vac form building construction

8/3/2019 Vac Form Building Construction

1/3

I wanted to create some wreckedbuildings for the up comingHammer's Slammers show game Iwas organising on behalf of theSouth London Warlords. In the newsat the time I was thinking aboutbuilding them (mid summer 2006)there had been numerous shots ofthe unfortunate business in Israel

and the Lebanon and one of thefeatures of that kind of urbanconflict is, inevitably, heavilywrecked buildings.

Watching the TV I was struck by acouple of things. Firstly, almost allof the buildings seemed to have

landed on a car or some othervehicle. I guess that, the world over,tightly packed urban structures aremore and more likely to have parkedcars right along side of them.Inevitably, as a building is hit by highexplosives and slumps, it seems toland on - and crush - these, and so Iwanted that to be a feature of the'banged up' dwellings I was about tobegin constructing.

Secondly, colour: in all of thecu r r e n t p i c t u r e s a n dnewsreel I saw - and thiswas backed up by colourshots of Caan after DDay that I had inreference material -the overall colourof buildings,

rubble, crushed cars and indeed justabout everything else seemed to be auniversal tan/grey. The dust thatsettles in the surrounding area whena building is destroyed seems toubiquitously coat the locale in auniversal light brownish colour andthat was also something I wanted toreproduce.

Where to start

My mate Kevin Dallimore hadrecently purchased some vac-formstyrene buildings from a companycalled Amera. They looked an

interesting starting position but Ihadn't painted a vac-form modelsince I built a Bellona RomanMarching Fort some years earlier. I'dbeen pretty disappointed with thatprevious foray into the vac-formworld (but then, hey: that was1973...) so I wondered what Id beletting myself in for.

Amera make complete houses,factories and fortifications plususeful things like road sections but

What can you do with it? by John Treadaway

The basic vac form shapesbased with scatter, browngrouting filler andcrushed cars added

The threefinished piecesof scenery

Hover tank at speed - vehicle by Old

Crow painted by Kevin Dallimore

buildings by Amera Plastics

Hover tank at speed - vehicle by OldCrow painted by Kevin Dallimorebuildings by Amera Plastics

Hover tank at speed - vehicle by Old

Crow painted by Kevin Dallimore

buildings by Amera Plastics

Cab of Earthmoverab of Earthmover

Cab of Earthmover


2/3

vehicles that were a little on thebeefy side, I made extra use of atool that all of the toy cars were tohave lavished upon them to varyingdegrees: a sledgehammer. Die castcars are, I have to say, surprisingly

robust. I'm not an inconsiderablemass and standing on them in bigboots did virtually nothing exceptend my dancing career via atwisted ankle. A two kilo clubhammer didn't put much of a dentin them either and - shockingly - Ihad to resort to the full sledgehammer and then digging some of

they also make some wreckedstructures. I bought three items viatheir website: two of the Bombed-Out Building (Z211) numbers andone Demolished Buildings (Z227)and - on Kevins suggestion - a can ofGames Workshop Rough Coatspray paint.

The reason for the spray paint is thatthe vac form pieces were, as

anticipated, quite smooth in finishand I realised that - withoutsomething to give a little surfacetexture - the dry brush painttechnique that I usually use would be

hard work. I usually coat buildingslike this in PVA and dust with sand,but I wanted to try somethingquicker, easier and - hopefully -more subtle.

Cutting and basing

I cut up a couple of the smallerpieces from the DemolishedBuildings set to ring the changesby modifying one of the "Bombed-Out Building sets. I butt stuck thecut-up pieces against one of thelarger items, filling any gaps with a

mixture of PVA and sand. By doingthis, I achieved three large butdifferent destroyed buildings.

My next task was what to decidewhat to mount the finished modelson. That wasn't much of a decisionfor me, really, because I almostalways use the same material: I tendto use sheet styrene for projects likethis and this project was to be noexception: the buildings were stuckto three large rectangles of 3mm

Bextrene sheet using hot glue. Imade sure that the bases I cut werelarge enough for extra ground workaround them (between 450mm and550mm across) and I rounded thecorners and bevelled the edges ofthe thick sheet material with asanding drum mounted in a Dremelmini-drill.

I use styrene because it is such astable and robust mater ia lcompared to something like foamboard, but doesn't require serioustools to cut and shape like MDFwould.

The edges of the vac form wereblended in using my favouritebasing compound: dark brown tilegrouting. I love it: it's self colouredand very robust and every tub thatsbought and employed on amodelling job like this is one less tubto be bought and used to committhe crime of actually groutingbathroom tiles in chocolate brown.So thats a positive result for homedecor fans everywhere...

