Season of Scenery: Convenience store 2

With the Warhammer cottage finished I turned my attention back to the store, at least until I start doing one of the other two projects I have lined up for this year's Season of Scenery. As I was building this in short bursts in between completing the cottage, this post might be a bit disjointed, so bear with me.

At the end of the last post I'd got to the point of gluing the walls together and to the base, building the roof, covering the whole thing with chinchilla dust and priming it white. I knew it would need some colour, so after casting an eye over my paints I picked Emerald as it's a lovely green and I didn't fancy red or blue. I painted the roof edges, door and window frames and glued them on. The roof still isn't attached as there's more stuff to do to the inside. Well, not that much.

The gaps on the edges of the building were bugging me and I didn't know how to cover them up, and then Roger did me an absolute solid favour by suggesting using coffee stirrers. It's the perfect solution and I have about 900 of them, so I grabbed a handful, painted them Emerald and then gave them a coat of Green Wash. I won't be able to attach them until the roof's on so I put them to one side.

A few months ago I found some MDF air conditioning units online, so I bought them. I made four and here they are, weighted down with paint pots while the glue dries. They'll be heading to the garage soon to be sprayed with primer.

The next step was to give the walls and roof some depth and dirt by shading them with thinned Grey Wash. I used a flat 1½-inch brush and slapped it on, trying to vary the amount to add a touch of randomness. After giving all the green bits a once-over with Green Wash, I highlighted them with a mix of Emerald and White.

The store has two doors — one at the front and one on the side, which I'm assuming is the staff entrance and delivery point. I wanted something to cover the gap where the window would be so I used some mesh from an old frying pan cover that I broke when we moved. I superglued it to the back of the side door, almost gluing my finger to the mesh in the process.

Both doors are meshed and painted. They also have black card glued to their backs to block the emptiness of the store; I'm not going to be putting anything inside it despite the availability of model shelves and counters. The staff door is just Ash Grey dirtied up with Black Wash. I added a kickplate to its bottom made from plastic card and painted Plate Metal. It's too wide, but too late now. I went for a metal look for the front door, with more Plate Metal and Black Wash. 

With the doors in place and the windows blacked out I finally glued the roof in place, weighted it down with some books and left it for a while.

After an hour of working on the cottage I turned back to the store. By now the roof was glued on solidly, so it was time to add the stirrer sticks that I'd painted earlier. I started sticking them on with tacky PVA but it was proving to be a pain as it dried too slowly. After doing three sticks with it I switched to superglue, which was much quicker and easier. After doing the corner pieces I added more across the joins between the tops of the walls and the roof. They worked really well to cover gaps and I'm grateful to Roger for the suggestion.

As this is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic/zombie setting, I couldn't go without boarding up the windows and doors. I was stuck as to whether the boards should be on the outside or inside, so I emailed Keith for help and he suggested outside if zombies are the threat. With that in mind, I painted more coffee sticks with tan craft paint, shaded them with Sepia Wash and superglued them on. I put them over the side door as well. 

That's the progress so far, and with the basic construction and painting done I'm onto the detailing stages. I have plenty of ideas and I've ordered a few more bits to complete it, so now it's a case of waiting. For now I'll just paint the pavement, highlight the wood bits, finish the a/c units and work on the signage. I'm sure I can find something else to build in the meantime.