Chuck T found really cool paper buildings on line and passed them on to us before the holidays. While the buildings appear to be designed for D&D play, they fit in perfectly with 17th and 18th century Europe. The different buildings available are cottages, a smithy, a tall inn, church to name a few; there are castle walls (intact and damaged), castle gates, towers, etc. to round out the available paper buildings. They are exquisitely painted and look beautiful on line and when printed. Being made of paper, however, makes them very flimsy and not very durable especially for those making long trips to conventions or weekend gaming days. The buildings themselves can be constructed as is very quickly, but will not stand up to much gaming before being damaged beyond repair. While there are many ways to skin this cat, I thought the club might be interested in the way I put a couple of these together over the Christmas break. The added work only takes a little more time, but the final product is much sturdier and the buildings still look great. After the two small cottages I will build the inn. The set up and construction of this large building is very different from the small cottages and will described later.

I decided to start with the very simple cottage pair. There are 4 sheets of paper to make two buildings of slightly different size, though parts of each were similar enough to help gain experience constructing the other. I decided to back the paper with thin cardboard that I got from the US Post Office. The Priority/Express Mail boxes make excellent cardboard for backing - they are thin (thick cardboard shows the corrugations that need to be filled with spackle), they are plentiful (so you can use the same type of material each time) and, best of all, they are still free!

The buildings were cut out with the tabs initially attached, as I did not know if they would be needed or not during construction and the different cottages kept together. I prefer to be able to remove the roof to get to the figures in the buildings; for these cottages, the roof has to be removed and the white line between the sides and roof cut out as well. This will make the roof just a little too small for the four remaining sides so a small amount (appx 1mm) needed to be trimmed from the top of all four building sides. Each piece of paper is glued to the cardboard using a glue stick. This is less messy than regular glue, is thicker to give a better all over coat and does not leave lines under the paper like thin liquid white glue. (I was able to elicit the help of my daughter Leah -- doesn’t she have cute hands?!)

Here is where there was an advantage to working on two buildings simultaneously. As the paper and glue dried on building #1, I worked on gluing the smaller of the two cottages. After about 30 minutes or so, I cut out everything I had glued to the postal cardboard. (*note how thick the "wooden" border is on the tops of the front and back of the building -- this is prior to the trimming that can be seen later on in the pictures. The trimming needed to be done in order to make the roof fit on each cottage.) In order to help the main roof and for the second floor window fold, the cardboard underneath has to be "scored"; this was done gently with a sharp knife, just enough to go through the first level of cardboard.

Because the building still looked a little flimsy by itself, I decided to mount the sides on a thin piece of particle type board appx 1/8th inch thick. In order to make sure the sides all fit, be sure to add a half-inch to the total measurement before cutting out the base. Also, glue the smaller sides to the inside of the taller fronts and backs; this will ensure that the roof fits well on these two buildings. Use regular white glue to put the building sides together as well as to glue the whole structure to the base. I like a base to the buildings because I think it looks better, will last longer and hides figures in the building better. This step can be omitted according to personal preference.

Triangles are used to support the main roof and these thicker pieces were cut from a regular cardboard box - after the holidays we had plenty of them around! Rubber bands held everything in place while the glue dried overnight. I did have trouble with the roof for the smaller cottage and had to re-glue the roof supports one side at a time to get it to fit properly. Tracing the outline of the actual triangular building fronts on the thick cardboard eliminated any guess work and measuring (remember to cut inside the lines drawn to get a better fit). Here is where I noticed the roof did not come down to cover the building completely -- this is understandable because the roof was initially a part of the sides. To correct for this, I cut appx 1-1.5mm from the fronts and sides and got what I considered a pretty good fit. The second floor window did not need any extra cardboard for support as the window front itself was sturdy enough to support the roof. All roof pieces were glued with regular white glue, rubber banded together and left to dry overnight.

There is an overhanging bay window on the front of the larger cottage. Measurements were taken from one slot to the other to calculate the width and the window itself was measure to get the height of the cardboard cut for backing support. I used a thinner piece of non-postal service cardboard, the kind found on the backs of spiral notebooks to do this. The paper windows were curved and the tabs glue stick glued to the cardboard and the whole structure glued over the slots draw onto the cottage. The roof was also curved and glue stick used to fix it over the top of the window. A scrap of thick cardboard was white glued behind the bay window for some support.

Some 1cm square balsa fit pretty well as the center of the chimney, though not perfectly (no big deal). The shape of the chimney was measured, cut out and the edges smoothed with scrap sandpaper. After painting all of the top and the underside edges black and eyeing the pieces for fit, some white glue made sure it stayed put on top of each cottage. I may cover the thin edge around each building with either grass or dirt type flocking but I have not decided that yet. Even though it took the roof parts overnight to dry into place, I considered this a one-day job. With all the interruptions of family, kids and infant, I cannot give any more than an approximate 1-2 hours total work time needed to complete these cottages. In the end I was very pleased with the results.

I took some extra time to back most everything with thin cardboard. While this added some time to the construction, I hope it will significantly add to the life of the buildings. The painting on the buildings is superb even though there are occasional dashed lines for folding (easily covered with some paint, if desired). These buildings drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to produce a town -- measuring, adding the little extras (to make the building look cool and different) and, most of all, painting/shading are already done for you. The final results look really nice and for me, being able to do something quickly and nicely is an unusual event!

editor's note: For more on paper buildings, for wargaming and what-not, see the great resource at Free Paper Toys.

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