Scratchbuilt marketplace models

Shaper and Maker

Marketplaces are very common element in all roleplaying game environments. In medieval era - and fantasy worlds inherited mainly from that era - marketplaces were vital, as most people or their servants went to fetch food from marketplaces. Farmers and herders came to villages, towns or cities to sell their animals, meat, wool, grain or other goods, rich merchants visit marketplaces to oversee their business or to do some great deals and pickpockets look for victims on the crowded marketplaces. And even in modern era marketplaces in form or another can be used to create authentic atmosphere.
Market stalls can be used on the sides of a wide streets, and on the edge of marketplaces are often a stage where artists perform, declarations are made, executions executed and other important events take place.
So, every terrain modeller should think of making his own marketplace, and if you use maps, a marketplace map is likewise important.
Here are my versions of marketplace items (part of the displayed items have been given away, I have currently 8 stalls).
The commoner/villager -miniatures above were found from a very small store in the middle of outer skirts of Venice (totally no-tourist area in the town) during my and my wife's honeymoon - somewhere where you would never have looked for roleplaying accessories!


A lot of different elements can be made to make marketplaces alive. For materials, basic stalls are very simple - 1mm wire and printed paper textures. Tables are pieces of painted cardboard and wire. Pots are bought from Paizo (although I didn't see them there anymore).

Many smaller items are more complex - original pieces made of mainly cardboard and modelling clay, varnished and then made into silicon molds - making several of those one by one would be insane. What I've made this way are baskets, piles of tiny balls on baskets (for bread, apples, turnips, whatever), square boxes of these balls, square boxes of fish, cardboard swords and axes (although these were very difficult as casts, I could have made just originals straight out of them), potions, spellbooks (both closed and open).

Boxes, barrels, chests and cart wheels are also resin casts, made from various materials - mainly modelling clay, cardboard, plastic stripes and dots of PVA glue. Carpets and maps were created with GIMP and printed, long breads are made from cocktail sticks, spears from wire and carts mainly from cardboard and wire.