After building a villageworks house with a full interior, I said I would try to get some sort of instructions going for anyone else who would like to do it too.

To start off, I printed all the pages of the building I needed, and then using my Photo editing program, copied the images of the walls and used the program flip the images, basically I chose the orientation function and used the mirror image, if your printer has the mirror image on the print instruction pages then you'll have saved yourself a little time.

Little note, when you copy the images from the PDF files to paste onto a new photo program file, don't use the snapshot tool, use the select tool on acrobe, as the mirrored image won't print out the right size.

First off I marked some new tabs on the bottom of the outer ground floor walls, this will have the floor glued to them, so they need to be scored to fold inside the building. I also cut off all the exsiting tabs for the upper floor to sit on, as I didn't need any of them. Don't cut off the side tabs tho, you'll need them to glue the walls together.
Your pieces should look like this:



I then assembled the building as normal, and as you can see I'm edging as I go along, and have edged the inner corners.
I found it helpful that my cutting mat is gridded, so I could keep everything nice and square as I glued.



I then used the building as a template to get the right sized floor, and trimmed the floor to fit and glued into place:




I then cut out the mirrored walls, removing all the tabs and cutting them into separate sections as shown in the picture, it's much easier to add them this way as each one needs trimming slightly to fit correctly.



Then one by one I glued them into place trimming where needed, I found it easier to do the front then back, and then the sides.



You should have something like this at this stage, if you wanted a single storey building then add a roof and you're finished, but if like me you want a two storey one then read on:



Then I added the supports for the next floor, I used the ones from the Large Tower Kitbash for CWU, I found these perfect for what I wanted, plus they make the whole thing really sturdy.
I found that a using a small piece of foamboard helped me gauge the depth I needed perfectly:



Next I used the building as a template again, and cut some foamboard so it would sit inside the walls onto the supports level with the top of the walls, and then cut out where I wanted my stairwell:




For the upper floor, I added the tabs to the bottom of the walls again, leaving enough space for the stairwell, ( I did cut out the extra piece after this pic, honest ) Then assemble as normal.



The keeping the foamboard in it's place I glued the assembled upper floor to the foamboard, keeping everything square and true, lining it up with the lower walls.
Edge the corners now too.



Choose and add your floor as per the lower level, but cut out the space for the stairwell.



The cut out the mirrored upper walls just like the lower ones remembering to cut all the tabs off, and trim each one to fit, edging as you go along until you have all four in place.





Then cut out and assemble the roof as normal, but glue a small tab at each end to keep the roof in place.



There you go, you should have soemthing that looks like this, with a removeable roof and upper floor, so you can play in both areas.




"What about the stairs, you've left them out?" I hear you cry, well my friends that is all up to ypur personal pref's, myself I'm going to use a modified CWU stairs set as it won't take up too much space in the small buildings, and just looks like a steep set of stairs, but as I said it's up to you.

Hope this has been helpful, and this can be applied to any of the VillageWorks buildings, even the huts.

Thanks
Bruenor

I have to say, I soooooooooo wish I had had a reversal program on my computer when I did the interiors of mine, by comparison this is so much easier. Nice work Bruenor, nice to see some pictures that can help the average builder (unlike nutjobs like myself who print three copies and use the old fashioned cut and paste methods lol ).

LOVE IT! Thank you so much for taking the time to do a complete step-by-step. Wonderful photos to boot!

This is a really simple mod that breaths new life into a set that is starting to show it's age. Thank you for sharing! This one gets an official Sticky.

Denny

Hmm... something new for me to try to do.

Adding the interiors and using foam board and whatnot adds some much needed sturdiness to village works builds. I remember way back when I got village works as my first set and how floppy my build was. :/

Not a problem Denny, glad I could help.
Took a while to do with all the photos, but then you'd know from the instructions you make.
Just hope it helps other folks who wanted interiors, but wasn't sure how to go about it.

Bruenor - major kudos your way for doing this - love how you put in the top floor, makes it very stable.

Inspiring stuff.

This is excellent Bruenor

Only problem for me, I don't have anything that can mirror the pdf pages.

