Houses from Toys

Published 22 February 2020

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I bought some cheap toy house to see if I could make them look better with a cheap paint job.

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Above are the three houses when I bought them. They were about 1€ each (the small one was for free).

Overview

I knew they would not be the right scale for my miniatures, but I wanted to see if I could make them look good with a quick paint job using cheap paints. I'd rather practice on cheap toys like this first.

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Closer look on the Hello Kitty one. Lots of details on the porch, but unfortunately not a the right scale.

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And the other one. Way less details here.

Closing windows

First thing to do is to close all the windows. I had a bunch of plastic poker money counter lying around so I glued them across all windows.

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For smaller windows I used some plastic.

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I also added two bottle caps on the tower on the right to hide the plastic bit jutting from it, and hoping to turn it into a chimney.

I should have spend more time adjusting it so it sits in the center, though. I should also have removed the handle but I didn't have the right tool to cut that, and it was just for practice anyway.

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Same job went for the Hello Kitty one, blocking the windows.

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This was actually harder as the space is much tighter here. Also, gluing thick plastic like I did wasn't a good idea, I should have used thin plastic everywhere, it would have been easier to glue. Lesson learned.

Priming

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With all windows blocked, ready for priming on a beautiful sunny day.

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For the small one, I simply added a Sigmar sign on top, and some chopsticks on the side.

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For this one, I also added some wooden coffee stirrer on the door to make it look like a wooden door.

Painting

I don't have pictures of the painting process, but here is what I did.

After priming black, I dry brushed a brown on the wooden walls with a very large make up brush. Because the brush was so large, I couldn't get into the angled recesses which gave the houses a dark look.

I did something similar with the roofs, metal unis and stone walls. Then, I picked a smaller brush and dry brushed green on any greenery.

And that's it.

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