Smashed cars

The next thing I wanted was thecrushed cars. Scouring high streetPound Shops (disingenuouslynamed, I feel, as almost nothing Ifound in them for sale actually cost apound...) I looked high and low fortoy cars that might suffer beingascribed a nominal 1/60th scale(around 28mm 'scale', I guess,whatever that is...). This search forsuitable props was a surprisinglydifficult task. Sure, I came acrosslots of useful other vehicles: someexcellent 1/50th scale SAS Jeepsso covered in stowage, crates, sandchutes and jerry cans that they were

worth for the extra kit alone. And Ifound a pair of superb articulatedlow-loaders with big, heavy earthmoving equipment on their backs.The trucks themselves when fiddledwith (I removed the cab from one tostop it looking too Eddie Stobart foran SF game and replaced it with aresin cab) look splendid - myconversion makes a great tanktransporter. But I digress...After much investigation I finallyended up with a motley collection of

toy cars in, frankly, scales rangingfrom (Id hazard a guess) 1/48th to1/72nd.

I used two techniques to hide thedisparity of s izes in these vehicles,and this is pretty important for me asI am a notorious fascist when itcomes to different scales on thetable-top. Firstly, on vehicles thatwere a little small I replaced itemsthat gave the game away. Forexample, I had found an interesting

little, two seat buggy that was just toopetite to pass for 28mm and capableof carrying two people. The seatswere ripped out and replaced with alarger item and so it becamesomething like a single seat quadbike and the scale felt 'right'.

Conversely, to hide the size of

the remains from the tarmac frontdrive: I'd had to hit them that hard!

Anyway, after a pleasant twentyminutes of gleefully poundingthings, I had my collection of flatcars to stick on my vac-formbuildings. The vehicles were stuckdown with hot glue but other itemswere added to the base using eithersuper glue or PVA. Small bits and

bobs like girders (Plastruct I, Hand T beams), tubes, corrugatediron (purchased as plastic sheet),chain link fences (car repair wiremesh) and items of general detritus(spare wheels and so forth) werestuck on with super glue. Sand,gravel (Talus from AntenocitisWorkshop), rubble (cork chips fromthe same supplier) and such likewere stuck down with PVA.

One last item I used as dressing onthese models were items from one ofthe platform constructor sets. I haveto say that, having bought a coupleof cartons of the stuff from Urban

Mammoth at Sheffield Triples lastyear, they had languished in myspares box as I found thetediousness of assembly so mindnumbing, I think I'd have to be doinga serious prison stretch to have thetime and patience to put togethermuch of the material.However, elements f rom these sets,plus the odd bit of Hornby modelrailway footbridge, added convincingindustrial wreckage to the models,and this was superglued in position.

Launching a Buzz-bomb from the

wreckage of a building

Launching a Buzz-bomb from thewreckage of a building

Launching a Buzz-bomb from the

wreckage of a building

Grenade toss behind a vac-form Amera

wall - Mid-tech trooper by Denizen

Trooper with an ATGW launcher

takes cover behind a crushed

vehicle - all Mid-tech troopers

painted by Graham Green

Trooper with an ATGW launchertakes cover behind a crushedvehicle - all Mid-tech trooperspainted by Graham Green

Trooper with an ATGW launcher

takes cover behind a crushed

vehicle - all Mid-tech troopers

painted by Graham Green

Making a call - Denizen Ventauran marine

and a crushed car

Making a call - Denizen Ventauran marineand a crushed car

Making a call - Denizen Ventauran marine

and a crushed car


3/3

Adding texture

Next was the finish for the vac-formwalls themselves. I gave my can ofRough Coat a long, hard shake anddid my best to sp ray the plain plasticareas with the grey paint-and-gritmix. The can needed a good shakeand subtlety in use doesn't reallywork: being light handed whenpressing the button on top of the candoesn't get the desired effect as youget paint but no grit (and thetexture's the point: I've already gotplain grey primer, thanks!).

When all the bits that needed coatingin the sandy stuff were suitablytreated, the whole model was thensprayed with regular grey car p rimerto cover everything, including thebits that the Rough Coat didn'ttouch.

After drying, the whole shebang -buildings, cars and other items -were then sprayed with a coat ofTamiya Deck Tan, paying attention to

Thunderbolt division half trackon a tank transporter -

conversion from die cast withresin cab.

the upper surfaces, where the dustfrom the destroyed structurewould fall.

