WWG Mayhem Apartment

This week I am going to review a very early World Works Games building that I made - the apartment from the Mayhem Armoury set. Mayhem Armoury comes with three buildings - the armoury, a garage and an apartment. I've already reviewed the armoury and the garage. Those of you who have been following my blog from the beginning may remember that the apartment played a prominent role in my first battle report (see here http://vampifansworldoftheundead.blogspot.com/2009/03/zombie-rescue-mission.html ).

Like a lot of WWG buildings, the apartment is modular and can be made in numerous ways. This modularity is one of WWG's greatest strengths. Just to remind you that I print everything out on high quality double-sided 130g matte photo paper and then after cutting out the pieces I need they are stuck onto mounting board (or mattboard as it is called in America). This makes my models very robust but adds considerably to the build time. All windows are printed on transparency paper for added realism.

The photo above shows the front of the apartment. The model comes with seven different exterior walls and I have used all seven. The walls are 7" in length and 3" in height. The smaller wall up on the top floor was made by simply cutting the middle storey wall with the two windows in half. Note the air-conditioning unit sticking out of the window on the middle floor. That was part of the set.

This side wall was deliberately left blank so that I could place another building alongside it.

This photo above shows the rear of the building. The back door was not part of the model. It came from the selection of doors provided with the Mayhem Downtown set. Again, let me remind you that all of my doors open and close.

Note that the two windows to the right of this side view are boarded up. I suppose it would be an easy conversion to replace them with transparent windows but I decided to leave them as is.

Here we have an overhead view of the ground floor of the apartment. I have walled off one corner of the floor to create the kitchen. You will notice that the owners of this apartment are not houseproud. Note the magazine left strewn on the floor at the foot of the stairs. The peeling wallpaper throughout the apartment has seen better days.

The cooker and sink unit in the kitchen is a very useful piece of furniture that comes with the Mayhem Armoury set. Likewise, the battered and ripped black sofa in the living room. In the top right corner of the living room is a glass fronted cabinet from the Shellendrak Manor set.

The four chairs around the table also come from the Shellendrak Manor set. I did a rather clever thing with the table. It is the table that is supposed to be used with the garage from the Mayhem Armoury set but I have made the underside of the table the top. I simply painted the underside of this table a sandy yellowish brown. The tray with the bread and cheese on it came from the Fantasy Interiors set - Pubs and Inns. The fridge that is partially hidden behind the kitchen door is from the Mayhem Armoury set. Speaking of doors, all of the interior doors in this building are scratchbuilt. They are simply two thin pieces of white card glued back to back. The upper and lower panels, and the door knobs have been painted after drawing them on in pencil.

The TV set comes with the Mayhem Armoury set but once again I have replaced the picture with one of my own. For trivia fans, it shows the pivotal scene from the hilariously funny Father Ted episode called "Kicking Bishop Brennan up the Arse." Undoubtedly the funniest title of any TV show! The TV rests atop the wall cupboards from the Mayhem Police set. They work just as well on the floor as on a wall. I have taken the same wall cupboard (but darker coloured) and cut it in half. It sits in the corner of the kitchen alongside a washing machine from Jim's Printable Minis. (Check my list of favourite websites for the internet address. It's well worth a visit as all of his furniture is free to download.)

Standing alongside the staircase is a grandfather clock taken from the Shellendrak Manor set. The coats hanging on the wall in the kitchen were cut out and stuck onto a piece of mounting card, then glued back in place. Raising them from the wall makes them appear more three-dimensional. It is a trick I often do when an object is painted on a wall.

Moving upwards we see an overhead view of the first floor if you are from Europe or the second floor if you reside in America. This floor has been split into three rooms - main bedroom, guest bedroom and bathroom. I mentioned the A/C unit earlier. That originally appeared in the window to the left but I moved it across because it jutted out too far in the landing at the top of the stairs.

The guest bedroom comes with a fold-down bed. This originally was just printed on the wall, something I found wholly unacceptable. I cut the bed out and stuck it to a piece of foamboard after covering the edges up with masking tape. The masking tape hid the foam and made life easier when I came to paint the edges. I did consider making it hinged so that it really did fold down but decided against it. If it had not been partially covered by the red curtain I would have gone ahead and made it a real fold-down bed.

The large bed in the main bedroom and the big cupboard to the left of it both come from the Fantasy Interiors set - Castles and Keeps. The bedside companion to the right of the bed is from Shellendrak Manor. The two cupboards in the spare bedroom were scratchbuilt, utilising parts from the large bookcase in Shellendrak Manor.

In the bathroom are a sink and toilet taken from the Mayhem Police set. The shower unit is something I scratchbuilt. You may have seen it earlier as I used it in my Mayhem Armoury model.

You can get a better view of the shower unit and curtain from this photo. I added a couple of boxes to the spare bedroom. They came from the Ebbles Ambient Elements - Storeroom set. If you are making any card models, don't be afraid of mixing material from other manufacturers. WWG and Mel Ebbles have a good working relationship and support each other, which can only be a good thing.

This floor is half interior and half exterior, making full use of the apartment's patio elements. I decided to split the interior into two rooms - a large landing and a study.

A green and white awning covers the entrance to the lower of the two rooftop patios. On the patio is a wooden picnic table with two long benches and a large, colourful umbrella. My umbrella is attached to a cocktail stick for the pole. It was such an obvious choice!

The photo above clearly shows the entrance to the patio. Getting that door to hinge was tricky because it is nearly all glass and there is only a very narrow surround. My hinges are just masking tape, sandwiched between the inner and outer door and inner and outer walls. The cupboard in the corner of the landing is another one of my scratchbuilt cupboards and is identical to the pair in the spare bedroom.

The desk and computer in the study came from the office furniture of the Mayhem Industrial set. The small bookshelf in the study was supplied with the Shellendrak Manor furniture. The chair next to the desk is from the Ebbles Ambient Elements - Barracks set. You could easily replace it with any similar WWG chair.

The lower wall at the top of the staircase uses some offcuts from the wallpaper, of which I had many by the time I'd finished making this model. I've painted on a wooden rim along the top edges. In the study, the large drinks cabinet comes from the Fantasy Interiors - Pubs and Inns set. On the patio, a metal ladder leads to the upper patio.

This overhead view shows both patios, side by side. I decorated the upper patio with a couple of planters from the Bits of Mayhem set. However, I replaced the paper foliage with offcuts taken from a Citadel hedge. I painted some pink and white spots on the upper one and some yellow spots on the lower one to represent flowers. From a distance they look very effective.

As usual, all of the floors on the upper levels are reinforced with foamboard. Being glued to mounting board they don't need reinforcing but the foamboard helps keep the floor in place when it is stacked. This was a fun project to do and I thoroughly enjoyed going the extra mile on it. That is why I decided to make this the centre piece for my first battle report.