Making a Semi-Flat Town

In a few recent games I played scenarios which had a town is positioned on the edge of the tabletop, serving as an anchor for an army’s flanks. Typically, I arrange a cluster of houses closely together to depict the town, but this setup encroaches six inches into the table's edge. In attempts to maximise tabletop space for gaming, I could place just one house to indicate the town. However, while practicable, it doesn't quite provide the look I want.

One of the prints that sparked the idea of making a semi-flat town.

Recently I have been re-reading and browsing through some books relating to the pike and musket period and enjoying the various prints of battles in the books. This sparked the idea of sketching a town scene, cutting it out, and sticking it to foam board, which I could then attach to the edge of the tabletop. As I began the drawing, I thought about using a semi-flat approach by layering multiple sheets of foam board and making the town into more of a model rather than a drawing. 

I remembered seeing similar concepts of semi-flat buildings on a few other blogs. Some of the posts are going a while back. One was from AJ’s Wargaming Table blog of a medieval manor (see here). Another use of semi-flats was in Wargaming Miscellany which described the use of two-dimensional buildings to reduce the footprint of buildings on a grid. (found here). Another more recent blog post with extensive use of semi-flat buildings is on Not Quite Mechanised (found here).

The finished town on the tabletop edge with a backboard.

Positioned on the table’s edge without a backboard.

A closer look at the semi-flat town.

The steps to making the town…

Materials required:

• Foam board
• Gesso Moulding Paste
• Paints and brushes
• Pencil and Paper
• Toothpicks (or moulding tools)
• Stiff cardboard

The steps to create a semi-flat town are:

1. Begin with drawing a sketch and getting the positioning of buildings.
2. Cut out the drawing and use it as a template to cut out the foam board.
3. Cut away the rear buildings on the drawing and use gain as a template to cut out another piece of the foam board.
4. Cut away more buildings and repeat until there are four layers of foam board.
5. Stick the foam board together lining up the layers of foam board.
6. Apply the Gesso Moulding Paste to the front of the foam board.
7. Using toothpicks I etch in building details particularly for the building roofs and corners.
8. Once the gesso is dry, paint the model with a base colour of the building walls, then add base colours for roofs.
9. When painting the roofs and details I will use washes and highlights to give depth to the buildings. This is where etching the roofs and other details help in the painting process, particularly for washes and highlights.

Pictures of the process below…

My original sketch. Along the way I ignored the chimneys as they were too fiddly.

After cutting out the drawing I used it as a template to draw around on the foam board.

I cut away some of the back buildings from the drawing. Then used this as a template to cut my next piece of foam board.

I gradually cut away more and more until I have four layers of foam board.

The pieces of foam board are stuck together. You can see how this gives some depth to the model.

Gesso Moulding Paste is used to cover the front of the model. I also added a base of stiff card.

Using a toothpick etch in some details for the roofs and buildings. A small piece of card help smooth out some of the surfaces.

The base colours are applied.

I find a brown wash helps pick out the details.

Watered down paint is used to draw in windows and other features. If you get it wrong the watered down paint is easily wiped away.

I continue adding details and little blobs of watered down paint to indicate bricks and stones.

The finished model is given a coat of PVA glue to seal it and some scatter on the base.