"Paper Pre-Painted Buildings---Verdict?" Topic

Title says it all….

Anyone using pre-painted buildings, any scale? What do you think?

I like the option of having some very cool looking cheap and colorful buildings, but how do paper pre-printed buildings hold up to normal gaming wear and tear? Will I be printing and assembling new building for the next game because the first run could not withstand the rigors of gaming (and storage)?

How are they to assemble? Easy? Fiddly? I remember trying fit together paper buildings long ago in my youth without much success.

I am especially interested in hearing about the smaller scales, 3mm and 6mm.

I have the 6mm paperterrain brand preprinted middle east town. It's fantastic with a hidden damaged underlayer you expose by lifting off the outer shell.

link

As long as you glue the paper "skin" to either matte board or foam core, then they hold up very well. Since you are going to be doing 3mm or 6mm then I'd recommend printing them on heavy weight card stock (say 110-lb) obtained from an office supply store. That should make them sturdy enough, especially if you glue them to a base.

Here are some blog posts of 28mm size pre-painted self-printed and assembled buildings.

link -- outer and inner "skin" glued to matte board

link -- outer "skin" glued to pre-made paper mache buildings

link -- outer "skin" glued to foam core

All of them have held up to a number of games and being stored in plastic tubs.

Jim

I have fold up paper buildings that I got that have withstood many games and being folded and unfolded repeatedly.
I have both 28mm and 6mm stuff that has withstood all of it.

We used a large proportion of paper buildings in the gangster game at Fall-In. The key to making the durable is in what you glue them to, and HOW you glue them. I used the foam core boards made by Elmer's. They are strong and the paper is solidly glued to the foam core. Cheaper, dollar store foam core had a much weaker foam, and the paper easily peeled off of the core. To attach the pre-printed building to the foam core, I found it best to use a 3M brand adhesive (medium strength), spray both sides, let them DRY and then mate them together. If you look at the postings from Fall-In about the gangster game, you can see how well they look. Page 18 of the current HMGS newsletter has a picture of our theater. One last point, I have found it CHEAPER and BETTER to take the file to be printed to a print shop, and have them laser print it. The one I use costs $1.50 USD for 11x17, and the finished surface a semi-water proof (meaning that the water beads up and doesn't cause the color to bleed).

They hold up very well as long as you don't smash them flat. Unlike other buildings you can drop them with no (or vanishingly rare) chance of harm.

So to reiterate – if you take care not to crush them they hold up just fine, and are no less sturdy than other terrain pieces.

Yea, as long as you store them carefully, they'll hold up just fine.

These are OO gauge model railway buildings for my 20mm VBCW. If you treat them with care like your figures they're great. i use a felt tip to fill in the white lines on the joins/bends/visable edges, makes a helluva difference.

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Ooh – very nice

I have 25/28 Hotz Artworks Old West buildings. They are just printed on cardstock and assembled (I didn't back them with foamcore or anything like that). They have survived a few years now and a handful of playings. Nice thing is, if one does get destroyed, I can just print a new one and put it together.

PDFs of buildings are a good way to go.

One of the better PDF deals, in my opinion.

Freaking gorgeous table.

The original post has too many variables not entered for a usable answer.

Some publishers try to get fancy and end up with a product too complex and too dependent on having the right raw materials about in the right thicknesses, such as Worldworks' Terrainlinx system. On-the-fly modularity is not a feature of papercraft terrain systems, not at the level they're trying to design. Also it is too dependent on having a ready source of foamcore sheets sold in Imperial thicknesses, with no provision for Metric.

Smart Models tries to get even more clever, insisting on not only having various thicknesses of substrate but printing on various thicknesses of paper (and transparencies for the windows).

And they can just keep getting more and more complicated. Some publishers fail to think for a moment about the world outside the US maybe, just maybe, not using American paper sizes, and consequently much of the image ends up missing.

But then you get something like Worldworks' old Villageworks, or Dave Graffams' old free buildings, from the era before he started the commercial range, and they're the work of minutes to construct. Being hollow, they would be simple to add any substrate you wished into.
The free Dropzone Commander buildings from the Hawk website are just a box shape; there are laser-cut undershells available from Aetherworks to suit. Just paint the tops and glue the sides on.

Particularly small items, I tend to fill with hot glue. If you want them any tougher you could, after that point, use clear contact over the surface. I normally just use workable spray fixative, however. Contact is too shiny and I cannot find a matt version.

I'm much more a fan of paper for smaller scales than larger scales. Easier to make and sturdier at smaller sizes. I've got a fair amount of 10mm buildings. They are based on pieces of VCT's and are fairly sturdy in plain card with no reinforcements.

As seen above, larger scale paper buildings can look just as good, but the really good ones seem to require as much effort and time as more traditional materials and sometimes not much difference in price unless you're buying the file and making ALOT of them. For 28mm, I've gotten rid of my paper buildings and most everything is plastic now