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IC 4: Zee's First Scenery!

3K views 30 replies 11 participants last post by  Zeewulf 
#1 ·
Hmm.
Where to start? The concept is swimming in my head, sorta like a single cell in a tide pool....hmm.....
I want to play spore.....
NO! Back to task! Important task! I must work!

There is scenery to be made!....
But how? With a desert surrounding, the nearest hobby store MIGHT be in Sharm al Sheik or Cairo....I'm sure there might be one in Tel Aviv....
Hrm. Don't think the boss will let me borrow one of the trucks for a day trip. Might as well see what I can do, between random parts from work, and the things I find lying around, as well as stuff from the Force Exchange...
IRONCHEF! BEGIN!

Imperial Liquid Storage Tank
Scenery on an improvised...er, supply chain..

Well, here's what I've got to work with......

The key ingredients from the kitchen: Toothpicks, plastic silverware, paper towel roll, and, the most important part...the V8 bottle!

First step, however, is gonna be washing that nasty thing out right quick.....and then from there, we'll have to figure it out, now won't we.......

Oh, and as for the plan? We'll have to see if anything more coherent enters my head!
 
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#3 ·
I'm rather interested too! I decided to be prepared in regards to materials, so I just hauled EVERYTHING out! And so far, its already surprised me. I'll have some actual progress posted in a few minutes.
 
#5 ·
Okay, so, I should have combined all this into the first post, but I just wanted to get things posted and then started because of my excitement!

First, I was in need of a base: Enter the Amazon box that delivered me Spore! I took out the backer and decided it was perfectly sized for the job, but was nowhere near thick enough...so I sliced off the flaps on the box, pulled out the trusty old elmer's glue, and sandwiched it all together!


Of course, now we need it to dry, so we need something heavy, useless, and something I won't mind being able to touch for a few hours to set on top of it to make the glue adhere better........and I have just the thing!




Next up is the 'tank.' I first tried to get all technical and measure it out, figure out the exact diameters, heights, and all of that so when I chopped out the middle portion, it would all match up so very nicely.

After ten minutes of annoyance, I said screwit and pulled out the dremel. 30 seconds later, and we had the bottle in a nice half.



I then moved up to the ribbing, measured out the diameters, noticed they were very close on, so I lopped off the excess again, to the ribbing on the top half, and the first rib on the bottom. They fit together perfectly, one sliding into the other, and only left a small gap! Perfect!



But...yet..its missing something..Its just so...concave on top. No, that won't do for a good tank, not at all!

Enter the water bottle sitting on my fridge!


Slice the bottom off of that, and presto!


Doesn't it look better already?

So far, I'm pretty accomplished, but..its still rather short. I want it to take a full movement to get to the walkways I'm thinking of, to make the position hard to assault! The whole thing is only about five and a half inches tall! I'm going to need to make it taller.......
Ahh!
Turns out, a standard paper towel tube is the perfect size to fit over the mouth of a bottle! I cut out a three-inch tall chunk of tube, and then I took my glue-gun and put all the pieces together!


Looks like a water tower, to me.....
 
#7 ·
Well, Day 2 has begun, and I'm hard at work, despite last night's successful spore session. (My Parrot-people, the BRZZT, are like magpies on crack for shiny things...and parakeets crossed with ultra-capitalist types. Craaaazy. They ride around in 'Bling Raiders.')

First things first, I had to fill those ugly gaps a the top and the middle of the tower, so I mixed up a huge blob of Green Stuff and applied it quite liberally. Not pretty, but carvable to get that bit that I need when it dries.


Now, time for the walkway. I'm making this whole thing with several advantages and disadvantages in mind. The walkway in particular is crucial to this design. I have to ensure it is proportionate with the piece, while at the same time giving some leeway to game mechanics and simple base sizes.

Pros:
  • Commanding view of the battlefield
  • Difficult to assault
  • Room for lots of infantry
  • Room for a heavy weapon/monstrous base on TOP of the tower
  • Can provide some cover
Cons:
  • Easy to see troops on it
  • Difficult to escape from
  • No room on the walkway for large bases, such as monstrous creatures or IG heavy weapon bases
  • Easy to hit with blasts.

I decided to go with a 1.5 inch walkway, which is just enough to squeeze in the medium bases, such as Ogryn or Tyranid Warriors. To make this, I took my trusty Amazon box, flipped it over, and measured a 4.25 inch diameter circle, which is roughly enough to fit well around the tower. I took the first flap, cut it's half out, and then cut the other one's out, and then we came to the hard part.

I had to come up with a way to consistently measure out 1.5" around the outer edge of the walkway. After a bit of math (I was more patient today), I determined the circumference (12.5"), and figured if I take each half and mark it around the first circle about 1 1/16" I could divide it into roughly six equal sections. Measure out my 1.5" from there, take a straight edge and connect the dots, cut, and we had it!



Flip it over, trace on the other piece...and tadaa!


This walkway is going to be needing some struts to help support each section, so I broke out the matches, and counted out twelve (one for each section.)

