Auhagen Platz (2)

I've spend a great day making some good progress on the 'Plattenbau' today.
At the left the state of the building this morning. Nothing was changed to the original Auhagen kit at this stage, except for glueing two kits together of course. I painted the kit with ocre and light grey acrylics, followed by a wash with black ink. A concrete effect was achieved by lightly brushing some grey/brownish pastel powder (easily made rubbing pastels over sandpaper) on top. The window frames got a similar treatment. A coat of matt varnish finishes this stage.

Where the window frames look quite good, the original door (at the right) is a different story. It's just too course and there's no frame around it. So I used a door from a Faller kit, which was shortened in hight a little to fit.
I also made steps from styrene plate because the ones provided in the kit are too high for N scale. Using those daily would be a good exercise for the residents though ;)

Next up: the roof. I replaced the Auhagen roof with one made from 0.5 mm styrene sheet. Strips of pre-coloured sandpaper were glued on top to simulate roofing felt. I have purchased an 'industrial building detailing set' from Artitec a while ago, which is a great source for roof details. I used a rather large aircon unit, a metal chimney and some flat thing (access to the roof?).
I accidentally spilt some white paint on the roof, but decided it could stay there because it could as well have been done by an N scale painter doing the roof edges ;)

And the result! It still needs some glazing and perhaps I'll even add light and an interior at a later stage, but the Plattenbau-look is there! The green Trabant adds to the DDR feel.
I think the Auhagen kit is a great starting point for making bigger apartment buildings like this one. It's very versatile and combining kits is just so easy! Here's  another example of Plattenbauten made with these kits, very cleverly turning some elements to make the building wider.