Finn's Factory - 28mm Sarissa MDF buidling

28mm Sarissa MDF Factory Unit #2 - named after one of my Sunday night gaming friends

Two of the half dozen or so MDF buildings I purchased recently from Wargame Tools were factories. They were inexpensive ($16 each), and would be perfect for an urban battlefield for either my modern games or my Gang warfare clashes. Sarissa makes a variety of styles, but I assembled only one, so far - Factory Unit #2, from their Industrial line.

The recessed cardstock window panes are visible in this photo, which I left black to give it a gritty and dark look

When I opened it up, I actually let out a whoop of surprise. This WOULD be the simplest MDF building I had put together! One of my favorite features of Sarissa buildings is how easy they go together, and this one was the simplest of the simple. Essentially, there is a base, four walls, and a roof. Now, the roof has three window covers, and three of the walls have detail-cut cardstock to represent the window panes, but it is still a minimum of parts. You glue the cardstock on the inside of the walls to cover the open rectangular hole of the windows with a window pane pattern. I like this because the panes look recessed a bit, and not as thick as the walls.

The Sons of Thor, German Village Chapter stake out the factory with its Photoshop-created and printed details

As per usual, after gluing the four wall sections to the base, I put a rubber band around the building to hold the joins tight. While it was drying, I took a look at it and planned how I would paint it. I decided I would not paint the window panes a color - they would remain black. It is a factory, after all, and not trying to impress anyone with colorful styling. I decided on gray concrete walls and floor, though I would vary the look with dry-brushing and different shades of gray. The floor would be darkest, followed by the outside walls, and the lightest would be the inside walls. All trim would be dark red.

Industrial posters add to the building's look, while the bamboo skewer in the corner helps cover the small cardstock gap

Prep-work was done exactly as I do all of my other MDF buildings -- spray paint Krylon acrylic black primer and follow up with a 50/50 mix of black acrylic paint and water. I made sure I went over the window panes thoroughly because I would keep them black on this building. Once I got to the painting stage, I think it works best to work from inside out. I begin with the walls, as some paint slops onto the floor, inevitably. The floor is very easy to "cut" sharply with a rectangular brush. I like to leave a line of the black primer separating the walls and floor to give an illusion of depth. I had to go back over the window panes in a few places, though, where my brush went crazy and splashed over onto them. There is some trim on the bottom of the outside that is done in brick that I had to paint. I did a dark red base coat followed by a Middle East Flesh (Howard Hues) dry brush. Once all was painted, I did a black wash over the interior and exterior.

Another look at the gray concrete interior to the factory, livened up by the colorful safety posters

One thing I had decided after painting the Shell Gas Station was to use as much printed out patterns and details as possible (at least compared to brush painted). For this model, I decided that I would work something up in Photoshop for both the garage double doors and the office door, print them off, and simply glue them on. The same for a sign. I think my painting skills have "jumped the shark" and I can't make it look near as well with a brush as I can with Photoshop! I also found some industrial safety posters to glue to the inside walls. I debated over a name for my factory for awhile. I had been wanting to start naming them after my gaming friends, so finally decided on "Finn's Industrial Fasteners." I'm sure Keith will be honored to have a building named after him...ha, ha!

The roof looks nice with the blended gray ballast for texture and the dark red window cover accent

I was worried if I would have to rig something special up for the roof. It simply sits inside the walls, resting on the cardstock inner layer of the walls. I decided to give it something more substantial to rest upon, and cut four bamboo skewers to size. I glued each flush against a corner of the inside walls so that the roof would rest on them. This had the additional benefit of hiding the small gap between the interior pieces of cardstock. Speaking of the roof, I used some blended gray ballast for the roof material to give it some texture.  The window covers were painted dark red.

The Sons of Thor check out the graffiti on the factory to see who has been "tagging" their turf

As a final touch, I decided an industrial building, with its big expanse of gray blank walls, would get vandalized by graffiti. As I had done previously with the Jack & Benny's Old Time Diner, I simply did a Google image search on graffiti and picked out a couple images I liked. These I opened up in Photoshop to change from a rectangular to irregular shape. I did htis by "trimming" them with the paintbrush tool (so, I'm kinda of painting, right...?). This gives it more of an edge that looks like it was done with an aerosol can, I think.

I am incredibly happy with how this small (6"x4") building turned out. I think I am going to look for some plastic bits I can use to represent machinery for the inside. There's a local hobby story that has all kinds of miscellaneous...well, junk, on its shelves. I think I can find something there. Either way, my guess is that I'll do the next factory as my next building, too. That Sarissa Motel I purchased looks kind of intimidating...WAY more parts than Finn's Factory. There's something to be said for "easy," and this was definitely an easy build. Highly recommended!