So my 12 year-old daughter comes up to me last week and tells me she wants me to help her build a model for her literature class project. They are reading City of Ember on the eve of the movie coming out. She read the description to me; a brick structure with a shop on the ground floor and outside stairs going up to a four room apartment.

I told her “I have a cunning plan my lord…”

My wife, as if on cue, asked if it involved a turnip?

(Blackadder fans will know…)

Three days later, with guidance and a proper introduction to my eldest in the fine arts of print, score, cut, fold, felt, & glue, this is what we came up with.



It’s all underground, so it needed lights!







High flash to show the interior of Granny’s thread shop.



The lighting rig is on the second floor, two 3-volt LED’s. I also introduced my kid to the finer arts of soldering and setting up a parallel circuit, and not breathing in solder fumes!



Here’s the stairs. Look! Platform Command: Battlegrounds bulk heads! I guess that makes me first in forum!!!!



And because I can’t help myself…

“Candy gram!”

“Dave’s not here!”



Guy’s with guns under the lights!



Now that she’s knows how to do this stuff, she can teach her siblings and before you know it I’ll have me a little sweat-shop!!!! LOL!!!!

Enjoy & comments always welcome!

I am very happy to see that you are working so closely with your daughter on her project. I am a single father with two daughters of my own, and although they are not old enough yet to handle the knives I make them WWG stuff to play with when I am working on projects.

Next step is to get her gaming with the stuff, and then you will have built your own gaming buddy

Thanks! The school is tickled pink too that my wife & I help out!

As far as gaming goes, I'm way ahead of you! I've got three that I torture from time to time. We played the classic red-book basic D&D this summer (with a smattering of 3.5) in a good ol' fashioned dungeon crawl, they had a blast.

It's great to see parents and kids getting into this together. I can't wait until my son is old enough to help Dad with his crazy projects

And WOW! First off your build is incredibly clean but what I really love is the lighting! That's something I've looked at incorporating into instructions and future sets a few times. This gives me more inspiration to make that kind of thing happen.

Thanks for sharing.

City of Ember (book) ROCKS! To me that is the ultimate in "OMG the worlds ended how do we live" type book. Over on the Starfrontiersman forum I mentioned that book when someone wanted to do a Logans Run type deal.

And the project looks good. soo does the building.

Edit: Don't remember the dudes with large guns in the book, but hey, it's her interpretation, right!

That is probably one of the coolest things ever!

Lights! Camera! Action!

A+ for sure and great family time to boot!

Bravo!!

The tapewire kits for dolls houses are very compatible with foamboard. Also the whole dolls house market comes with a lot of period accessories (flickering fireplaces, candle sconces, old street lamps, etc) which can work OK if you go for their smaller 1/24 scale.

e.g;

Those are interesting, but pricey. What do they normally include?

Nothing is standardized, although you can certainly buy the components separately. Best to have a hunt around a bit. And yeah, the whole doll's house market is a heck of a lot bigger and more affluent than our little wargames ghetto! Only a small part is aimed at children, the rest is a hobby area for "ladies that lunch", usually on a very comfortable retirement.