A New Home for Saga (Part 2)

So, in the second part of this tutorial/build guide, I finish building the thatched house for my Anglo-Saxons.

Step 6

The next step was to add the thatch to the cottage.  This was done using a fake fur, which was cut to the same size as the cereal card roof before it was attached.

Step 7

Once the fur was glued on and stuck, I then proceeded to add the planking to the front and back walls.  At this stage, I realised that I had made a mistake, and that the door was going to be more difficult to produce than I needed to have made it.  Nevertheless I pressed on

Step 8

Once the planking was on, the next step was to try and make the thatch look less like teddybear fur.  This was done by painting it with watered down 50:50 PVA glue, working all of the strokes from the top to the bottom so the fur laid flat.  Once this was dry, it was given a neaten up with a craft knife and scissors.

Step 9

A door was added.  A little more planning and this wouldn't have been as tricky as it was, but it's done now.  If you plan ahead, you could skip this step.

Step 10

Painting the wood.  This can be done in any way that you wish.  I went for Rhinox Hide, washed with Nuln Oil and then drybrushed Tyrant Skull, but there are probably better ways of painting wood out there.

Step 11

The thatch was given a watered down coat of brown.  At this stage it was then drybrushed with Terminatus Stone so that we got a good colour.  It was also stuck to the base, which in this case was an old CD.

Step 12

Finally, the house was based to match the rest of my models and terrain for SAGA

A new home for SAGA (pt 1)

So, I have recently become rather excited by SAGA.  I tried it out at the Oxford Outriders, when I went up there for family reasons and found myself at a loose end.  A more friendly bunch of people you couldn't hope to find in a games club, and I was made very welcome playing SAGA.
Obviously, being me, I then decided that nothing would do but that I had to own this rather fun game myself.  A quick trip to Entoyment and I found myself with a copy of Crescent and Cross, and the start of a 4 point Milties Christi Warband.  Which was fine, except that locally, almost everyone else plays Dark Ages.  Cue a return trip, to acquire the appropriate supplement, and a force of Anglo-Saxons.  These are approaching 6 points now, and I am working on the extra bits (Priests, banners) for them.
And some terrain.  I've been looking online for ideas for building Anglo-Saxon buildings, and found that they are mostly wood (Good, I can make wooden buildings), mostly thatched (I can make thatched buildings too, still good), and either sit low to the ground and are dug down or are single story.  This should be achievable.

So, I decided to try a step by step terrain walk through.  It may be rubbish.  It may never get finished, but let's give it a go.

Step 1.
Having sketched up some plans on graph paper, and then transferred them to foam core (and I am indebted to this blog whose plans inspired me) I cut the shapes out with a knife.  Nothing too exciting so far.

Step 2
Having cut out all of the shapes, I then proceeded to glue them up.  Learning from cereal card roofs before, I put the third upright to support the middle of the roof in place.  Simple PVA glue was used at this point.

Step 3

The next step was to cut out the roof underside.  This is about 15mm longer than the sides of the house, and has a little decorative bit added.  It was size by directly measuring it against the building.

Step 4

Fake fur, the saviour of model thatchers everywhere, was cut out to the same size.  At this stage, it was simply cut out and not stuck to the card (I find this easier, but you could as easily stick the fur to the card now.

Step 5
The card roof was then glued into place on the Building

Once this was dry, the fake fur was glued onto the card roof.

That's as far as I have made it so far.  Next steps will be the planking, and tidying the fake fur.