Buildin' (Patreon)

Whenever I crafted buildings for games, I always used thick and thin cardboard from used packaging and cereal boxes. That was always the basic cheap building material, with the addition of whatever useful waste I could find at home. I know that with the advent of those new fast 3D printers this can look obsolete for some, but I still prefer crafting terrain instead of 3D printing it. But these can be combined, and as many of you noticed in the pictures I've been using buildings and some requested to share the bits they're made from. It took me a while to organize and redesign the elements so that they can be used to create modular buildings. It's still in 'beta' stage, under development.

I called this "PizzaBox Terrain" because the main building material is thin corrugated cardboard (about 2mm thick, 3mm will do if you compress it on the edges) that's commonly used in pizza boxes. Cereal box cardboard will do if you glue 2 sheets together. 

The basic idea is that 3D-printed "corners" are used to keep the cardboard in place, and other 3D-printed elements are used for decoration. To make things more interesting, I've created textures (from photos I've taken) that can be printed on a normal 2D color printer and glued to the cardboard, for fast effect. The different 3D elements can be printed in different color filaments, which can mean less painting. 

The orientation of the STL files is deliberate for FDM printers and its aim is to 1) print supportless and 2) reduce the effect of the visibility of layer lines. You'll notice that the thin and long roof elements are standing on their sides and might seem risky to print this way, but with a brim it should print fine on a reasonably calibrated printer. I printed mine on the Ender 3 on a standard 0.2 Cura profile.

The corners are redesigned so that after printing you can fold them in half to glue them.

The PDFs with textures contain layers that you can turn on/off to print the desired parts and configuration. Remember to print them at actual size!

You'll see some letters and numbers in the assumed naming convention, like A1 or C1 - these are labels I use to tell between different types of elements. The letters are for the types of roof/gable, the number next to those is for the type of wall width.  But this will get useful later., this realease contains elements to make simple 5x10cm single- or multistorey houses. you can also make a 5x5cm tower and use the C1 roof on top. 

You'll need some glue - a gluestick for the paper, superglue to glue plastic parts that need it. I use PVA glue to stick the 3d-printed elements to paper (plastic might need a bit of sanding for better adhesion). You'll need a sharp blade to cut the cardboard (watch your fingers).

The basic crafting process is: 

- print the 3D parts

- print the A4 texture sheets from PDFs

- glue the A4 texture sheets on cardboard (wait for it to dry)

- paint the 3D-printed parts

- cut the cardboard walls (including holes for windows if you want them)

- assembly 

Whew, that was a lot of typing. I'm sure I haven't covered everything, do ask questions if something is not clear. Feel free to suggest changes that will improve the assembly process. 

This release also contains a tree - I used to make trees of pieces of found wood/branches but this time I sculpted one in 3D, it's supportless of course.

And, I'd like to announce a New Competition - for a PizzaBox terrain building. Craft one, make it pretty and submit before the end of February - winner will get to request a reasonably sized terrain item. If more than a 5 Patrons submit their entries, 2 runners up will also get a smaller scatter terrain piece of their choice. 

Thank you for your support!

Next: some music.