Paint and varnish

The scenery was then dry brushedwith a succession of lighter andlighter shades of a grey/creamcolour using a large flat brush. Iadded rust to the metal detritususing some dark brown paint (GWScorched Brown) and some orangeto show recent rust. I then used acombination of chalks to then add

more rust in a more subtle way(stains on walls and so forth). Iused orange and brown rustcolours for this process -Antenociti and MIG powdersweathering powders - and greenchalk for verdigris and mouldstains on walls.Lastly I used a dark smoke colourMIG powder to brush into cornersof the buildings to add emphasisand depth to the rather softlydefined shapes of the vac-form

mouldings.

To hold all this in place I gave theconstructions a thorough coat ofabout the best matt varnish in a canI've seen: Testors Dull Coat. Thisbrings all of the colours together,darkening the chalks slightly andmore importantly - keepingeverything (chalks included) exactlywhere they should be: on the model.

My final finishing touch was to drybrush gun metal colour (GW Bolter-gun) and a little bit of silverhighlight (GW Mithril) onto metal

areas. I did this after the varnish asthe Testors is very effective atmatting down the colours whichrather ruins the shiny effect of anymetallic colours if the varnish isapplied over the top (as indeed itshould do: it called ull Coat afterall, and it does exactly what it sayson the tin!).

For the game (and to give a sense ofscale to these accompanying

photographs) I painted some of theexcellent Denizen Ventauran Marinesusing spray can Tamiya sand. Thiswas then over painted with washes ofblack Humbrol and thinners, thendry-brush highlighted after thedetails were painted in. Mattvarnished with the Testors they hadvisors painted in using colouredTamiya lacquer.

These figures are shown on themodels, as I said, to highlight the sizeof the terrain and - frankly - to showoff these fine miniatures. They are

painted up as West Riding Yeomanryf r o m t h e Ha m m e r ' s An v i l ssupplement (product placementmoment!) and - though they arentgoing to win any awards at the Salutepainting competition (secondaryproduct placement moment!) I thinkthat they are a testament to the finecasting and sculpting of the figuresthemselves that good effects can beachieved with fa ir ly simpletechniques. Chub Pearson - the manbehind Denizen Miniatures - nolonger sculpts in 25/28mm (which isa great loss to gamers I believe) buthis Fantasy and excellent SF rangesare still available from his web site.

In conclusion

Are vac form buildingsworth the effort? It's a bigquestion: in 1973 I was deeplydisappointed with my BellonaRoman Marching fort. All of thepalisades and gates were singlesided vac form and looked awful. So- as a thirteen year old - what I did

was replace them all with newpalisade and gates made fromplastic kit sprue. I felt a lot betterabout the fort afterwards, as I recall,and that's the key: one can buyready made ruins (and indeed pre-painted ones from the likes ofConflix) in resin. But if - like me - youactually want to build sceneryyourself, rather than buying readycast, or if the pre-built stuffavailable isn't what you actuallyneed, then cutting up resin is hard(messy) work. And not cheap. Somaybe this route is a way forward.

Vac-form is quite cheap - the Amerabuildings were just over a tenner -but they need finishing and the tin

of Rough Coat paint cost eightpounds from GW. Ameras product is

also easy to cut about, but I thinkneeds basing (for strength), and a fairamount of work to bring out whatlittle detail is there, plus - if you're likeme - it has to have extra detail addedto bring the models up to a standard Iwould be happy with.

If you like building scenery - like I do -vac-form's a good place to start. Ifyou dont like building scenery, anddont want to use cheap (and cheaplooking!) scenery - which is what vac-form is if you don't do much to it -then this sort of scenery may not befor you. I enjoyed myself immensely.But then, Im quite weird!

John Treadaway

Building, painting, construction and photography by the author unless otherwise stated

Gunner in the platform set wreckage -

all figures by Denizen Miniatures

Gunner in the platform set wreckage -all figures by Denizen Miniatures

The die cast low-loader set came with some

excellent earth movers which - with a paint job -

will dress the table very well

The die cast low-loader set came with someexcellent earth movers which - with a paint job -will dress the table very well

More mid-tech troopers from Denizen

Miniatures. The Amera buildings work

well if they are give some texture

More mid-tech troopers from DenizenMiniatures. The Amera buildings workwell if they are give some texture

The die cast low-loader set came with some

excellent earth movers which - with a paint job -

will dress the table very well

More mid-tech troopers from Denizen

Miniatures. The Amera buildings work

well if they are give some texture

Gunner in the platform set wreckage -

all figures by Denizen Miniatures

vac form building construction

Documents