The first step to building this cabin is to build a frame. It is constructed using a variety of basswood strips.

In order to achieve a weathered and worn look to the wood, each piece was textured using 80 grit sand paper and needle files.

The frame was assembled using both wood glue and super glue. While the frame is relatively square, perfection is not necessary. This cabin is supposed to be scrapped together.

The time period is roughly 1850’s America. By this time, these slave quarter cabins would roughly be 70 years old specific to this plantation.

Next step is to add the siding along the frame. Once again, these strips of wood were attached using both wood glue and super glue.

These strips were cut from a larger 1/32”x 4”x 24” piece of basswood. They were cut irregularly with jagged edges. This emulated the dilapidated look the reference images of real slave cabins showed.

This process was carried out for all four walls, being sure to cut pieces accordingly for each of the windows and doors.

The roof frame is constructed from both basswood strips and laser cut chipboard.

The rafters were laser cut from chipboard to easily control the bowing/warping of the roofline.

The two tallest chipboard pieces were glued to the frame, and the siding was continued all the way up. The seven remaining chipboard pieces in the middle were temporarily held in place, the shortest being towards the middle.

Then, 1/8” and 3/16” pieces of basswood were glued horizontally to the inner seven chipboard rafters.

Once dry, this ensured that the model would have a removable roof, as these strips weren’t glued to the outer two walls.

A porch roof frame, and a porch frame were constructed in a similar manner to the house, and were built based off the drawings.

Shingles were then applied randomly one by one. Each shingle was applied using super glue.

The shingles were cut from 1/32”x 3”x 36” balsa wood strips. Each shingle had a length of roughly 3/4” and the width varied from 3/16” to 1/2.”

Roughly half of the shingles were textured with either an X-Acto blade, or 80 grit sandpaper in the direction of the grain.

Structures built by slaves at the Wormsloe Plantation in Georgia was my main reference for the application and painting of the shingles.

Bricks were hand scribed and textured into extruded polystyrene (pink foam) using an X-Acto blade and a pencil. The pink foam is carved to the basic shapes of different parts of the chimney, and stilts that raise the frame off the foundation before bricks are scribed.

The porch has wooden planks glued onto its frame, each are roughly a 1/4” in width.

This side of the cabin features a ledger board with rafters that were cut off. This was a design feature that Mark Friedberg wanted exclusively for Mabel’s Cabin in The Underground Railroad. 10 of these slave quarter cabins were made for the Randall Plantation set, and most had a shed attached to the side of the cabin. In order to make Mabel’s cabin stand out from the rest, her cabin was to look as if the shed was detached from the main structure, and a garden would reside in place of the shed.

The pink foam brick pieces all had the same painting process. First, each block of textured foam was base coated in Golden’s Burnt Umber (light) color.

Once dry, the joints were filled with spackle to give the appearance of mortar. The excess was wiped off with a paper towel.

Individual bricks were painted with Golden’s Transparent Red Oxide, or a diluted Raw Umber to create varying tones.

The entire surface is liberally coated with a dark brown acrylic wash. This darkens the mortar joints, and unifies the different colored bricks.

The surface is then blended with a mixture of white and raw sienna paints to add further weathering and variation to the bricks.

Note that the bricks are relatively rough, some mortar missing in the joints, some missing bricks, etc.

A dark brown acrylic was was applied to all of the interior walls. Some pieces of wood were accented with red washes and darker brown washes to make a varied effect.

Three of the interior walls were painted haint blue. This surface was wet blended with dark brown acrylic to emulate a weathered look. Some individual boards were left with the bare wooden finish to infer some boards had been replaced at some point in time.

The wooden floor had a gray-brown acrylic wash applied. Once dry, the floor boards were sanded with 220 grit. This gave subtle highlights to the edges of each plank.

The frame of the structure was painted with acrylic Van Dyke Brown. This emulates the contrast between the blue walls, and the dark brown frame as seen in the show.

All exterior surfaces were given a wash of dark brown acrylic paint. This will act as our undercoat for our white base coat.

The white paint is going to be worn and chipped, so this dark brown wash provides a realistic foundation for what would be seen underneath the chipped paint.

