Recently Tristan from Terrain From Junk held the site’s first terrain building contest. He asked for pieces that were 36”² or more and built from some of the types of junk he’d already listed on the site. I took it upon myself to enter a piece, if anything just to get through some of the junk I had building up around my flat.
A while ago there was some renovation work going on nearby and on our way back home Ross found a medium sized PVC tube which he donated to me.
So gathering up a few other bits and pieces I set to work on an entry, to be finished in a couple of days, in between revising for my HRD exam. I also used:
- -Wooden coffee stirrers
- -Corrugated cardboard
- -Tub of hot chocolate
- -A couple of yoghurt pots
- -A few pieces of plasticard and some other odds and ends
I drew up a rough idea of what the piece should look like, although the finished version isn’t quite the same and I never did figure out why there had been a shack there.
The general idea was to create a piece that indicated the presence of a large amount of scrap below the ground, or possibly as if a large lump of the space hulk had torn off hurling engines in all directions as it broke up.
I imagine the pipe as part of a connective structure in a bank of many similar engines that has been decaying slowly and recently was blown over, crushing the nearby shack.
In terms of gameplay I wanted to build something that would be big enough for most normal vehicles to pass under it, rather than being entirely blocked by it. I also wanted to provide a bridge for foot models, allowing combat to occur around it and to create a tempting vantage point. There’s entrances at both end of the pipe to encourage its use (and to prevent any one model being impossible to flush out).
A combination of PVA glue and hot glue were used to hold the whole thing together – hot glue where a quick bond was required and PVA where it could wait.
I added some detailing to the engine itself, although I really wanted to add more. Sadly I didn’t have the parts, nor the time, to add them. Let the chips fall as they may!
It was spraypainted black and the base was given a rough coating of Snakebite leather. Essentially I followed the same painting procedure as for my mutie tent, the rest is mostly just drybrushing Tin Bitz and Boltgun Metal, although I did the rust using this method, et voilà:
That’s pretty much it. Here’s some more photos, or thumbnails at least. Click on them to see larger versions.
Lastly, I’ve got this one. I took two photos that ended up so close together that they give a faux-3D effect when viewed as an animation. The image links to a larger version of it.
May 13th, 2010 at 04:54
Excellent little tutorial, my favourite part is the space for vehicles to pass through, I’m sure this will be spectacular for your gorkamorka games.
June 6th, 2010 at 02:37
Woo! I won the contest!