Lead Legionaries: Ruined 3-D Printed Buildings for Post-Apocalyptic

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Ruined 3-D Printed Buildings for Post-Apocalyptic

Bucknuts investigate one of my new 3-D printed buildings I bought from Jarls Workshop at ATC 2022

One of our HMGS Great Lakes members 3-D prints some amazing buildings, and I talked him into coming to last fall's Advance the Colors 2022 as vendor. Rusty Parker calls his shop "Jarls Workshop," and I bought quite a few items from him at the show. Most of them were ruined buildings that I could use for my post-apocalyptic games. I grabbed four of them earlier this week, and prepped them for painting.

Rusty's excellent 3-D prints paint up quickly with base coat and dry brush for concrete and brick

Rusty's prints are of very high quality. He understands the different types of material, which gives the best results (which he uses), and invariably produces clean, flash-free buildings. I prepped them by spraying them with Krylon Matte Black primer, then following that up with a 50/50 mix of acrylic black paint and water. Once it's dry, it is a simple matter to dry brush the buildings. I start with a dark gray and follow up with a lighter gray highlight. Most of these buildings had sections of brick on them, too. Once I was done with the gray, I painted the brick sections with Iron Wind Metals Red brown. I followed that up with a dry brush of Howard Hues Middle Eastern flesh. The final touch was a relatively heavy black wash.

Adding Woodland Scenics flocking to the dirt floor of this print makes it really pop, I feel

Next, it was on to the flocking. For the 2-story and 1-story buildings, I painted the areas that were sculpted to represent a dirt floor with white glue. I also dabbed white glue in the corners of the buildings and other spots where the wind might blow dust and dirt. In these areas, I also added some light gray Woodland Scenics clump foliage. I really felt the flocking made the 2-story and 1-story buildings "pop," so to speak. I even considered adding some posters on the walls or similar items, but decided to leave them relatively generic. I can also use these buildings for the bombed out interior of a city in Modern Skirmish games using my Wars of Insurgency rules.

This 6-story corner shell of a skyscraper is probably my favorite of the buildings I bought from Rusty

Probably my favorite of the four buildings is the 6-story corner shell of a skyscraper. The moment I saw that sitting on Rusty's vendor table at ATC I knew I had to snatch it up before someone else did! I think it will be an iconic looking piece of a post-apocalyptic tabletop. Although this one did not have brick sections, it did have a stone tile facing on the first level. I decided to give it a dry brush of a dull, washed out green over top of the gray. The hint of color gives it a nice look, I think. What's more, I decided to add rubble on this piece. I used Woodland Scenics coarse mixed gray ballast, as well as loose resin bricks I'd bought from a game store, and some craft sticks for beams that have fallen loose onto the floor. All of these also received a dry brush or black wash.

Close up of the rubble, bricks, and beams that I added to the building to give more character

I really like how the extra little bits added to the character of this very cool 3-D print. I wanted to give it a more three dimensional quality but also not impede miniatures from being put inside the building itself to take cover. I bought a total of six ruined buildings, so the next two will be following these four onto my painting desk shortly. One is a duplicate of the 2-story brick and concrete ruin that is at the top of this page. I may add a washed out color for the exterior and interior walls to make it look different. The second building is a sprawling, 2-story affair that will have a relatively large footprint on the tabletop. That's good because the next scenario I plan to run for my post-apocalyptic games will be inside a city. So, the more buildings I have, the better!