Cheap, craft, white acrylic paint is used for our white base layer. It is aggressively stippled over all exterior walls to create the base texture of weathered paint.

While the paint is still wet, some of the texture can be brushed smooth, completely painting some planks white.

This provides nice variation, with some strips of wood being heavily chipped and textured, while others are fully painted and smooth.

To make our white base layer appear as if it’s been exposed to the humid, warm climate of Georgia over the course of several decades, weathering with acrylics necessary to achieve this look.

The paints used are once again, Golden’s Open Acrylics in the colors, Raw Sienna, Burnt Umber, Van Dyke Brown, Green Gold, and Black.

These paints all work together to achieve many realistic effects, ranging from mossy deposits, to black mold, to rust streaks.

The green and yellow-brown tones are concentrated towards the lower portion of the cabin, where greenery would be more likely to coalesce. Hints of these tones can be lightly carried up the cabin to create a sense of color unity.

The amount of weathering is dependent on the story you are trying to tell. To me, there is no such thing as to little weathering, or to much weathering. But rather, the right or wrong amount depending on the visual narrative that you are depicting with your paintwork. I find that harmonizing stylistic distressing choices while being conscious of why you are applying certain colors in a given place with the help of reference images will yield the best results.

The balsa wood shingles were given the same dark brown wash that was applied to the exterior of cabin.

Once the wash was completely dried, the entire surface was dry brushed with white acrylic craft paint using a 2” chip brush. This gives a more faded, sun-bleached effect that can be seen on shingles at the Wormsloe Plantation.

To make some shingles appear lighter or darker, individual shingles were given either a wash of white or black acrylic paint. The more brown ones were left alone.

Moss was applied with the same Golden Open Acrylics diluted with water. However, only Green Gold, Raw Sienna, and Van Dyke Brown were used for the roof. Raw Sienna was diluted with water, and speckled across the entire surface. This effect is subtle but effective in adding color across the whole roof.

This is how the cabin looks fully weathered, with the shingled roof attached.

All brick pieces that were painted beforehand are attached to the cabin using hot glue.

Details such as shutters, doors, and gates were created directly from reference images.

They were all created with basswood strips, and assembled using super glue. An X-Acto blade was used to poke impressions into the wood to emulate nail heads.

While some are bare wood, white, and haint blue, the painting and weathering process is the same as it was for the rest of the cabin.

The base of the model is a 2’x2’x1” piece of pink foam. The top of the foam was initially painted dark brown using craft acrylic paints.

Gray, rocky sand was sprinkled where the cabin would roughly sit, and the rest of the base was covered in brown dirt. Shredded moss, and green foam foliage was scattered around the model base, as well as a home made woodland scatter. The scatter consists of dead leaves, tree bark, pine needles, etc that have all been blended into a fine ground cover.

All of this loose scatter was saturated with isopropyl alcohol, and then saturated with a mixture of watered down matte mod podge (any white glue/wood glue would work.)

After the ground scatter dries and is secured to the base, the model cabin is glued to the base using hot glue.

The bed frame was made from basswood strips, and stained with a dark brown acrylic wash. The sheets and blanket were made from dipping paper towels in watered down white glue, and draped over the bed frame.

While the paper towels were still wet, I used acrylic paint to “dirty up” the sheets and define some of the fabric folds.

The porch was glued to the cabin, along with the porch roof. The porch roof is being supported with twigs found from the ground. Shudders and doors were added to the model with super glue.

Stairs were made using strips of basswood and stained with the dark brown acrylic mixture.

The greenery within Mabel’s garden is comprised of paper plants, and preserved plants from Diorama Presepe. All of the greenery was glued in place with white glue and super glue.

On the right side of the cabin, a wood stack was glued to the base, rusted metal sheets were glued to the side of the cabin, and the wooden barrel was 3D Printed and painted.

Fully completed interior with the doors, furniture, and fire place glued in place.

Side of Mabel’s cabin showcasing the garden. Door hinges were glued on. They were made from strips of styrene plastic.

Fully finished cabin model. The chairs on the porch were also 3D Printed using my Elegoo Mars Pro, and they were modeled in Fusion 360. Once printed, they were painted with oil paints by hand.