Welcome to Grimm's!

Here is a walk through the build process.  I'll try to give some detail about how things were done or about new techniques or materials that I tried out.  If they worked for me, they can work for you too!  This was a fun project, a bit stressful as I had a lot to do and a little time to do it in.  I worked on this off and on for about three weeks at night - maybe 2-4 hours a shot. I'd say I probably ended up with around 50 hours in it so far. 

I wanted to do this page a little different from the normal small thumbnails, so I'll be posting big pictures with descriptions. The comments for any picture will be right below the picture.  I'll need to split this into different pages to keep it loading quickly.   Use the menu below to conveniently jump around OR start on this page and keep going forward at the end of each page. 

  :: Intro  ::  Tower  ::  Walls  ::   Door ::  Stairs  ::  Roof   ::  Bay Window  ::  Conservatory  ::  Fountain  ::  Scenery ::

The door was the first thing I did and it took forever!  I think it really makes the model though, so it was well worth the time spent.  Before I started this project I though - I need to come up with some unconventional stuff!  George Sellios is always finding new ways of doing things I need to think like that!   So, I went to the hobby store and looked for whatever I could see that might have a use.  One thing I found was a dollhouse Grandfather clock.  It was perfect for the front.  So when I got home it was time to cut it apart.  Now I usually joke about cheapo Chinese crap, but whatever glue they used to hold this together was quality glue!  Anyway I broke the top portions off and had to glue them back together again.  That didn't speed things up!  So, after the re-gluing, here is the starting point.  I did a little carving on the sides already, but nothing else. 

Here are some of the parts I used.  The long gold parts are cheap rings that I cut apart and then bent straight.  Cutting and filing metal isn't a fun thing, but there are a lot of neat details available.

I've carved out the wood and then added the gold border.  The border was too thick though, so I added the styrene as filler.  BUT, then the inner brass rings stood out too far, so I had to go back and cut out circles to recess them into.  Then, they sat back too far.  So I cut the red pieces of paper you see. 

Lot more done here!  The centers are in and the baseboards are on.  I ended up going around the entire top part of the door with wire (only part is done in this picture.)  The lower accents are paper. 

I wanted skulls on the doors.  I tried to cut the ones off of the upper window boxes that came with the kit, but they kept breaking.  SO, why not make them I thought!  So I took some sculpey clay and carved these very small skulls out.  The eyes were made with the tip of a ball point pen.  Then I cooked them in the oven. 

Here's she is!  I haven't done any weathering yet, but everything is on except the door handles. 

The door skulls wait to welcome visitors.  While the doors seem large, they are close to scale for BIG entry doors.  An HO Guy can reach the handles just fine.  I tested that out with a little HO hombre, but then he promptly ran away.

 

With that done, we need some stairs! 

On to the making the the stairs!

 

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