Building the Old West

One of the features planned for the new area is an Old West town. So I needed to start building some Old West buildings. I built them starting with a plywood shell using weatherproof glue.

I used weatherproof glue to attach cedar siding. I cut the cedar siding from standard cedar boards from the home improvement store.

The deck is also constructed with cedar.

More progress on the deck.

The deck needs a stairway to get to it.

Construction is close to complete here.

Construction of the rest of the buildings was similar.

After construction, I put on a coat of weather proofing stain for a gray base, and then proceeded to literally soak the buildings in clear acrylic weather proofing (inside and out). There was a total of 3 applications of acrylic to turn the wood into something closer to plastic. Then the real fun started - highlighting using a mix of washes and dry brushing to make the brand new buildings look 100 years old.

The initial group of buildings for the Old West town are a Hotel, Tonsorial Parlor (barber shop)...

... Saloon (of course!) and a Bath House. Adding a few more Old West buildings each winter will be my winter hobby for a few years to come.

It's kind of fun using a few strategic applications of paint to make those brand new buildings suddenly look 100 years old.

This set of buildings has rusty metal roofs.

The hotel has a partially finished interior. The front lobby is finished and visible through the windows especially when lighted at night.

The saloon has open swinging doors with a bar scene inside. This diorama is a combination of physical 3D pieces and photographic backgrounds. To heighten the illusion, the floor is a trapezoid with the boards actually cut narrower on the far end.

This is what the inside wall shell looks like before finishing.

Here is the almost theatrical piece that forms the saloon interior. The angles on the floor in the color prints do not line up, but you won't see much of that in the finished building. What matters is the diminishing size and perspective of the people in the background.

Add a light, and glue it in place.

That's a busy saloon. Those characters look a bit shady. I would recommend not going in there.