The wood pile was a simple matter of grabbing some of the thicker balsa wood and cutting one long piece off. It didn’t have to be a perfect cut, since it looks much better if the logs vary in thickness. We broke this single piece into separate logs by hand. No knife here – that would leave too smooth a cut! Ragged edges look a little more natural, and they paint up much more nicely, too. We glued the logs to the Masonite in a disorderly pile.

The fence was really simple to make. We cut four “posts” to a height of about 7/8" and then rough them up a bit with the hobby knife. We cut off sharp corners and gouged the posts. Then, we glued the posts down to the Masonite at regular intervals with a dab of superglue. We cut the slats from the thin balsa and glued them in place. To maintain the appearance of neglect, we glued the slats at irregular angles to create the look of a missing nail or two.

The actual man-made structure was finished. We could now begin work on the “natural” elements. Again, we glued stones to the base with an ample amount of superglue. We made the snowdrifts from spackling. We spread this quick-drying compound on the Masonite and smoothed the edges into slopes that met the board. To give the impression that the drifts were formed by wind blowing from the same direction, we shaped the spackling slopes to lay up against the boulders and the building at the same angle. Little details like the direction of these snow drifts make scenery much more realistic and believable. We left the spackling overnight to dry completely.

The following day, we added sand with more wood glue. The only thing left to do was to finish the project with a few coats of paint. We primed the entire piece of scenery black. First, we drybrushed the shed with a dark brown, followed by varying shades of grey. We did this because it was hard to imagine the shed retaining its brown color after weathering storm, sun, and snow. Then, we painted the ground in browns to suggest sodden dirt. We added Gloss Varnish around the piles of snow to suggest meltwater or mud. We painted the rocks light grey so they would stand out against the soil, the white of the snowdrifts, and the stark grey shed. We painted the drifts first with Ghostly Grey and then drybrushed with Skull White. Lastly, we attached Static Grass and a few tufts of Field Grass to the base in patches with wood glue.

While more time consuming than the Ruined Columns, this piece is a perfect start to building your own small Empire village.