Denny,
Any chance you can add reversed pages to the VillageWorks set and make them available to existing customers?
Thanks,
Zen

^^^^
I'd pay for something like that, my LFP has a mirrored print options but my home printer dose not. And seeing that my LFP is now at the office and I don't get any chance to print on it (the computer is broken)... and I think I am letting my lazy take hold again...

Richard

How about it Denny, make it an add on kitbash or add to the offical set?

I have nearly all the buildings reversed and saved in a file I could send you, so you could convert them to the PDF format.
Wouldn't be a problem for me.

I'd pay a little for the mirrored files too.

Only problem with making them a kitbash would be giving away a significant chunk of VillageWorks at a kitbash price. Hence the suggestion of making it an addition to the VW set and making it avail to those who've already bought the set.

Come to think of it, this would be a useful feature for most sets - mirrored versions of the building exteriors. It would add even more flexibility to the sets at minimal effort.

Much as I like more for free, i don't think this will work in all situations, especially in more modern settings, where the interior walls are often decorated/painted/covered with/constructed of) different materials than the exterior. Simply mirroring the outside doesn't necessarily work in all cases.

I WOULD like to see a modern interiors set that could be used to do the sort of thing we see here.

I'd also like to see some kind of template for doing this kind of construction (guides* for pasting exteriors and interior together, an indication of how much to cut to make the corners work right, that sort of thing).

Alexio

*So you could drag an exterior wall into place, and align an interior wall to match, quickly and easily.

I agree - but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea.

VillageWorks buildings look even better with the full InteriorWorks treatment. But Bruenor's approach is a really simple and effective way of resolving the problems of not having matching interior doors and windows, and significantly extends the value of the VW set.

Hmmm... maybe we could do with some InteriorWorks kitbashes that provide interior doors/windows to correspond with the different building exteriors - I'd buy those in a shot.

Yeah it's any easy small step to take things further than I have, you can easily photoshop, the walls to be say all plaster, with no bottom brick part or if you didn't like the windows, you could easily cut them out before adding the interior wall, and add some transparancies, the CWU ones would work for this.
The first one I did had a working door too, but I felt that for what I wanted it took just a little too long.

Anything is pretty much possible with a Photoshop program and a little imagination.
Even the modern interiors, tho I don't own the modern sets yet, but I don't see why when mirrored the pieces that should remain outside like posters and such can't be photoshopped over.

Wow. I've had Villageworks since August of '03 and built a few of the buildings for use in tabletop gaming but without interiors they were relegated to mostly blocking line-of-sight. Had I thought of this it would've opened them up for my RPG games and some of the skirmishes we've run.....I'm gonna have to take another look at Villageworks now......
Thanks.

Not a problem mate, glad to help you find more to do..........

At the moment, I'm working on my Blacksmith building, adding a few bits I have found while trolling the net, like a forge, and anvil.......

Brilliant! LOVE it! Can't wait to try it...after I finish the grand hall and some rooms for my modular Shellendrak...

Thanks.

I'm having a blast sorting out all the interiors, the only thing is I want to build my buildings higher and higher, and have to remind myself that it's only a village, not a city.........

Thought I'd share some pics of how it's coming along:









The Blacksmith building was lacking all the gubbins, like a forge and anvil and such, so I trolled the web and found a freebie, until Denny gets one ,made up..............

Even managed to do the lower part of the Balcksmiths insides too, although it was a little trickier than the others.

Bruenor, that village is looking incredible! Very nicely done.


Zenguy, you should get a copy of GIMP. It's a free image editing program, and you can flip images easily.

Thanks Aubrey,
I've downloaded the GIMP - now I just have to find some time to learn how to drive it (that and get over its name having seen Pulp Fiction )

Thanks, I'm working on a tavern for the village, quite a large one too, as I see the village as more of a travellers rest type village, where loads of folks pass through, so I need a decent size Inn with some separate rooms, multi level too.
Watch this space.........

Very nice build.

I really want to try those new supports for the 2nd story. The ones in the CWU work but they can be hard to line up. And they don't allow the roof to be used on rooms that have them. Also Its much nicer that you don't have to notch the corners off any more. Have you considered using them as a template to cut wood or plaster textures for the braces so they blend in more?

