How to Build a Model Village

Whether you want to build a model village for added environment around your miniature train set or the base of your holiday tree, you can use your creativity to make it seem almost real. With scrounged materials and some hand and power tools, a model village will take shape quickly.

Decide on a general scale for your model village. It is important to have both buildings and accent pieces match in size. For example, one story of a building should be a set amount of inches--perhaps 2 inches--in all the buildings in the model village. Many people can eyeball this once they begin to build.

Choose and cut a base for your model village or for each individual building and accent piece. You can put the entire village on a large piece of plywood, or make smaller bases from individual pieces of wood. Paint each piece a base color depending on the type of ground the object will be on: green for grass, brown for dirt or white for snow.

Construct each building by nailing or gluing together pieces of light-weight wood into square or rectangular structures. If you want peaked roofs, cut the pieces of wall wood out with the appropriate triangular shape at the top of two walls for each building. Create built-on garages or extra rooms by gluing smaller blocks of wood to the sides of the main building structure. Paint the main color of the building on before adding accents or roofs.

Create roofs for the buildings with other pieces of wood or scraps from construction. Old shingle pieces can be cut down to recreate a realistic roof effect on your model village buildings. Craft stores and hobby shops sell premade shingle designs for model villages as well. They can simply be painted and glued onto your structures.

Pencil in windows, doorways and other accents on the houses and buildings you made for your model village. Use a narrow paintbrush to paint them in next. Try for realism. Also consider painting things such as downspouts on houses, light fixtures by doors, bushes or flowers near the base of cottages and brick patterns for chimneys. Allow to dry before gluing the buildings to their bases.

Construct accents to make your model village seem more realistic. Hobby shops sell miniature trees and other plants, stop lights and road signs, that can be included in your town scene. If the tree does not have a base, simply drill a small hole in the wooden base for a building and glue the tree in. Complete the model village scene with toy cars and tiny people.