20mm MDF ruins making progress

 Remember I bought these as a pack, along with an in-tact farm. Three of the buildings are pretty much four sided and are built as a damaged building. There is little to no customisation with them. The remaining ruins were a varied assortment of corner sections. A while back I made a decision that I would base the ruins. More recently I decided I would try and sort some corner sections into parts of the same building. You will see three of my ruin sets have two parts to them. I think they are pretty effective. 

The bases are wooden. They have come from the back of a mirror or a photo frame. I can't remember, but I saw it and rescued it from the bin. It has been in my cupboard for a year? Today I measured it up and wasted a lot of time sawing it to pieces. I started with the saw of my swiss army knife. I continued with a foldable garden saw meant for branches. In the end though I realised that if I scored the same area with a Stanley knife a few times, I was able to just snap the wood. Much quicker. But hey, we live and learn. 

I am not permanently attaching the three "complete" buildings to their bases. I have a feeling there might come a time when I would rather they be un-based. This may never happen and I might change my mind. Only time will tell. The remaining ruin sets will be generously covered in rubble and painted up. 

I sanded the edges and rounded the corners to make them less harsh. You can see that I labeled the ruins and the ruin bases so I wouldn't get confused later. 

This ruin is just a corner piece. I quite like it on its own though.

The thought of basing/storing tiny corner pieces like above was part of what made me think I will base them together as the same buildings. 

This is just the one building piece. I will put a lot of rubble around the edge and perhaps build up remains of a wall.

This one is tall. I like that. Once I have completed these I will need to get in the attic and dig out my other corner ruins from that Kickstarter many, many years ago. Been sitting in a box since 2013 probably. I reckon I put them together once or twice but have never, ever used them. After all, I switched pretty convincingly over to 6mm in 2016 I would say and haven't really looked back. 

MDF Ruins

 As previously mentioned I bought a Normandy farm in MDF. I also bought a pack of assorted ruins. This week I put them together. I am over all pretty pleased. You can see from below that some of them are literally a corner of a building. I will base those on a rough shape and add more rubble when the time comes. I mean they are pretty simple, I wasn't expecting much. I have other corner parts of buildings that are better - things I bought ages ago but have lived, unbuilt in a box since 2013. 

Below is some kind of workshop. It has doors for the front that I will put on at some point. I quite like it. Again, it will end up on a little base with some rubble. I am trying to work out how to make a tub of rubble that I can just pour onto the table when and where I need it. I have seen stuff you can buy but feel that is a waste. I have cat litter somewhere...

The frustrating thing about the below ruin is that the two walls don't fit together. Look, the longer wall extends out beyond where is should go. This complaint is minor. But it really does annoy me. 

Below looks like it is meant to be a flat topped building. I will probably just use it anyway in Normandy.

Below is one step up from a corner ruin. It reminds me a little of the Airfix Forward Command Post kit (which I have). I should dig that out and improve it. I built up a  bank around it to create a courtyard type area. I might add some bocage or something to it. This building will just go on as small a footprint as possible. 

What you can't see is the one ruin section where the first storey floor doesn't fit into the slots. It is frustrating because it is one of the coolest looking ruined sections. I will see what I can do with it, I might just leave the floor out of it. 

For the cost, these are a high recommend from me. They will certainly do the job I need them to do. 

JB MDF Farm - mostly painted

After putting the farm together it sat on the top of my Billy bookcase for a couple of weeks. This weekend I primed it and then put a lot of paint onto the buildings. I am pretty happy with the result to be honest. I would actually be happy popping this onto the table as is to be fair. 

To aid this, currently I am popping into B&Q every week to check their "free wood and offcuts" box to see whether they have any hardboard. I want the hardboard to use as a loosely okay cobblestone-esque section of the table. I want to be able to put the buildings on top of it. I found one to pay for: £8 for a big piece. £12 for a piece double the size but I would need to store it. I want to be efficient with costs but also have limited space for storing large sheets of wood. Bonus - I did find a section of MDF that is a good thickness for walls and is actually the perfect size to just cut into strips to make a variety of both man-height obstacles, and low obstacles for a little light cover. 

To paint these I took Vallejo Red Brown (I use it for leather) and watered it down then let it flow over the roof. You can see where I watered it down too much and too little.

The walls are simply a white heavy mix of white and a little black from generic craft paints from The Works. Doors are either Vallejo Beige brown, or Citadel Staken green. Windows are that same green. The black parts are just black. The door knobs are just dots of paint. 

The gaps between the roof and the wall is starting to bother me a little, but hopefully won't matter once on a table. I like the almost cartoony nature of the door - but this isn't 6mm so once the bullets start flying and my 20mm Brits are taking cover, I might get annoyed by it. Then I will give it a wash!

I still can't decide what to do with the doors on the end of the barn. Glue them open or closed. I will probably go with closed. 

I am pretty happy with this set of buildings though. Looking forward to putting the ruins together. I will have to break out my cat litter to make rubble.