Each year Lead Adventure forum runs a Build Something Competition, each with a theme. Brian and I have participated 5 times at various points in the past years. So with 2022 here, I figured it was my time again.

• 2021: Brian built a Pool of Dark Darkness
• 2020: Brian got started on a ruined abbey
• 2018: I completed the design for but didn’t finish an illadvised 3-wheel vehicle (Lead Adventure thread / Blog Post)
• 2017: Brian completed a Goblin Blimp
• 2010: Brian finished a bridge over Onaceedee Creek

This year has the theme of “Rest” and I was already noodling around the idea of a farm house, in the style of old European stone farmhouses. Something that could be used in nearly any era we currently play, from ECW, to Pulp to Fantasy.

I own a large set of fairly expensive tools (3D printer, airbrush, Silhouette cutter) so I thought the best thing would be to add a Proxxon hot wire cutter to the mix. So how can I use that? Well, I do like the look of the old stone work people have been showing off using the tool.

So my plan is fairly simple – design a 3D printed shell and then stick cut foam stones on that. Why not 3D print the whole thing? 1 – I have little experience 3D modelling in Blender and 2 – these buildings were handmade – they should look handmade. Almost all the 3D printed stone work I have seen done is too regular. Just look at these old farm houses:

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Compare that with the stone you see in a lot of 3D buildings, such as Dark Realm’s amazing Arkenfel stuff or Dadi Dungeon’s Ferisia Fortified House Don’t get me wrong, I love both of their work, have been patreons of both for over 2 years and would recommend them to anybody. But even the slightly irregular Ferisian house still doesn’t fully capture that “hand laid stone feel”.

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I’ve been working on a mat for Sellswords for a long time, so I figured this should be designed as a centre-piece for that. So I took a “somewhat centred over the top of the mat” picture and then brought it into FreeCAD to start blocking out the farm:

Overall, my first cut wasn’t great. It was looking more like late medieval/early modern Normandy farm – the kind you see in Napoleonics and WW2 games. I wanted an older feel, so took my inspiration from this long historical piece about older Normandy farms and similar vintage farm houses in Spain and Italy.

So I decided to combine the barn and the main house, much like they did in earlier times. I kept the stables as separate buildings, but they aren’t going to be much more than a roof over. I was inspired by this video for the design for the gate house/stables combination. You can see how the roof line continues over the main gate.

Which lead me to where I am right now. The house now gains a tower, much like the 2nd inspiration picture above. And the low-slung building on the left of the main house is supposed to look much like that accessory building in the grey-scale inspiration picture. The house gets a slight bend to accommodate the path in the mat behind.

Lots more work to do, starting with getting my 3D printer working again (I broke the hot end thermistor wire when cleaning the hot end).