Building Whitewash City

 I had been working on getting The Rules With No Name ready to play at conventions many years ago. I had found some 1/35 sized figures, and had made bases and painted many of them but had not decided on a color for the bases. I had looking into some papercraft buildings that would need to be upsized, and even picked up a couple of larger plastic fronts at Dollarama.

There was a set of buildings from a western town made by Eric Hotz, who is also on BGG. This was the Whitewash City. They are purportedly at 1/60 scale or 30mm but, things were built small back then and, with most figures being on bases, this makes the buildings look a bit on the wee side.

I had started some tests on upsizing the files. The size of the buildings to store was always a detriment, though, and I did not get around to finishing.

Several years later, I have come across Dracula’s America and am revisiting the scale. With the time now allotted from being quarantined, I have been busy painting up some 25mm figures. Now that I have a few posses done, I have revisited the terrain.

He had a sample building – The Imperial Saloon. This is nice to try to see if the scale will work with your figures. Plus it gives you an idea of how hard the assembly will be, and how durable the buildings are.

I had also bought the 10 pack about a decade ago. I was able to get it from him directly on CD, which I finally reprinted and built. This does fill a table nicely with a good amount of buildings, especially for a skirmish game.

 

I had checked back and planned to get the Motherload set with all the buildings. But when I finally was ready in March to order, the website was down. In speaking with Eric, it seems his old computer had stopped working and his new one doesn’t come with a CD drive.

I can still get the files from Drivethrugames. But it will now be a bit more expensive. If you need Western Scenery, I would recommend trying the sample first, and if that will work for you, think hard on going right up to the Motherload if you think you will ever need more than just the starter.

Western Town - test pieces

I drew the upsized buildings on a piece of posterboard then cut them out and glued them together. I’m starting with a few test pieces – a shed, an outhouse, and a log cabin. If they prove too difficult to work with I can stop, if they seem to work okay I can proceed with upsizing some of the more complex buildings.

The posterboard seems a bit flimsy right now. I am hoping when I glue on the roofs and bases they will firm up. Then I will glue on the match sticks for window frames and stir sticks for planks.

For the log cabin, I found a set of dowels that are the same scale as the pattern printed on the Hotz Artworks design – 10 logs high. I am not sure if I want to rough them up a bit or not to better simulate logs. I also have to decide if I want to sand the backs flatter to make them easier to glue.

Fig painting total - Feb

I was doing fine for figures bought this year – with nothing I purchased in January completing any sets and only 11 sets completed in February – until I came across some farm animal sets in BJ Super Toy Sales. I’ve been looking for 1/35 horses and cattle for the upsized RWNN and haven’t been able to find any at Dollarama or Michael’s. At $1.50 a bag, it was worth picking up two bags to see what was usable.

It was a good find – with 2 horses (1 foal), 3 cattle (1 calf), 3 pigs, 3 sheep (1 lamb), and a goat. 5 to 10 bags should give enough head of cattle to simulate a decent herd come to town, enough horses, and even enough sheep to make a cattle/sheep war viable. Especially if I can find the bags for less.

Also, I’m hoping to use these figures to hone my painting skills for the regular figures.

40K Battlewagon (in bits) – 1
40K Carnifex (in bits) – 1
40K Raveners (in bits) – 3
40K Tyranid Warriors (in bits) – 6
2 sets Farm Animals (1/35 scale) - 24
Feb figures bought – 35, figures painted – 0

Western Town - supplies

I had popped into Dollarama and picked up some more supplies for the western town. I picked up some clipboards – for the hardboard to use as bases. It’s actually cheaper to pick up a sheet of hardboard at Revy/Home Depot if you are doing a bunch but for small projects, the clipboards are a quick measure with less waste.

I also picked up some 1/4” wooden dowels, some 3/16” wooden dowels and a bamboo gate – to use for the log cabin and for fence rails.

I already have a few bags of stir sticks from both Walmart and Dollarama for the wood planks. Even at this scale, popsicle sticks are too thick for most purposes.

I also picked up some big sheets of cardboard. The wife has a tendancy to fold up my sheets if I leave them around so I usually need to buy it as I need it.

Upsizing Whitewash City

Okay. Forget what Eric recommends about upsizing via photocopier. It doesn’t work to upsize to 1/35.

I tried upsizing the last page of Out Buildings set (the one labeled Sheds & Privies). It did indeed upsize the width by 129% and the length by 155% as we figured it would based on the math instead of the 171% we need. This makes all the doors on the buildings about shoulder high and of varying widths depending on which way they were oriented on the page. It may still be usable for small sheds but will look odd next to a figure.

So I will have to upsize each building by hand. This is not a huge issue, but it would have been nice to quickly print out the textured pictures. I might still be able to scan them and manipulate them at home to print out at the proper size.

With the walkway, the Imperial Saloon will be a bit over 40cm long (a bit over a foot). This will make it a bit tight to lay out a town, even on a 4’ x 8’ table. Unless we set up the buildings oriented with the long side – which would make a smaller town - which should both work and be pretty accurate.

Upsizing Whitewash City

So I am upsizing the Hotz Artworks Whitewash City to use with the 1/35 figures I have for Rules With No Name. I’m trying to upsize it for the larger figure scale and I ran into a bit of an issue.

I’m working with the free sample – The Imperial Saloon and the out buildings in the Pioneer Set. The listed scale is 30mm or 1/60. So I tried measuring out the buildings and redrawing them at double-size to see how they would fit. They were much too big. In checking, I had forgotten to change the print setting from fit-to-page to print actual – which meant that the 10’ scale marker was only 47cm long instead of the 2” it should have been at 1/60.

When I reprinted with the right settings, the 10’ scale marker comes out at 50cm instead of the 51cm it should be but that is actually easier as each scale foot would then be half a centimeter (or 2’ real = 1 cm scale). This means the drawings are actually closer to 1/61.200 instead of 1/60 but that is pretty close and the difference is minimal for our purposes.
Either way, my double-size redrawings (even from the smaller print) then came out way too tall for my 1/35 scale cowboy – who is 5’10” in 1/35 scale (with hat – about 5’2 without hat but the base will make him look taller). Instead of doubling, according to the math, I should really upsize the measurements by 1.71. So I will redraw at the new size and try again.

Eric recommends taking the 8.5 x 11 prints and reprinting them at 11 x 17. I will try that as well and see how that compares to the upsized drawings and to the figures. According to the math, upsizing this way will be smaller than redrawing, but the convenience of having the pretty colored versions to assemble may be worthwhile compared to having to redraw them and then use those measurements to scratchbuild the buildings. We will have to see.

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For those interested in the math, as I am, it is as follows.
To find the scale: 10 feet in reality = 2 inches in scale.
120 inches = 2 inches in scale. So scale = 2/120 or 1/60.

To convert the scales: 1/60scale to 1/35scale.
1/60 x = 1/35
35x = 60
x = 60/35
x = 1.7142857 or x = 1.71

Doing the photocopy upsizing.
From 8.5 x 11 to 11 x 17.
11/8.5 = 1.2941176 and 17/11 = 1.5454545.

The figure size in scale: Figure height is 2 inches. If scale is 1/35, then 2 scale inches equals 2 x 35 = 70 real inches. 70 divided by 12 equals 5 with a remainder or 10 so the 2” figure in 1/35 scale is really 5’10”.
Without hat, the figure is a little over 1.75 inches or 1 3/4”. If scale is 1/35, the 1.75 scale inches equals 1.75 x 35 = 61.25 real inches. 61.25 less 60 (12 inches x 5 feet) leaves 1.25 so he would be about 5’2”.