Before we get started, I forgot to list the dimensions of the Ravensblight Manor we posted a few days back. Here they are (dimensions include the base): 7" (17.8cm) W x 5 1/4" (13.3cm) D x 6" (15.2cm) H
And now on to our next paper Halloween house, the Cliff House. This one too is by Ray O'Bannon of Ravensblight.com. The graphics are more realistic and scale-like so it has a less 'cartoony' feel to it. The house is a two story affair with a tower on one side which sits upon a 'rock ' base. The tower screams at wanting a Widows Nest at its peak and some ornamental iron work on its roof but that's a project for another time, today's model was built as-is. This house was built some months back in preparation for Halloween but unfortunately I couldn't maintain the impetus to build up all of the houses in preparation for the season so there won't be as many shown here on Toys and Stuff this year as I'd hoped.
The kit consists of eight pages of artwork plus four pages of instructions. TIP: copy and paste photos of the finished house from the website into a Word doc and print it out as a reference guide when building the house. No in-progress photos were taken during this project but the construction was fairly straight forward with bracing added to the interior as necessary for stability. The house was not glued to the base for more display flexibility. As I mentioned in the Ravensblight Manor posts, the residents of these houses must fly or float their way into them as there are no stairs leading up the base to the house! That too is a project for another day - maybe :-)
I did have one problem during construction though: the cut-out in the roof meant to accept the chimney was not aligned very well with the black area on the walls which is the artists way of demarcating a glue zone. I really had to finesse not only the roof, but the slot meant to accept the chimney before the chimney itself could be aligned well enough to glue to the wall. It would have been better to just carry the brick art work throughout the wall and glue the chimney where it fit the best. The house, with base, measures 7 1/4" (18.4cm) W x 5 1/4" (13.3cm) D x 8 1/2" (21.6cm) H. Enjoy!
Have you ever noticed that when Hollywood wants to convey a spooky feeling they always photograph the mystery house from a very low level looking up?
Only minimal bracing was used for the base so that the top doesn't bow in. The back wall did get one strip of basswood glued to the bottom edge. With a little care, the base is quite strong.
