Hello everyone, I’m back with the next part of the Dungeons of doom, a series of articles dealing with the creation of easy and cheap to make 28mm scenic dungeons.
Still on the basic and integral parts of any dungeon are the doors that lead from room to room, encounter to encounter. I have all sorts of doors in my build, but I’m going to show you how I do my run of the mill homemade ones.
So, this time we’re going to deal with my version of a very basic modular door. I’ve seen tons of other versions all over the place,but what I had in mind originally was in keeping with the chunky wooden feel of the rest of the build, as I didn’t want them to get broken. Also bear in mind, I wanted to churn these out quick if needed, so that was a factor too.
So these are my basic chunky dungeon doors, they are nothing special, they don’t open (That one’s for next time..) but they are quick to make, robust and fit perfectly with the build so far. Lets set out what is needed for the construction of these chunky doors…
Your going to need the same pine wood battons like what were used in the walls tutorial, and in some respect is the same principle, so as well as a couple of popsicle sticks and maybe some thin barbeque squewers or matchsticks, you’ll need some thin cardstock like before, and a small plastic drink straw. (and PVA & superglue/cyanoacrylate type glues)
When you’ve cut your wood section and decided how tall you want the door ( I’ve chosen a piece 4cm x 1cm x 1cm, but you can adapt this around whatever you like) get the lolly sticks and cut 4 slightly smaller pieces than your block (in this case around 35mm in length)
Next, snap or cut them down the centre to create this kind of effect.
Glue these into position as these create the wooden door fascia. Do this on both sides with PVA and leave to dry (also make sure they line up on the other side too)
Next, use scrap wood from lollysticks or matchstick/toothpick etc to frame out the door shape as per the above pic, again on both sides, leave to dry.
Use cardstock to create strips at the top and bottom of each door, also cut out small shapes to detail the hinge fastening (you’ll need 4 of each) Also attach a small square to the opposite side for the door handle later.
After the card has stuck, add studs by using the tiny rhinestone nail art gems or the embossed circles (available on ebay for 99p) They are great things to have for rivets and bolts.
I usually give them a dab of liquid superglue after they set, just to make sure they bond properly (cheapo superglue is brilliant for that!) Next bit is tricky, but gives a nice effect.
Heat the end of the straw until it deforms into a circle, once it cools, chop it off and attach to the door plate with superglue. Then, take a small strip of card and form the ring that attaches the plastic circle, glue that down too (this is the tricky part (but I’ll go through this again with the next part as I have better pics) Do this on both sides. It should now look something like this:
Like the wall sections, clad the sides with the same process as before and leave to dry, before blackbombing it.
Once dried, paint up to match your dungeon scheme, as usual for me, the same grey for the brick sides and starting at burnt umber gradually fading up to a sand brown.
The studs and hinges and handle were given a quick lick of black, then painted a bronze and silver highlight to make them pop.
Add a few cracks and faux wood graining and its all about done, seal it in and there you go. simple and quick chunky modular doors.
Ok, I know these doors aren’t going tow in prizes or impress any adventurer,but they keep well with the wooden modular feel and are really easy to make, anyone can replicate this simple technique.
Ahh, but you wanted opening doors eh? Maybe something like this?
Well, why didn’t you say, you’ll need to go to part 6 to find out how to do them….
See you next time Dungeoneers…
The Grinning Skull 
Wow, a very nice door and I love how cheap they are to make. Say, I’m looking to make a cheap sort of evil pentacle/altar thing for my 40K battles with my Khorne Daemons. If you ever happen to make such a thing for your RPing dioramas, I’d love to see a tutorial like the ones you’ve been doing! 🙂
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Thanks Ann, yes eventually I’ll be making some evil altar type terrain pieces for the dungeon, that with a little tweaking would fit what your looking for. I’ll try and put up a few versions (maybe a basic, advanced and over the top skull encrusted one etc) then you can cherry pick the ideas for what you’d like. I’m kind of looking forward to making the feature parts rather than these basic pieces as the crazy stuff is much more fun! So definitely will be some Khorne-esque and chaos inspired bits will follow!! 🙂
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Sounds, great, I’ll eagerly look forward to reading it! 🙂
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Most of my dungeon detailing is simply home-made floor-plans with various “tiles” I’ve collected from board games/RPG’s. Most of the time my group just wants something simple and quick while gaming – but every now and then I’d love to have something 3D and not flat card. I would not have thought of using timber for walls! I need to do some scavenging through the shed and perhaps a shopping trip in the near future. The doors are fantastic! (I’ve mostly been using a bunch of doors from Warhammer Quest.) Thanks for the great tips – the final effect is much more dramatic than the materials used would suggest.
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Thanks Tarmor, To be honest, most of what I do wargaming wise doesn’t involve 28mm dungeons, so I haven’t really bothered to go into doing anything with dungeon building at this scale before, I just wanted something 3d so I could buy the odd bit of cast resin features without the expense of going full on buying the whole thing (ainsty/dwarven forge etc) I do love paper scenics and floorplans, but much prefer 3d, so I had to come up with a quick and easy system that didn’t zap my cash and time.
These chunky doors are great for just standard doors, and they fit in nice with all sorts of other doors I have knocking around. My next article in prep is for opening ones, so hopefully if I get enough time today I’ll finish that up. I did try and get some warhammer quest doors, but they would have cost more than i wanted to spend, so the chunky ones were a good cheap alternative! 🙂
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Another cracking post there Will, I’m not doing any dungeon stuff at the moment, but I’ll be pinching a few ideas off you when I start doing some scenics for the “frostgrave” project a few of us are thinking of running as part of our “Mo’vember” blog posts.
Cheers Roger.
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Feel free to pinch any ideas! I’m gearing up to make the more decorative features of the dungeon, the basic stuff is ok, but I much prefer the cool trappings that furnish the dungeon! I keep hearing about Frostgrave, I’ll have to take a better look at that, it sounds very cool!
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Only picked up the rule book yesterday myself, had a quick look through and it does look like it could be good, we plan on combining it with our Mo’vember challenge (where we paint up at least one figure with facial hair each week) and paint up warbands for Frostgrave as well, should be fun.
Cheers Roger.
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Sounds cool! I’ll take a closer look into the game!
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