Building Barfunweltz Manse

Inspired by a great YouTube video, I decided to revive my love of scenery building. I had a large stash of coffee stirrers and a few bits of foam core so it was simple enough to get started on a medieval style half-timber house. I obviously wanted to build something that would fit into the story of my armies so I was thinking of a tudoresque take on a classic haunted house. 

Something like this...

...plus this...

...equals this!

I wanted to build it as a partial ruin, partly because it's easier, partly because it'd make it more versatile for gaming, and partly because that way I could hint at the original building being larger than my model.

As per the video, I started by chopping up a sheet of foam and then building my way up, adding windows, beams and a door as I went. Some handmade paper made great-looking broken plasterwork. Almost everything was stuck with PVA, although I used hot glue where I wanted extra strength.

Then I used coffee stirrers for the first floorboards before constructing the upper walls out of foam core. More coffee stirrers were added as decorative beams.

That used up most of my foam core but I found some balsa wood with which to build the tower.

The roof structures took a bit of thinking about but coffee stirrers are versatile things. The leaded lights in the windows required the worthy sacrifice of an Ikea desk tidy (incredibly difficult to destroy as it happened!).

Next I added the shingles. A whole cereal packet's worth of shingles! Even doing them in long strips, it took longer than the ground floor stone walls.

Finally I wanted to add some detail. By now, I had decided that this was Barfunweltz Manse, one-time home of the vampiric False Apostle, leader of the Society of the Sanguine Rose. That gave me plenty of inspiration for decoration. I modelled a library using leftovers from flagellant kits and some trophies to hang on the dining hall walls. A few chains in the attic, a few skulls, a few rose vines outside. I got hold of a couple of resin Tudor roses on eBay to add some thematic flavour outside too.

At last, I was ready to undercoat and get painting!

While I worked on the project, I came up with a story to go with it. I liked the idea that this wasn't just a 'haunted house' it was itself, in some sense, spectral. So is it a ruin, or whole or a partial ruin? All three! Which in turn led me to wonder about rules to reflect this character if the building within the game. I'm thinking of saying it can be garrisoned, but only by models with the ethereal special rule.