Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Mass Production of Bolt Action Buildings











I am just about finished with the building construction phase for my new set of Bolt Action terrain. If you read my blog regularly, then you might remember that previously I had made a large number of 28mm or 1/56 scale buildings for Bolt Action using silicon molds and resin. This time around for 20mm, I decided to use dental plaster for the material. The buildings are definitely more fragile, but they are much easier to work with, and overall, it has been a much more enjoyable process.

The essential construction technique used here has been casting basic building blocks and then then plastering over them allowing brick and stonework to show through. Despite a very quick paint jobs intended to just block in color (sub 30 minutes), I am impressed.

Two techniques for quick and easy brick/stone mortar



  1. Base bricks with red primer
  2. airbrush on thinned white Humbrol enamel paint
  3. wet napkin with enamel thinner and wipe the white off of the raised areas



  1. Base bricks with red primer
  2. airbrush on thinned Tamiya white paint
  3. wipe off raised areas using a paper towel wet with x-20A thinner


Both  techniques are easy. The enamel method requires careful cleaning of the airbrush due to switching between oil and water based paints, but provides a white that is much easier to erase from raised edges. The Tamiya acrylic method requires scrubbing and the produces a rough surface. Either method is super fast and easy.

7 comments:

  1. Great work John. Where did you get the shop fronts are they Linka too?

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    1. They are from a Company that makes linka compatible moulds. I can't remember the name, but they were from e UK.

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  2. John,
    Are you secretly making a second set, so you can put on your godzilla costume and destroy the city for fun?

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    Replies
    1. There was an absolutely wonderful Arrested Development episode where this happens to some house models in front of a group of Japanese investors. It is definitely worth checking out.

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    2. Haha, I remember that now! Funnier if you are doing it though!

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