MDF is getting expensive but what a fantasy house

[Andrew Beasley]

£39 for a single building (even in the sale it’s £29)!

Not heard of TowerRex before but these must take ages to cut given the detail on them – the big house (Etsy link) is a great example:

[OotKust]

I worked in an engineering workshop (as QA Manager not skilled worker) and while there’s definite design time involved, laser cutters and the like are very quick and efficient.
While I won’t deny a workers wages, I think the design component gets amortised way more quickly than other methods. Self owned shops, well, I guess you have too…

Swinging from left to right no matter where the hobby goes!

[Mike]

I think I am in the minority when I feel that so many MDF terrain items look and feel more like toys than models.
They remind me of old wooden forts like the Britains ones.
They just look too chunky with phat detailing and very obvious joins and flat features.
I bought some MDF ones from Pendraken but I used them as a base and pretty much covered them to make them less toy like.

Also that one makes no sense to me?
It has brick exterior, but where the bricks are missing there is some sort of plaster or coating under the bricks?
Wouldn’t that be over the bricks?

I would rather buy something like this, for less…

I am just a grumpy old git?

[Mike Headden]

MDF buildings tend to be lighter for the same size, in my experience, and they are more likely than resin to allow you access to the insides, if that is important to you.

Horses for courses, as ever, I think.

As to looking like toys …. doesn’t everything on a wargames table look like a toy?

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Mike]

Mike Headden wrote:

As to looking like toys …. doesn’t everything on a wargames table look like a toy?

Horses for courses of course, but I would draw a distinction between toys and models, and also between models and scale models.
Though like pron, hard to define; but I know it when I see it.

😀

 

Models:

Toys:

[Mike]

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t much care about what people call it all.
Maybe I should have said the MDF house makes it harder to suspend my disbelief that it is not real?
No matter how nicely painted, I doubt I would at even the quickest of glances mistake the MDF house as a real one, but the resin if painted well enough, I suspect I would be more likely to think it a real house, and that realism/buy in is what I prefer.

Anyway…

[Mike Headden]

It may be sculpted to a standard to make Praxitiles ashamed of his work, painted to a standard to make Michelangelo weep but they are still, at base, toys.

The problem with “models” is they are hell on wheels to play with.

I’d sooner give the bottom tank a quick paint job and some decals than use the first one with all that fragile detail just waiting to be popped off. It’s a display piece not a wargaming item, IMNSHO.

The table with the intricately detailed landscape isn’t designed for figures on bases. If you are old enough to get the reference, you need General Jumbo’s army to be able to use it properly.

But there again, my first game of “Chain of Command” included a Kellog’s Variety Pack carton with a drinking straw poked though one end and the inscription PzIV/L70 in Sharpie on the top, so what do I know! 🙂

There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

[Not Connard Sage]

Mike wrote:

I am just a grumpy old git?

Yes, and so am I. I don’t like laser cut MDF buildings either 🙂

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Mike]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

I don’t like laser cut MDF buildings either

Por que?

[Not Connard Sage]

Mike wrote:

Not Connard Sage wrote:

I don’t like laser cut MDF buildings either

Por que?

ITYM pourquoi pas 😉

They’re too…two dimensional.

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Mike]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

ITYM pourquoi pas

Nah; Por Que?
Spanish innit.

[Not Connard Sage]

Mike wrote:

Not Connard Sage wrote:

ITYM pourquoi pas

Nah; Por Que?
Spanish innit.

Pourquoi pas French innit.

No habla Espanol

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Guy Farrish]

Todo el mondo hablan español!

¡Arriba, arriba! ¡Ándale, ándale!

Dos cervezas por favor.

Yeah, after that I’m getting a bit thin  [my Spanish that is – I’m definitely not getting thin]- I do however agree the mdf stuff is not muy bien.

Adios!

[Sane Max]

I like them, but they wouldnt match with the stuff I have. I think the issue is that they are very ‘square’ – ‘true’ – no wonky bits if that makes sense.

But I think if everything on the table was MDF they would be fine , especially if you put some work in to make them look less wooden – That Youtuber with the hoops in his ears does a good vid on making MDF buildings look more natural.

[Guy Farrish]

Good point. They are a good base for ‘enhancement’.

But if I were paying full price for that kit above I’d be miffed over having to rework the reversed brickwork/rendering and add lots of stuff to make it less perfect (What is with the huge slabs of wood holding the dormer up and forming its side walls? Must be a five hundred year old oak to produce a board that wide!).

I’m still waiting for the technology to catch up with General Jumbo’s Army – the MuxDemux protocols were fantastic for the 1960s!

[That was weird. Square brackets just cut out what I had written in them – the bit about General Jumbo – probably won’t happen now!] No. Typical! Wonder what else I did?

 

[Not Connard Sage]

Guy Farrish wrote:

I’m still waiting for the technology to catch up with General Jumbo’s Army – the MuxDemux protocols were fantastic for the 1960s! [That was weird. Square brackets just cut out what I had written in them – the bit about General Jumbo – probably won’t happen now!] No. Typical! Wonder what else I did?

General Jumbo’s armies were all I wanted for Christmas from about 1964 to 1970. It never happened 🙁

The forum software seems a bit glitchy the last few days.

Obvious contrarian and passive aggressive old prat, who is taken far too seriously by some and not seriously enough by others.

[Andrew Beasley]

Guy Farrish wrote:

… Square brackets just cut out what I had written in them

The editor supports some (but not all) BBCodes – these are strings that tell the forum how to display text and details of pictures etc and they use square brackets to differentiate the commands from normal text.

It’s a rather old compositor TBH and WYSIWYG can be easier to use if supported well – do not get me wrong, it’s very powerful and used on many many very big systems but is really a hang over from command lines and basic text editors IMO despite “only” being 25 years old (ie young in my timeframe but ancient in IT terms).

If you want to learn more then https://www.bbcode.org is the place to start but way simpler to avoid square brackets and use braces () or curly brackets {}

Not Connard Sage wrote:

…The forum software seems a bit glitchy the last few days.

Try it on an iPad – been a battle from day one – lots of forums have issues with entry, LAF adds extra blank lines (double space) and randomly throws bbcode in when it feels like and here links and cursor positioning esp for edits are a nightmare 🙂

It can be made worse by ad blocking, pop up limits and anti-tracking software (all of which can update without you knowing) – you can try whitelisting the sites used but it does not always help.

One day forums will cope but doubt I’ll be around to see it…

[willz]

Not Connard Sage wrote:

Guy Farrish wrote:

I’m still waiting for the technology to catch up with General Jumbo’s Army – the MuxDemux protocols were fantastic for the 1960s! [That was weird. Square brackets just cut out what I had written in them – the bit about General Jumbo – probably won’t happen now!] No. Typical! Wonder what else I did?

General Jumbo’s armies were all I wanted for Christmas from about 1964 to 1970. It never happened 🙁 The forum software seems a bit glitchy the last few days.

With AI and advances in technology you can still dream.

[SupremeLittleness]

Laser-cut MDF with laser-cut greyboard stonework and door and included thatch material that I designed, manufactured and used to sell for £12.50. Age has nothing to do with it. Ian Weekley used to make exquisite models from plywood boxes with door and window cut-outs.

www.supremelittleness.co.uk

[Author]

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