Medieval House building out of cardboard and camping mattress

Since the whole covid-19 situation around the world. We all are locked in our houses. This is a perfect time for me to acquire new hobbies. My friends and I camp a lot together and they used to play FRP ( fantasy role playing ) around the camp fire. I never understood the game, I was just listening to them and enjoying the moment. Recently they talked me into this role playing game Dungeons & Dragons in discord. We played a couple of games together and I like it very much. As a designer, the most interesting part of the role playing games are the 3D miniatures and environments. Since I have a 3D printer in my home, I begin printing miniatures like crazy..

As I explore the world of role playing games, I came across some youtube channels who make hand made game assets, houses, building, ruins, walls etc. And most of them does not require to have fancy stuffs. I have plenty of carboard boxes in my house. I decided to make one for myself. This is my first ever attempt to make anything like this out of cardboard.

I want to start as simple as it can be and make a one story medieval house. I did not want to make some crazy designs. I cut some basic shapes and glue them together to make a box. Its really simple stuff. Unfortunately I dont have pictures of the earlier stages of the house. Its a simple box with triangle pieces on top to support the roof. I added "beams" around the house as if they are made out of wood.

The tricky part was the roof. I rip one of the layers of the cardboard and made bunch of little squares. They doesnt have to be the same shape and lenght. In fact variety in shape is better. I use hot glue for the whole build it is easy and fast.

I wanted to make a stone base for the house which in my opinion would look more medieval. I look around the house for material. I know people use XPS foam for the bricks and rocks but I dont have one. And I cant go outside and buy one. I am a camper so I have multiple camping mats. I use one of my caping mattress and cut little rectangles out of it. Shape them a little bit to give them rock texture. This is the most time consuming part of the build along with the roof. But its fun either way.

The painting process was try and error for me. I really didnt know what to do. I did what I would do a 3D printed miniature. I painted the whole thing with black spray paint as a base color. This will make the cracks and deep parts gaps and crevices black, thus give the illusion of shadow. I use Brown, Black and white color.

first I panted roof and the "wooden beams" brown and dry brush it with white color to give it a highlight. I added white to the brown color to paint the walls. To give it a dirty and old look, I go crazy with the brush and didnt pay attention where to paint. This resulted this dirty and used look which i like. For the bricks I use gray paint on top of black and dry brush some white to give it highlight. Wooden planks are popsicle cut into 2 pieces and painted brown. Barrel and chests are 3D printed.

This whole model took me couple of hours from star to finish. its 17 cm long and a good addition to my gaming setup.

It feels good to be back. This is originally posted on my nstagram page