Well, thus far I have been pretty happy with things. So, logically, this is the stage where I cock things up. As we will see.
First, it was time to add the brick wallpaper to the outer walls. I decided that I would simply wrap the whole building in the paper and then go back and cut out the windows once that had dried. So, I slapped on the paper and got this:
Having done this once, I am hoping that there is a more effective alternative. You need to leave the glue until it has properly dried (I didn’t) and then you need to spend what feels like half of your life cutting out the apertures. It was at this point that I concluded that were this not my job I would not be doing this. As a hobby pass-time it is right up there with sticking sharp objects in your eyes. What is more, when you finish, you get an endless number of with paper edges all over the model and almost NONE of the cuts are straight or neat.
On the model below, you can see where I have had to go round every edge with PVA mixed with paint to saturate the edges and poke them into place with the end of a brush. Fortunately this is a ruined building so a bit of rough edges can be accepted, but effectively my method here was utter rubbish. Next time (if I don’t hurl myself off a tall building before then) I will try papering in sections. 
To be fair, what I was trying to avoid was joins in the paper. You can see one running right down the model in the picture above. This one I have actually emphasised with some darker paint as I intend to use a wooden skewer to add a downpipe and cover the join with that, so we will have to see how that runs when we have significantly more joins, But that’s tomorrow’s problem.
The next step was simple but equally boring. I wanted lintels and sills for the windows. Here I cut up endless pieces of artists mounting board before painting it in a dark buff colour. I made the lintels 8mm deep and the sills 4mm, both of which are, I fear, too thick. Anyway, PVA and a quick stick in place did the job.
Below you can see the model with all of them done. Definitely too big. Ho hum…
No the interior. I want this to look like bomb damage with some fighting positions cleared. As we have seen, I have made the main bulk of the rubble pile from high density polystyrene. My plan is to put a base coat of paint on this and then stick it in place. With that done, I will then add rubble. I have ordered half a kilo of railway modellers rubble, 1000 model bricks and all sorts of general shite from eBay which has yet to arrive, and I also have some brick dust pigment which I am going to use with dust and other scatter on the finished model. For now, I have gone with a base coat of bitter chocolate roughly applied to the interior…
…and I have done a proper coat on the rubble piles. Thus:
When that dries I will dust it with black aerosol so I get some contrast and then stick it into place. With that done I will add some duck boards for the fighting positions. The rubble will be added once it arrives.
I’m a bit fed up at this point, but I have to tell myself that it’s not a complete cock up and that the point of a trial piece is to learn. Well, I am certainly doing that.
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19 thoughts on “Stalingrad Trial Build 3”
You’re being too hard on yourself, I think it looks good. Buildings are always very time consuming to model. I’ve used that brick paper in a lot of builds, the trick with joins is not to let the sharp edges of the sheets meet as the join. Instead create randomness by tearing the sheets by hand and have those, rough edges join up. Then use a wash to colour in the white bits the tearing has made on the edges. You can also get a good effect by tearing small sections and adding them on top of areas you’ve already covered – it helps break up the uniformity.
Clearly what looks a cock up to you looks like a masterpiece to me!
Nothing is Too big for Too Fat Lardies! So looking over all the work put into this MDF building, you could have scratch built the thing. The brick work looks okay, as you mentioned; not a fun task to glue, align and match up the lines/seems. Bottom line, your building looks great! The problem now lies, dose it match or fit into the rest of scheme for Stalingrad? If you don’t put the same effort into your other buildings, you may not achieve the look you’re looking for.
When we used Hovel’s turbine house for our Alexandrowsk projekt – we had the occupiers prepare it for defence. And believe me, veteran ( and that is surviving ) urban fightes will fortify a position quickly and as best they can: with the stuff at hand.
Sandbags to protect windows for firing positions —- barricaded firing pits to control stairs/ladders(points of access.- it looks the part!
I can feel your pain Richard but it still looks great! Do you have a link where to get the brick paper from please?
That looks great, remarkably fast work and very helpful, I’ve got some of that brick paper for use on some British outline buildings for Seelowe.
The brickwork’s come up very well. I think the join is okay as is (you’d expect a long crack or two – and maybe some of the sills and the odd lintel should be cracked too?). I agree the lintels are a bit big (the sills look fine) but probably okay for government work . . . especially a Stalinist government.
Having been to Kazakhstan (Atyrau) a few years ago I can vouch first hand for the utter lack of craftsmanship and straight lines in (post) soviet buildings. They have to be ‘experienced’ before modelling just to get a feel of how poorly built they really were. It looks about right but possibly too many right angles.
Hello rich, I made one of the factory buildings from the same company you got this mdf apartment building from, and also covered it with Brick paper. What I did was before putting the building together, I used the walls as a template for tracing out the areas to be cut out on the brick paper. I then just cut out the shape, and managed the windows with a craft knife and ruler. One the building was made, these then matched perfectly when gluing them on. This is much easier than trying to do it once the building is made.
Next time you may want to try what model railwayers do when covering something with brick paper.
1) Try to cover as much as possible while still flat packed
2) Wrap it around the sides slightly to get no gaps
3) For the windows cut a X by turning it over and cutting from opposite corner to opposite corner, then pull through opening and wrap onto inside.
4) Then assemble and add interior so all those folds on the inside cant be seen,
Have I made any sense.
Or jst carry on as you are as it looks fab anyway!
I can see little to complain about it looks great. I’ve played a bit with paper bricks in 15mm, I found it quite difficult as well. Leigh’s suggestion look solid though.
All looking great from here mate. I really must crack on with my Stalingrad buildings- I have been on it for some 15 years…
May I suggest a drainpipe to hide the paper join?
I’m sorry if this had already been answered, but what brand is this mdf building? I am looking at starting a project like this and your posts have truly been an inspiration. Keep up the great work
I honesty don’t know Shawn. I bought it on eBay and it was not branded. I do know that it came from Poland.
The name of the company in Poland is Terrain4Games. Here is their web page: http://terrains4games.com/
Here is their ebay page: https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/terrains4games-com?rt=nc
Hi Richard it looks great to me think of it as painting with a pallet knife , it looks like shite until you stand back at the end.When you add the brick paper (glue back of paper leave to soften for 3-4 mins and place and smooth) dries in one to two hours,put a lamp behind it to highlight the window and door openings and cut from the brick side with a new scalpel blade.The lintels and sills will blend in once painted.
Cheers AL
Keep the faith m8 its looking good.
This was interesting as we (Glasgow Warhogs) are planning a similar brick paper wall format. We did some testing and found less pva worked best and a little watered down. We plan to do a 5ft x 3ft factory for Targe 2018….so our fingers are crossed. But your finished piece looks great.
I just took a copy of brick wall image into PowerPoint and scaled it to 28mm…using other buildings as a guage. We just then copied it repeatedly and placed them together on a4 paper. Then printed it. We also 3d printed windows to fit our spaces! LOL.
Most stalingrad pictures show a dark red brick so we went for that. Some are beige. But it’s very difficult to get good pics. We got a good book the battle for the balikidiny factory. It’s excellent.
Nice build great pics keep them coming…
P.s. where are you getting bricks from…the ones we have are small packs and expensive…harry
Bricks are matchstick cut up.4 large packets.