MAKING MAUSOLEUMS

Covering the hills and hollows of graveyards across the Old World, mausoleums are a chilling sight. Rich families build them for their deceased lineage, only to have them corrupted by foul cults or desecrated by filthy ghouls. These terrain pieces look great when completed and easily form the centrepiece of any graveyard setting. If you search around a bit for some reference material, you'll find a bunch of variations upon the mausoleum theme. Here we will take you through the steps necessary to build two of the more common types of mausoleum. The first type involves the face of a building built into a hill, while the second example is a stand alone structure with a removable roof.

Foamboard was cut into three rectangles with small rectangular ledges on top of them. Also a triangular bit was cut out and placed on top of the centre rectangle. When cutting foamboard, it is best to use a fresh, sharp blade so as to get the best cut and avoid tearing the foamboard and getting ragged edges. A chunk of insulation foam was also roughly cut into a rectangle that'll serve as a hill. For the entrance to the tomb, a groove was cut into the foamboard suitable for a Mordheim building doorway. Nothing is glued together at this point. The empty doorway was given a door by gluing strips of balsa wood to the rear of the doorway, and a doorknob and plaque were made from plastic bits. The area where the door will rest was carefully carved out from the surface of the foamboard. Glue the door in place with some wood glue as superglue will eat the foam away!

The insulation foam was cut into the rough shape of a hill and then sanded down to a smooth round shape that forms a hill. All the pieces were then glued together and set aside to dry. Detailing the plain foamboard is a bit tedious as you have to measure and cut many, many pieces of card to exact measurements, but is well worth the effort. Simple shapes work best to represent marble styling, plaques, and corner pieces. A small roof was even tiled up using thin card.

Here is a close up of the card trimmings. You can see how it adds form and dimension to the previously flat foamboard. Once everything was dry, a thorough basecoat of Chaos Black was applied, and painting could now begin. To paint this mausoleum a sneaky method of using spraycans was used. First, the entire thing was sprayed Chaos Black. Once this had dried, a can of grey car undercoat (which you can easily find in any DIY store) was used to add a coat of colour, but not in the normal method. Holding the mausoleum about 2 and a half feet away, the grey undercoat was lightly sprayed in small bursts onto the piece. If you do this right the mausoleum will pick up the grey colour in a sort of dusting fashion giving you an even coat of colour. It will help to practice this technique using some old cardboard boxes before moving on to the real thing. Next we drybrushed the whole piece using Codex Grey and Fortress Grey to pick out the edges and raised card areas. Now comes the fun part. Using very watereddown Green and Chestnut inks, thoroughly wash the entire piece. Just slather it on there! You may have to repeat this a few times to get the desired result. Once it all dries, you will have a disgusting, weathered, greenish brown mausoleum. Now, just paint any details and the earthen area behind the piece as you see fit and you are done! Or are you...

ANOTHER MAUSOLEUM
This mausoleum is a bit more complicated and involved than the previous one, as it has a removable roof and several steps, but if you think you've got what it takes, break out your ruler, hobby knife, and pencil!

A strip of foamboard 4" wide and 18" long was cut out and segmented into 3" sections. In order to segment the foamboard, simply cut half way through it, NOT all the way through it! The door to the mausoleum was also cut out at this point. The mausoleum will be hexagonal in shape as demonstrated by the image above. See how the segmented pieces hinge upon one another on a single piece of foamboard? This is the key to the whole project, otherwise you'd have to attach each wall separately, which can be nightmarish! A dowel rod was cut to fit the doorway and a step was added using foamboard. Doing this now will save some heartache later, so make sure your measurement are correct.

Now that we are underway, it is time to glue the hexagon shape together. Line the walls up and using a strip of bent card, glue one end of the foamboard strip to the other. Further reinforce the walls with more strips of bent card along the inside of the mausoleum. As the mausoleum needs a base, a hexagonal slab seems to fit the bill nicely. Simply cut out a hexagon that matches your walls and cover the exposed foamboard with strips of card. You can glue the walls down onto it if you want, but there is no immediate need to do so. You may notice that each corner of the building is a big open hinge. Well, it just so happens that wood dowel rods cut to the correct length fit smugly in this crevice, neatly covering the gaps! So cut one rod out for each corner and set them aside as there is no need to glue them in place right now.

Time for the roof. A circle was traced onto foamboard using a coffee can and then oh-so carefully cut out. The exposed foam of the circle was then covered with strips of thin card. This circle will nicely accommodate the dome that will be attached later. In order for the roof to come off and go back into place without constantly falling off or becoming loose, some balsa wood sticks were glued in place. These were specifically placed so that they would hold the roof on tightly. Also an arrow was drawn to designate the facing of the roof, with the arrow pointing towards the front door. Eight strips of 4" by 1" card were cut out and glued onto the outer walls. This type of simple decoration adds a ton to the simple surface of flat and boring foamboard.

In addition to the strips around the mausoleum, it was decided that some big plaques would look nice. After all you need to know just who is buried in the mausoleum! Some plastic shield bits, and thin strips of card were used to make the plaques. Arrange the strips of card and plastic bits in a pleasing manner. There are an infinite number of ways you can do this, it's all up to how complicated you want to make it. We went with a simple arrangement of rectangles and plenty of open space for when we paint it later. Affix the plaques to the sides of the mausoleum carefully, you don't want to put them on crooked! Glue the base to the hexagonal walls, and add the dowel rods at this point. Use plenty of glue, but clean up any spillage to avoid a sloppy finish. Wait for the glue to dry and think about how you want to do the stairs.

We went with a simple pair of blocks that serve as stairs for the mausoleum. Thin card was glued to cover any exposed foam and a simple design was cut out and placed on the first set of steps. Let this dry before moving onto making the dome. The mausoleum needed some sort of dome or it just wasn't going to look right. So after a bit of looking at different salad bowls, plastic dishes and such, a small clear dome was found. It was simply glued on top of the roof and a pinnacle was then added using odds and ends. You could place practically anything up there, just use your imagination! Here is the piece just prior to painting. It may seem like a daunting task to paint such a large building, but it really isn't. Just set some time aside, set up your paint area and get to work.

The whole structure was painted using the same method as the previous mausoleum. First, the entire thing was sprayed Chaos Black. Once this had dried, a can of grey car undercoat (which you can easily find in any DIY store) was used to add a coat of colour, but not in the normal method. Holding the mausoleum about 2 and a half feet away, the grey undercoat was lightly sprayed in small bursts onto the piece. If you do this right the mausoleum will pick up the grey colour in a sort of dusting fashion giving you an even coat of colour. It will help to practice this technique using some old cardboard boxes before moving on to the real thing. Next we drybrushed the whole piece using Codex Grey and Fortress Grey to pick out the edges and raised card areas. Now comes the fun part. Using very watered down Green and Chestnut inks, thoroughly wash the entire piece. Just slather it on there! You may have to repeat this a few times to get the desired result. Once it all dries, you will have a disgusting, weathered, greenish brown mausoleum. Now, just paint any details and you are done!