“Glass” windows

Tutorial

The subject of this brief tutorial is my take on crafting a glass window for miniature tabletop wargames, both historical and fantasy.

I admit, that I generally rely on the traditional โ€žjust leave the window openโ€œ-approach. However, if I feel super fancy, I use one of the following methods.

Transparent Plastic

The most straightforward way to represent glass windows on our tabletop terrain piece, is to use a thin sheet of transparent plastic (Fig 1). I usually use stationery leftovers, but any kind of thin semi-rigid transparent plastic will do.

  • (Fig 2) I start by drawing a window pane with black permanent marker on the plastic sheet.
  • (Fig 3) Afterwards I cut some balsa or cardboard to size and assemble a window frame around the pane.
    TIPP: roughen up the area around the pane, before you glue the frame in place. Depending on the types of material used, the slick plastic surface of the plastic sheet won’t hold the glue properly.
  • (Fig 4) Finally I cut along the edges of the windowframe and voila! … a perfectly fine window to glue on your terrain piece.

Before glueing it in place, I use a dark brown, grey or even black, to paint the sides and effectively make sure to hide the “glass”. The window frame may be painted in any colour you fancy.

Fig 1 – thin transparent plastic
Fig 2 – an eyeballed window pane
Fig 3 – glue a frame into place
tabletop terrain glas window _ plastic
Fig 4 – cut out the window

You may re-draw a grid with black acrylic on the plastic before fixing the frame. It will even look more like leaded glass. Don’t thin the paint down to much, in order to create some sort of relief.

Transparent paper

This method relies on transparent craft paper to represent the glass window for our tabletop terrain.

Below you see an image of a Grail-chapel, I built for my bretonnian army back in the olden days, using transparent paper to represent a leaded glass window (Fig 5 & 6) .

Fig 5 – leaded glass window on a Grail chapel
tabletop terrain glas window _ transparent paper _ example
Fig 6 – behold the majesty of the Grail

Despite the time investment, these windows are rather easy to make and the results look surprisingly good.

  • (Fig 7) I tape a piece of self adhesive plastic sheet to my cutting board (or any suitable flat area). It is important to keep the sticky side up. The transparent paper will later be glued on it.
  • (Fig 8) Cutting some bits of transparent paper into shape, I carefully assemble our mosaic on the sticky sheet. Here is a simple example: a yellow losange with red outlines.
    If you have a more elaborate design in mind, I recommend to draw it first on a sheet of paper and to cut out the different transparent paper bits one by one. But I am lazy and I rarely go the extra mile.
  • (Fig 9) Using a thick black permanent marker, I emulate the lead joints on the glass window. During this step, you may get creative and draw extra lines or other shenanigans. Alternatively you may use black acrylic paint. Since I only did a quick presentation build, the different “glass” parts in the window were not super flush (sorry) โ€ฆ see Fig 11.
  • (Fig 10 & 11) Having finished our mosaic, I tape a second piece of self adhesive plastic over the transparent paper. After cutting out the window, I can fix it into the appropriate window frame. You might want to leave a small margin, depending on how you wish to install the window.
Fig 7 – self adhesive plastic sheet
Fig 8 – transparent paper
tabletop terrain glas window _ transparent pape
Fig 9 – black pen as lead joints
tabletop terrain glas window _ transparent paper
Fig 10 – final product
tabletop terrain glas window _ transparent paper
Fig 11 – install

Time to finally put these electrical tealights in your craft-drawer to good use.

Colored pencils on paper

Finally we attack the most humble, but in my opinion the most old school and fun way to represent a glass window on tabletop terrain : colored pencils!

  • After having drawn the outline of the window, I colour the outer parts of the window with purple.
  • In a second step I cover the entire glass pane using a blue pencil. It is important to keep the central part in a lighter shade of blue. You may want to experiment a bit, in order to get your favorite result.
  • Finally you may draw the lead joints on the glass window. For this type of window, I usually use black fineliner. It is not strictly necessary, but I like them on my historical and fantasy terrain.

This method works best for terrain pieces, with no playable interior.

tabletop terrain glas window _ crayon
Fig 12 – step by step pencil window
tabletop terrain glas window _ crayon example
Fig 13 – an “oldschoolesque” example

Final thoughts

I do not aspire to create hyper realistic terrain pieces, nor do I mind mixing terrain pieces on my tabletop, with different glass window styles. Consequently, I do not consider any method superior to the others. Instead, I choose them according to my current fancy ๐Ÿ™‚

Happy crafting.

D.