East African Plantation House - Part 1

With the lead pile exhausted I have spent the last week working on items for the East African WWI project.

First up is another eleven pieces of jungle/bush. These have varied in size and height, with some of them being made from 10mm foam board, stacked four levels high. Large rock formations have been been constructed using pine bark that is painted with a thick black undercoat and then drybrushed various tones of grey.

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There are now 36 pieces of jungle/bush made, with about an equal number to go.

The main focus of the week, however, has been the construction of the plantation house.

My plan for this building was to be a square two storey structure with a broad verandah on three sides. So first up was to cut the base from foamboard and the walls of the main structure from a heavy cardboard, with windows and doors removed.

 

 

The main strucure and its roof  was then roughly assembled. 

 

The verandah sides were then cut from foamboard and fixed to the base.

 

The two components dry assembled.

 

The next task was to contruct the windows from plasticard and fix them in place.

 

 

The whole model then had to be painted because once the verandah roof goes on I won't be able get at parts of the structure. The basic model is painted white, with the deck of the verandah grey. This isn't the finished paint job and there will be quite a few final touches that will be applied when the roof is completed.

 

 

Then the verandah roof is fitted.

 

 

The basic shape is now complete, it just needs the corrugated iron roof, a final brush of paint and the final dressing pieces to be added. But somehow the back of the building is...well...boring.

The answer was to add a kitchen as an extension on the back, with a chimney.

 

 

And so the bulk of the model is finished. Some finishing around the lower part of the base is in place and the steps are fixed, but I have run out of corrugated iron plasticard so here development stops for a while.