If you are getting to be my age you might have to worry about Shingles if you had chickenpox as a kid…wait let me start over. If you’re not a Millennial then you’re probably a home owner and have to deal with a contractor to reroof your house. Na, this ain’t about any of that. This is about fake roofs and shingles. Mostly shingles. I like to go with individual shingles as opposed the strip method. I feel like I get a more dynamic model from individual shingles.
I make them 1cm by 1.5 cm. Yes, it’s metric and it’s “too big” for 25mm, 28mm and even 32mm (scale creep!) scale, but it’s a good working size and looks good on my buildings. And that’s the most important thing. How it looks to me!
I start out by making a sub-roof.
Made of the same card stock (cereal or beer boxes) as the shingles themselves. Add some triangle supports made of foamcore and as the Brits say, Bob’s your uncle.
I have found that it’s beneficial if I prep the shingles before I start the row. From left to right: one that has the left hand corner chopped, shingles that are cut in half, unmodified shingles and ones that have the right hand corner chopped.
You’ll need some of the half shingles to stagger the rows like this:
I like to glue them on in a horizontal fashion. Putting the glue a little bit higher than it needs to be and dragging it down with each individual shingle. That way I can position each one as I like leaving 1mm to 1.5mm between each shingle but I have to work fast as I like Gorilla Wood Glue, and it sets up quick.
When it’s all glued together it looks like this:
Then after it’s painted:
There you go. Fantasy roofing 101. Now why don’t you go for it! Build something and show me what you got!
