I was surfing through Pinterest for ship plans when a few card ships popped up, Once I clicked on them a whole new world of card models started showing up. Every one I clicked on brought more. Including buildings. All of the buildings I have bought for my 1/1200 scale terrain have been rather expensive. I wondered if I could possibly shrink down a card building small enough to work with my ships, and still be able to put it together in a decent amount of time and look good enough for the table. So I tried it and I think this is going to work.

I downloaded the following two jpeg sheets from Pinterest. Then I inserted them both, along with several others, into a Microsoft Word document. I took measurements of several of my 1/1200 Langton buildings and came up with approximately 5 millimeters per story. I shrunk these photos down to approximately 1/1200 size then printed the sheet out on paper first to check the size. Last I printed it out on 110 lb card stock.

Cutting out the now tiny pieces was fiddly, but using a small pair of scissors and a sharp xacto knife I got it done. Figuring out where all of the little pieces went was another thing entirely. I believe I mostly got everything where it was supposed to go but I did have to improvise a bit in a couple of places. Here is the result mounted on a large washer.

With a penny and a French third rate for size comparison:

Here are a few individual buildings I completed before attempting the more difficult one above:

I have decided this is a very economical way to make buildings for my scale, and there are so many. I hit a bonanza when I found http://papermau.blogspot.com/
I now have card Vauban forts, castle keeps, castle/fortified towns, whole villages, farms, etc. That’s just Europe. I also now have Middle Eastern, North African, Japanese fortifications and buildings. All can be reduced to 1/1200 scale and be built. Here are some samples:
Large French Castle:

Completed village (Normal 28mm scale:

Small French Castle:

Small Spanish Castle:

A couple of finished castles:

Cheers,

Vol