Thatched Roof Hut Tutorial (Alternate Method)

I little bit ago I developed a weird method of making thatched roof huts from water-putty.  While the method was cheap and some people lauded it, I had the nagging feeling it was too complex.  I've since come up with an easier method that yields better results.

Get some polymer clay (I use Sculpey) and knead it well.  Smash a small ball of the clay in between two smooth surfaces; I use two pieces of glass from small picture frames (cost $1.00 US at any dollar store).  The squished clay should form a nice round flat pancake, with a diameter much larger than the intended diameter of your roof, and a thickness of about 10mm.  If the pancake is wildly out-of-round, then use a compass to scribe a circle near the edges and trim off the excess, leaving a round piece of clay.

Take a tool and scribe lines from the center of the clay outward, radially.  I used a sharped chopstick, but in the future I will try a ball burnisher.  You're making a negative impression and the scribed lines will represent the sticks piled up to make the thatched roof.  After scribing a lot of lines, take a round, smooth object and press in the clay, making an impression.  I used a base from a figure.  Milk jug lids might be good for this as well.  When you press the object in the clay, you may smoosh some of your thatching lines away, so scribe some more back in.  Finally take a smaller round shape (I used a soda bottle cap) and press it in the center, making a third "tier" to your impression.  Again, scribe more thatching lines radially.

Cut a triangle out of the pancake and set this aside.  The pancake (which is the mold for the roof) can now be shaped into a cone.  The press-mold is shown below, the cracks are from removing the cast after the putty cured.

Roof press-mold

Curl up the edges of the triangle cut so the pancake becomes a cone.  Set the cone apex-down in a proper receptacle.  You can make a little stand out of Scupley or use the neck of a cut-up soda bottle.  Mix up some water-putty and pour it in the cone.  After 100 minutes, gently remove the clay and use a model knife to trim the edges so the roof is round.  Cut little notches in the edge to give it an irregular look, simulating the ends of the twigs and sticks in the thatching.

While the roof is curing for those 100 minutes, make the hut itself.  Roll a long cylinder of Sculpey and set it between the glass sheets, squishing it into a long flat strip.  Use a straight-edge to cut off the edges, making the strip nice and neat.  Find a smooth cylinder with an appropriate diameter to use as a model.  I used a candle but plastic containers of various sizes work too.  Measure the diameter of this shape; this will be the outer wall diameter of your hut.  Multiply by Pi to get the length of your Sculpey strip.  The width of the strip equals the wall height obviously.

Take a chopstick and sharpen it to a point.  Use a hobby knife to cut off the tip, leaving a little circle.  Use this as a clay tool, pressing little round shapes into the clay strip.  After pressing a few dozen circles in, cut more of the tip off the tool; you now have a clay stamp with a larger radius.  Press more circles into the clay, then modify your tool some more.  Continue until the clay is filled with circle impressions of various sizes.  The strip will act as a negative impression mold, and the casting will look like a round wall of flat-faced stones.

Press-mold for hut walls

Wrap the strip of clay around your shape (candle, toilet paper tube, whatever).  Make sure the edges of the strip do not touch; this is where the door will be.  Cut away some Sculpey if necessary.  Gently remove the shape from the inside, then place a block of clay into the door opening and into the middle of the mold.  Pour water-putty into the mold and after 100 minutes remove the walls.  Trim off any excess flash from the cast and then use a small amount of putty to bond the hut to the thatched roof.  Base, paint then game!

Looks OK now; will look great with paint I bet

Costs pennies