Fire-damaged enginehouse
With walls in place, the building is taking shape. Note the textured side of the hardboard used for the floor, the stripwood sills that run the length of the side walls, the wood siding made from broken cof- fee stirrers and the window castings that have been clipped to give them a damaged look (above). The rafters and what is left of the roof
have been added and the sides of the building painted (above right). In this view (below left), the edges of the boards on the assembled building have been scorched. Also note the effect of the black spray paint, which gives the walls a sooty appearance. A battered engine, dirt, ashes and burned boards finish off the interior scene (below).
with black acrylic paint and tissue strips as rolled roofing material. The windows and the door were painted with Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Hunter Green and the stripwood siding was stained using a denatured alcohol and brown leather dye mixture, with an over wash of Delta Ceramcoat Acrylic Barn Red.
Starting the fire With a spray bottle of water close at
hand, I took some wooden matches and a lit candle and carefully burned, singed and scorched the tops and edges of the wood around the building. This left it with a fire-burned appearance. After burning areas of the struc-
ture, clear acetate was used on the door windows, and scribed with a hob- by knife to appear as cracked glass. Plaid Gallery Glass clear window col- or was used on the large structure windows, to look like some windows had remained after the fire. After the Gallery Glass dried, I sprayed flat black paint into the structure base and let the mist coat the window glass and walls for a fire scorched look.
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Finishing the scene
This is where you can get as creative as you want. I took my donor locomo- tive and set it in place. Then I took scraps of burnt wood, along with the wood matches that were burned while using them on the structure, and placed them onto the enginehouse floor. Some additional burnt scrap wood was glued in places so that it would appear to have fallen during the fire, along with other bits of burned debris. To represent the ashes, fine, sifted dirt
was spread over the base, partially cov- ering the scrap wood and other items of the shed floor. Taking care not to blow it out of place, the fine dirt was carefully sprayed with a mixture of water and a little dish soap from a spray bottle to bond everything in place. It was given a good, wet soaking. Then, using an eye dropper, a mixture of three parts water to one part white glue and a few drops of soap detergent was applied over the whole area. While the glue mixture was still wet more pieces of scrap wood and other details were placed onto the dirt. After allowing everything to harden
for a day or two, flat black spray paint was used to color the dirt from the cen- ter of the pile outward. I aimed the spray can in the center and let the fine mist spray outward, which give a fire- damaged appearance to the inside of the structure. While the paint was still wet, I sprinkled some fine dirt over the scrap wood for texture and re-sprayed the flat black paint again. Finally, while it was still wet, I sprinkled on some ashes.
Added details to the scene Some figures who appear to be check- ing out the aftermath of the fire were used to finish off the scene. If you wanted to go further and create
the “fire was just extinguished” look, you could add a flame unit, some fiber optics from colored lights, or dry-brush a bit of red paint onto some of the stripwood to give the appearance of still glowing em- bers. Be sure to include fire trucks and firefighting personnel along with some curious on-lookers. The addition of a puddles of water (made using clear epoxy or EnviroTex) around the scene should finish it off nicely.
JUNE 2014
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