LOTR Rohan thatched houses

I have scratch built some Rohan houses using templates from the Games Workshop website (available when the figures were first released, not sure if they are still there). The first one I built was as per the GW suggestion but the other two I am still to finish and I adapted a bit.

The completed one is on a raised stone stand. To give an idea of scale there are some Uruk Hai and Lurtz loitering around ready to pillage the village.

I will describe more of the construction later with the partially completed ones. Here are some close ups of the building and figures.

A quick overview of the stone base, the stones are just cardboard cut out then given rounded corners and stuck on. I mixed some filler in with the first coat of black to give a rough effect then just kept dry brushing grey until it covered well and then moved to a lighter grey.

The base itself is just a sheet of packing polystyrene cut with hot wire cutters to the correct size. You can see it is the standard stuff you get in packing rather than the dense styrene often used for modelling because the pattern of the compressed polystyrene balls is still visible. I have styrene but I decided to use this as it looks like a compressed stone base because of the pattern rather than a rather unrealistic concrete if it was just flat.

I have another one ready to paint. This one is not on a base and does not have the front overhang over the door. You can see the basics of how they are made from this one: it is a cardboard skeleton (cut from the templates, or in this case my modified ones) with thin balsa sheets stuck on but a wood plank effect created by scoring with a soft pencil. Other balsa pieces are stuck on for wooden cross pieces etc. the thatch is teddy bear fur, cut out and stuck on with an extra piece across the top of the ridge then gradually soaked with a thinned down white glue to shape and harden the fur into 'thatch' (and yes is is that bright an orange!).

The other one needs the gable ends added but otherwise complete. This has the overhang over the front door and I have made the door slightly ajar. Also not on a stone base (I decided that would just be for the headman's house).

I have a somewhat more impressive project that is almost complete and will do a post on that either before of after my summer hols depending how I go (lots to do!).