and suddenly realised I was on the brink of running out. Improvisation! So I applied some dilute washes of brown and black around the edges of the walls and on the walls themselves. Once they were dry, I began drybrushing the walls in progressively lighter shades, working my way up to white.
Finishing Touches
With the painting completed, I went a bit crazy with the flock. These dwellings were clearly abandoned a while back as the greenery (and brownery) suggests. I'm pleased with how these turned out, particularly the very exposed vantage point at the top of the stairs. Now I just need to find some paint to last me the next decade and a quarter.
