"Ah, to build, to build!"

"Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Well, making toy buildings for toy soldiers isn't exactly noble. But I'll run with it. Following from my last post and the recent building blitz, I again dipped into the black hole of terrain tucked under the basement stairs and pulled out some long-ago purchased Warbases building shells. These are pretty basic and have the advantage of almost infinite possibility for modification. I wanted these to sit alongside the Charlie Foxtrot building I recently tarted up for Michael (see here), as part of a generic French-ish mid-20th century-ish village/town.

Bases were made from 3mm mdf and front walkways added from balsa and plastic stonework sheeting. The cafe received a front patio and some scratch-built tables (I've subsequently ordered some 1/48 dollhouse tables and chairs). Shutters for the windows have not yet been added at this stage. Also can be seen the wood filler used to correct small imperfections in the kit (or mistakes in the construction... by me).

I also added a couple of sheds/outbuildings to the side of the cafe, to add some visual variety. These are Warbases extras and are as cheap as chips (so much so that's it's easier to order them from Warbases than to cut them from mdf or foam-core myself... or maybe that's just me being lazy).

The backyards for each are made with foam-core walls (ok, so maybe not so lazy after all), capped with card pieces. The gates are from Warbases, as are the garden sheds. These had been completed (almost) many months before but shoved aside for far more important things... like painting toy soldiers! Thus, they have the roofs covered with Warbases laser-cut shingles... as will the main buildings.

And the finished product! Walls plastered with tile grout, shutters and doors added, and roofs tiled.

The cafe patio will receive a few tables and chairs... waiting on the post.