Prison Cell Block & Research Facility

    My Woodford - Prison Cell Block MDF building from Warcradle Studios that I constructed

A few years ago on a trip to St. Louis, I picked up an MDF building on a visit to a local gaming store. It was from Warcraddle Studios "Red Beam Designs" line, and titled Woodford - Prison Cell Block. It looked like the perfect thing for a Pulp or Modern game, kind of a combined research facility and row of prison cells, to my mind. What dastardly experiments were carried out there on the unfortunate detainees? Of course, I had to buy it and find out...ha, ha!

    Research facility section -- note the safety and research science posters I glued on the painted walls

Well, I finally got around to constructing it because I felt it would be the perfect building for the next chapter of my post-Apocalyptic campaign. Not to divulge too much, but such a combined research and detainment facility is the planned the centerpiece of that scenario. This was the first building I would be constructing from this company, so I was curious to see how it stacked up against Sarissa Precision (where most of my buildings are from) and TTCombat (which I had built one or two from).

Top view of the L-shaped building with the research facility on the left and prison cell blocks on right

It seemed to go together as easily as most of the Sarissa Precision buildings. I used tacky glue to affix the floors, walls, door frames, etc., together and they seemed to bond the MDF well. The thickness of the pieces seemed about the same, too. One interesting aspect was the building came in two parts, creating an "L-shape." The longer section of the "L" contains what I termed the research facility part. The shorter part contains three cells and a hallway outside of them. I was possible to glue the two halves together, but the length and width of the building would be huge! It simply would not fit in any of my 13" square carrying boxes. So, I decided to leave them as two separate pieces, and simply slide them up against each other on the tabletop.

28mm police officer patrols the corridor outside the 3 prison cells - what is inside, hidden by the walls??

That was when I discovered the most surprising thing about the Woodford - Prison Cell Block. There was no roof! The building came with no MDF piece for the roof, which is the first time that has ever happened to me. All of my Sarissa Precision buildings come with a roof, as did my TTCombat ones. Very strange! Upon looking at the image on front of the package, I admit that it shows the building roofless. I had assumed that was so you could see how it was divided into hallways and rooms, though. So, a warning out there to anyone seeking to buy a Warcraddle Studios building: Make sure you know if it is has a roof or not!

Patterned paper I cut into shape and glue into place as floors for my MDF buildings

I used my standard method for painting up and tricking out my MDF buildings. After constructing it, I spray painted it with Krylon Matte black, and followed that up with a 50/50 mix of acrylic black paint and water. I painted the interior walls of both building sections first. I then did a dry brush of a lighter color, followed by a black wash to dirty it up. Next, I cut out pieces of patterned paper for the floors. I purchase these at Hobby Lobby where there is a huge variety of textures, colors, and styles. I used a gray concrete looking sheet for the cell floors and two different patterns that looked like linoleum flooring for the hallways and research facility rooms. 

    Painting the windows is the most "fiddly" part of this building - here a guard hears a strange noise...

I also created images of steel doors in Photoshop and printed them out on my home printer. I used images I found with a Google search and then modified them a bit. Once all the doors, walls, windows, and floors were done, it was time to move on to the outside. I decided to go with a couple different texture looks for the exterior walls. There was a small lower row of rectangular stones that I painted gray and used as a stone base. Next, I did a tan-colored stone effect for the main surface of the walls. This facade has fallen away in some places, exposing a stucco like surface, which I painted in a different color.

    Sandbags atop the cork roof give the building a militarized and forbidding look

As if all that wasn't enough, I glued on a decorative wooden beam separating the top from the bottom sections on the exterior. I painted that green to match the two latticed windows. I used that same medium green for the trim around the doorways. Each of the doorway areas came with an upside down "U" frame which I think was a really nice touch in the design. Otherwise, doors in MDF buildings can look somewhat 2-dimensional. I know that on other buildings I have even added in a frame to give it a more 3-D look. 

    Exterior close up, with the tan stone, exposed stucco where the facade has fallen away, & green trim

Once the exterior was painted, I washed it more darkly with the same black wash. I then took an X-acto knife and scraped off a line of the paint to attach the green wood trim sections. I wanted to expose the raw wood so that the surface had something to adhere to on the model. I hoped this trim would make it "pop" a little, adding in another 3-D element. I was really happy with how the exterior looked. My dry brushing of the interior section of each incised square in a lighter, highlight color came out relatively well, I think. 

Since this building houses detainees, whether experimented upon or not, I figured the doors had to be fairly heavy duty. I painted the outside doors a base steel color and highlighted them with streaks of pewter color. I also did the handles and bottom of the window grills in pewter, as well. Above the individual prison cell doors I added in a sign, "Cell Block A," etc. Some of the interior doors I decided to use a printed doors, such as those for the prison cells below.

The doors, which are simply printed out on paper and glued over the outline incised on the MDF

That brings me to the posters. I like to create posters in Photoshop to decorate my MDF buildings. I think it gives them a nicer, more lived-in look -- without going through all the expense and work of painting up interior furniture for each of them. Maybe one day I will have the time to add desks, filing cabinets, etc., to this and my other MDF models. Until then, the posters will have to suffice. For these, I emphasized a lot of "Safety" posters, along with a good mix of Science-themed ones for a research facility section.  To add an ominous tone, I put in one urging visitors and workers to be prepared to "Run/Hide/Fight"! For these, I simply created the image in Photoshop and send it to my Word Processing program to arrange multiple images on so that with one page I can print multiple posters, doors, etc.

    Another look at the exterior and the scratch-build foam board covered with cork paper roof

At this stage, the building itself was done -- except for the roof. I went back and forth about what material to use for the roof. My first thought was black foamcore -- but I was worried that whatever surface I put on it would cause warping. I considered MDF and styrene plastic, too. I didn't have a large enough sheet at the time in my possession for either material. MDF and styrene would likely not warp, but would be much heavier than the foamcare (which I DID have in my possession). So, I made another trip to Hobby Lobby for inspiration. While looking at the different textures and patterns of their paper, I found one style they had that was actual thin cork with an adhesive backing. The cork surface's mottled brown look would match the exterior of the building, I thought. Plus -- attaching paper to the foam core would not cause warping. 

    This sprawling L-shaped building actually went together and painted up fairly easily

Was this the solution? The 12"x12" sheets were not large enough for the whole roof, though. I figured that if the seams looked bad, I could make a thin concrete "rib" out of bass wood and glue it atop the roof strategically to hide the seam. I also wanted to put in square strips of bass wood as lugs to hold the roof in place so it didn't slide around. That part was done easily enough and the roof fit snugly atop the MDF building. I cut the cork paper so that about a 1/4" would wrap underneath the roof, covering the "foamy" edge of the black foam core. Unfortunately, the adhesive backing wasn't strong enough to hold the paper to the foamcore for long. So, I ended up having to press them back into place and then paint with tacky glue where the cork and foam surface joined. This seemed to hold it much better.

Since it is a prison of sorts, my plan was to line the roof with sandbags. However, I didn't have enough pieces, so will be getting a friend to 3-D print me some. I will paint those up when I receive them and glue them atop the cork roof into place. So, technically, the building isn't truly complete. However, it is close enough to take pictures of and post on my blog!