Wall & Foamcore Tutorial 3

What did I make? Another wall! What are the odds? Actually, I have a couple more to build so don't be amazed when I present them in the next few days. But, then again, that's not all I did. I also continued with the foamcore tutorial.

Yesterday I drew a simple building on graph paper. Normally I would have made photocopies of it but for our purposes today, I'm going to use the original drawn template itself. First you need your tools: a glue stick, a bottle of glue and an exacto knife. Once you have those out, we're ready to begin.

Take your glue stick and run it on the back of the template so you can stick it to the foamcore. If you want to be hardcore about it, a couple of days before you use it, open the glue stick and let it dry out. The glue in there is moist and when you put it on the paper, it will absorb into and warp the paper a bit. If you leave the glue stick open, excess moisture will evaporate giving you less chance of that happening. That's also why you want to photocopy the template. Copy paper is less absorbent than graph paper so you won't have to worry about it as much.

Adhere the glued template to the foamcore. Make sure it's flat and as even as possible. Notice how my sticking has ripples in it? That's because of moisture warping the graph paper as I mentioned before. Try to do the best you can but don't stress if there's a bubble or anything like that. Unless you're doing precision cuts or something like that, it won't really matter too much for out purposes.

This is when you get out the exacto knife and start cutting. Once again, try to stay with your lines the best you can, but don't stress if it isn't perfect. Foamcore is light enough and strong enough that even if you don't make a perfect line, the edges can still adhere well to things when gluing. Another thing that I'd take the time to mention is that if you plan on building a lot of buildings or big ones, you might consider buying a mat cutter. Even an inexpensive one will help with your straight lines and allow you to cut through board at angles if you want. If I had to start building again from the beginning, knowing what I know now, I would definitely invest in one. I also chose to cut out the door and windows. I recommend taking a little bit of scrap foamcore and gluing it behind the open sections. once you've finished and are ready, it's a little hard to paint the inside of the building. Besides, why waste the paint?

Once you've done the cutting, you'll be left with the various parts. Peel off the paper. A little might stick, but that's OK. it'll get painted over in the end so it won't hurt anything. It's a good time to double check and make sure everything is the proper size. I'll tell you a secret. When I drew this out, I miscounted one of the sides and made it a hair too long. It was an easy fix, but it's a perfect reason why you don't want to use your originals. If I still had it, I could erase and redraw a couple of lines and if would have been perfect for reproduction.

Note how these two building sides join together? That way, when I glue them, they'll be more stable since I''ll glue each join in two different places instead of one that could just snap. When I make taller buildings, I'll continue that up the side so they all fit together like teeth. Lots of extra stability makes for more durability...

Start gluing the joins and also the walls to the base. Usually if you glue two walls together and then to the base, it's easier to glue the other walls on. You may have to hold pieces in place for a minute but it should go together easily. And don't forget to glue the scrap foamcore to the door and windows! Glue the supports in the corners for the roof. They hold up the roof and, if you glue on three sides, give extra stability to the structure as a whole.

Make sure you finish everything you're going to do inside because now it's time to glue on the roof. Once you've done that, there's not getting back in there without doing some cutting. However, since it's just foamcore, if you make a mistake, turn it into a ruin or something and build another correctly. That's the great thing about foamcore buildings. if you mess them up, who cares? Make another!

Lastly, glue on the roof. It only takes a little bit on each support and letting it settle.

Voila! You new have a completed building. You may want to embellish it a little. A Plasticard logo could be cool. I like to take the bottom halves of plastic easter eggs and glue them on top for domes. Some bits glued on could make this a communication center or a temple or storage depot or whatever else you want. And of course, you can make buildings of almost any size and shape fore just about any function. Or you can go smaller, making barricades, bunkers and anything else you can think of. Heck, I'm even working out how to make vehicles and Rhinos out of foamcore so I can make wrecked vehicles for more terrain. The possibilities are almost endless. In fact, tomorrow, I'm going to show you some of the things I've made so you can see for yourself and maybe get some ideas.

Until then, good luck and good cutting!