Converting Woodland Indian Longhouses

By Herb Gundt www.hgwalls.com 

  Woodland Longhouses

This past summer I designed two Woodland Indian Longhouse masters for CONQUEST MINIATURES 500 Nations Range of Woodland Native Americans. Eric Roof, the proprietor of CONQUEST MINIATURES, talked with me about doing some conversions to the resin reproductions of the two longhouses; the point of this exercise being to show gamers how to create variants for a Woodland Indian village, using only two different resin castings.

I decided to make the Large Longhouse (#500-100) into, what I call, a Council House. I wanted to add a screened awning to both the front and back entries. I started the project by cutting a 1/8” hardboard base that was large enough to accommodate the extended entry areas. I opted to use Maple and Oak twigs for most of the new model carpentry, since wood doweling is just too uniform for this project. I’ve been collecting Maple and Oak twigs for years, mainly when I’m out mowing my lawn, because they are handy to have around when doing model work. I always make sure that the twigs are well dried and always remove the bark with rough sandpaper. Well, with that being said we can move on to the actual conversion work. 

I drilled holes into the base for the main supports and the Effigy or Scalp Pole. I will discuss the Effigy Pole in more detail later. I cut eight pieces of twig 1 3/4” long and glued them into the previously drilled holes. I next cut four 3 1/2” long pieces for the horizontal entry supports and attached them to the vertical supports. The screening was made from 1/16” diameter Basket Weaving Reed, cut into 1 3/8” long pieces and glued to the horizontal supports.

I fabricated the Effigy Pole from a 4” long twig, a 1” long reed, two pieces of twine and some thread. I glued the reed crosswise onto the twig and then wrapped thread around both pieces to represent binding. I glued a section of twine to the top of each side of the reed cross piece, wrapped the twine around the reed and tied it off with thread. I used a toothpick to tease out the twine, coated the twine with white glue and water and attached the Effigy Pole to the base.

I used 1/16” thick card and Tree Wrap to make the roofs. Tree Wrap is used by gardeners and is a material that comes on a 3” wide roll and resembles heavy crepe paper. The Tree Wrap was cut into random sized pieces and glued to the card roof. This is a good place to pause on the description of the larger model and move on to the smaller longhouse conversion.

I wanted to use the Small Longhouse (#500-99) to make a Jesuit Mission. Once again I cut a base large enough to accommodate two covered entries and, in the case of the Mission, a bell on a timber frame.

I made the entry walls, for the Mission, by gluing 6 pieces of twig together for each wall. Once the wall sections were dry, I cut the roof slope of the walls with a Dremel Tool and then glued the walls to the model. The Mission roofs were made using the same technique as with the Council House roofs.

The two vertical supports of the bell frame were made from 3 pieces, with the outer logs being 1 1/4” tall and the center log an eighth on an inch shorter. The two assemblies were then glued to the base 7/8” apart from each other. The horizontal bell support was cut 1 1/4” long, with a hole drilled in the center for the bell and another drilled on one end for a handle. The handle was made from a piece of wire that was cut 3/4” long and glued to the end of the support. The brass Holiday Bell was next attached to the support and thread was wrapped around the bell, support and handle to once again represent binding.

The cross was made from two pieces of reed that were glued together and then bound with thread. A hole was drilled in the front upper center of the longhouse and the completed cross glued in place.

I used dark olive drab as a base color for all of the various pieces, although dark brown would be a good choice for variation. Everything was dry-brushed with raw sienna, barn gray and gray. The bell was painted dark brown and then dry-brushed with bronze and aged brass. The “scalps” hanging on the Effigy Pole were painted dark brown and black.

After all of the painting was complete, I glued the longhouses to their bases and then glued all of the roofs and bell into place. I used earth tone chalks to further highlight the buildings. I planted green twine, around the perimeters of the models, using white glue to keep the twine in place. With the white glue dry, I applied dirt flocking to the bases and then followed that with an application of green flocking. The green twine weeds were teased apart with a toothpick and then dry-brushed with leaf green and yellow ochre. I allowed the models to completely dry for 24 hours and then gave them a finish of Dull Cote to lock in the chalk finish.

Useful information

CONQUEST MINIATURES- http://www.conquestminiatures.com/index.html

SKETCH BOOK 56 Volume 6 “INDIAN ALLIES” by Ted Spring

THE ART OF ROBERT GRIFFING text by George Irvin

AMERICAN WOODLAND INDIANS text by Michael G. Johnson

TRIBES OF THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY text by Michael Johnson

TUTTLE TREE WRAP- Drainage Industries

                      300 N. Lilas Drive

                     Appleton, WI 54915