Also in the instructions there is one wall for the upper story has a portion that extends down below the wall bottom. The one with a tab marked "Do not fold this tab it is a support and or glue tab." What is that area for?

That's the building where the upper floor over hangs the lower floor, so that piece supports the bit that sticks out.

I just got village works and classics combo today. I whipped up a bunch of props and then started work on the castle manor house. I began following you instructions to kitbash interiors. I've got the entire exterior seperated and assembled but nothing on the interior except some white temperary braces.

Actually I rather like the way my bracing for the roof turned out. I decided to use a different method then you laid out, because its so much larger than the village roofs.

I took the side wall sections and and copied the outline of the wood portion onto scrap foamboard making 3 rafters. I carefully placed them just inside the interior walls, leaving some extra room for the min. 2 layers of cardstock that will texture the interior wall and centered the other between them. Then I took 1" - 2" wide pieces of scrap foamboard and fitted them tightly between each rafter. So not only is the roof very stable but since the rafters are the same size as the wood texture they extend down and help the walls retain their shape.

However, as I began planning out the interior layout 2 problems immediately came to my attention.

1 Where do I get textures for the floors? Aside from the 1 or 2 that come with CWU I don't have any. And they're already kind of repetative. I have like 6 or more rooms that use them on my castle build.

2 What about a kitchen/ cooking area? I don't own inns or keeps but I don't think that I'v seen any pics of kitchens. Forget props I don't think I've ever seen any wall graphics with kitchen stuff. And that seems like something i need to add, especially to the manor or an inn.

That's avery good point, I haven't seen any old world cooking pieces either, the only ones I have are from Shellendrak, and are a bit advanced.
DENNY!!!!



I plan to interior the Main house from CWC, but plan to go the same route as my VW builds, whicj means cutting parts of the building that shouldn't be cut, and adding tabs of my own to make the roof just like the VW ones.
Just need to wait until next week til I can replace my card stocks and refill my carts all in readiness, just need to plan the inside a little too.

Would like to see what you've done to it already tho'

I've always wanted to do a period authentic kitchen set as an expansion but never quite found time for it. Perhaps as other projects move forward we can try to sneak it in there somewhere. Perhaps someone can kitbash pieces of Matt's Shellendrak kitchen props with a more rustic medieval flair for the time being? Some of them are already perfectly usable for that period though. Combined with the huge fireplace in DungeonWorks Classic and even the mess props from "Maiden of the High Seas" you would have a pretty competent period kitchen:

Thanks for the quick reply Denny.

I don't own the Maiden yet, so I hadn't seen that wall, but it would work really well.

I used flooring from InteriorWorks: Pubs & Inns and Castles & Keeps for my VillageWorks interiors build.

Flooring from CastleWorks Ultimate, Pubs & Inns, The Maiden, DungeonWorks, Gothic Realms, Castles & Keeps (both GR and C&K's have checkered tile flooring), all of it is useful if you need a variety of floortile textures, all available in one inch, some in no grid and 1.5".


In addition to what Denny has recommended I'll toss in my own for props from Castles & Keeps, and Pubs & Inns. Both have a variety of useable props for kitchens and other rooms, though still none of the basics you are probably thinking of. Both of these sets are a must have for the fantasy group here.

Luckly the top layer of the floor is the last piece for interiors so I can leave them until I get those other sets, or maybe I'll throw in some temporary floor.
I was considering experamenting with printing the stone textures on a couple of sheets of colored card stock I've got laying around.

What I also wish I had was some wall mounting templates for the village and manor house, like the ones for the CWU buildings. Not only did they help
keep everthing square they made it very easy to mount the buildings on the foamboard.

The maiden's mess props are certainly close enough that I could use them to start. Unfortunately, I have only CWU, siegeworks, classics combo, and
villageworks. Unless someone does a kitbash, for at least the next month or so other commitments are going to keep it that way.

Speaking of props, are there any smaller scale round barrels? I'm trying to find some that I can use for things like water in the blacksmith shop or just to
put in my pantries/ storehouses. There was a small barrel in siegeworks, but for some reason it was square. In other sets I might have thought that was
just to make it simpler to build. But siegeworks has so many many round bits that the square barrel bugged me. I can easily assemble it round but the
fold lines would mar the sides.