A while back on one of the Frostgrave Facebook pages someone posted a link to Michael's Birdhouse Castle and commented they could make some good cheap terrain. At $4.99 they were right about the price but a little work needed to be done first.
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| Michael's' Birdhouse Tower |
Other than needing a paint job the tower also cannot fit a standard 25mm base on the second level.
To solve this I decided to have two towers for the price of one. The first thing I needed to do is get rid of the off center base on the bottom of the large tower. To the band saw!
With the crooked base trimmed to the walls I could now get a straight cut between the top of the large tower walls and the crenelations/roof.
To make the roof and crenelations usable I needed to remove the small tower.
I used a Dremel cutting disk on my DeWalt cordless drill to cut out a base for the small tower.
The crenelations were now free of the small tower but there was a lack of a roof!
To fix this I cut two pieces of 1/8 inch plywood. One matches the dimensions of the crenelation square and one roughly matches the inside dimension of the square.
I then drilled a hole in the center of the roof pieces for a ladder to get to the top.
Add some Gorilla Wood Glue and then drop the wife's Kettle Bell on top until it dries!
Once the top was re-attached to the tower I wanted to make the walls look more like stone than wood planks. So I used a rock to begin marking up the sides with divots and gauges.
Next I added some DAP spackling putty to fill in the gap between the new roof and the crenelations.
I then added some DAP spackling putty to the edges of the new roof to fill some slight gaps. I also added some bits to the walls to give even more texture.
With all the hard work done it was time to paint. First I primed the towers in Matt Black.
Next I added a base coat of Anita's All Purpose Acrylic 11086 Charcoal.
I then added the first highlight of AAPA 1200401 Antique Nickel.
And finally I added a highlight of AAPA 11084 Rainy Day Gray.
With a little bit of work we now have two towers with top floors at 4.5 inches and 2.5 inches, with an extra 0.75 inches in height for the crenelations to give your ranged miniatures some cover!
These towers allow for some cheap, easy terrain suitable for both fantasy games like Frostgrave and historical games set in the Dark Ages, all for about $5 and a little bit of work!
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