WARNING
WHEN USING MATCHES, EXERCISE CAUTION. DO NOT DISCARD UNUSED MATCHES, FIRE, PROPERTY DAMAGE AND/OR INJURY COULD RESULT. ALWAYS STRIKE THE MATCHES, AND THEN EXTINGUISH THEM (WITH WATER AVAILABLE) BEFORE CUTTING AND THEN DISCARDING.

I measured out my 1.5" on the matches, after lighting all of them and extinguishing them, and then I cut the ends off.


I then placed them on each section as a cross beam, glued on with my faithful elmer's.


And there we have today thus far! Now while I allow this time to dry, I'm going to see what I can figure out to work on next....
 
#8 ·
So, here's some more!

Need some support struts for the walkway, so, I started off with a dremel and a couple plastic knives....after the third knife, I got sick of it, noticed it wasn't going to look good anyway, and set them off to the side. Out came the cardboard again, and I made some T-Beam struts.


And then glued 'em in and then glued the whole thing to the base.



Next, we needed a ladder to come down from the top, so, I put a small hole in the walkway, and then attached two of the knife-struts at 3" long. Made a cardboard cutout, stuck some diamond plate to it, and then put some toothpicks as ladder rungs, cut to 1". After that, took some thin plasticard and enclosed the sides of the ladder.



Then I took some more toothpicks, put some elmer's glue on 'em, and then lined them down the tube. Eventually that'll be closed with plasticard as well on the sides, once the glue dries.


Finally, the top walkway is going to be done up in diamond plate. I cut out some sections, but I see I've got my work cut out for me.....


Gonna hafta do some serious trimming and joining.
 
#9 ·
Hrm. I forgot to mention the water tube/pump on the side there, which you can see in the third pic, previous post.
But here's a better picture of it.


Also, did a bit more....
First that bottom ladder.



Also, on top, here we have the diamond plate cut to size...


And then capped!


Now, the difficult question is, should I put something over the courrigation of the cardboard, or should I leave it open? I'm getting pretty close to finished on this; I won't be doing a railing simply because of lack of materials in that aspect..but otherwise, what do you guys think?
 
#10 ·
So, my guardsmen wanted to show off ready, primer and base coats!

Lets paint this thing!


Black Primer


Grey Spray Base


I've decided not to cap over the edges of the cardboard; the courigation looks like courigated metal.
 
#11 ·
My my my, that is a very nice piece. Clever use of shapes with the bottles and big enough to give a 10 man squad cover, ill take that any day. Construction seemed solid, nothing to really say about that. Only thing this could benefit from is some detail painting and detailing on the base. I know the future likes the color grey but there are many different shades of grey and so you should consider adding some black washes to bring out the details. Hope that helps and again very nice piece; ill be considering your design next time I need to make some storage tanks.
 
#12 ·
I thank one of the great masters for his kind words!
The detail painting is in progress right now, actually. I'm not 100% certain on what all I'm going to do for colors on it, but I've already gotten the catwalk done, and I've started a water leak on the pipe running down to the pump. I'm also thinking a bright orange stripe around the top, some rust, flaking paint, and stains down the sides of it, and some work signs as well.
 
#15 ·
I realized today that I spent so long trying to figure out the basic idea that I totally forgot to figure out the HOW of the painting. Needless to say, aside from my basecoat grey, I'm at a loss. So today, in my simplicity, I painted up the catwalk, the ladder, and the very top, as well as brushed some rust and metal onto the support struts. I aslo put in a few rust/corrosion areas, , all of which can be seen in the following picture.


There's alot left to do, everything from some signs, to some more weathering, to some more detail and basing. Oh, and before I forget, in the back of the picture, you can see a bunch of white on the top of the water pumphouse. Thats some water effect drying.
 
#17 ·
Hmmm...I figured out how to break up the tube portion of the tower, but the bottom roundish portion, I can't figure out. If anyone can think of ways to help break that up so its not so flat and new looking, I'd appreciate it!
 
#19 ·
Hmm....Sounds like a good idea, in fact, another person looking at it suggested some welds, too. I might just do those, but I don't quite have the right glue for it.....

Also, water rust coming down was perfect, which you can see here. Though I have to apologize....When the rest of First Platoon found out 1st Squad was getting to play around on it, they went running to Lt. Burnination. When the Lt. Found out, well, he wanted to join in too. Curious, 1st Sentinel Recon Squadron followed.
I sure hope no one lets Charlie company find out....Last thing I want to see is a baneblade try to hide behind this.



Oh, and by the way, the 2nd squad (Red bases) are all still in coherency, even the ones up top!
 
#20 ·
Well the final paintjob is much better then the basecoat, lol. I like what you did with the water stains and such. My only suggestion would be for the colored bands at the top. They seems to be uneven, only way around that is to make. Use masking tape or blue painters tape to make straight lines next time you make bands like that, it will look alot better.

Only other thing i could see needed is some really light dry brushing of wither a dark brown or a sandy color. This will just give some texture to flat areas and break up any large areas of solid color. Other then those minor few things it came out really nice. A piece Id be happy to play with any day of the week. Good sniper position as well. Emperor protects


PS Yeah signs make it look just that more bad ass.
 
#21 ·
I've still got basing left to do...the ground a steady grey is just so boring! And you're right, it needs a good drybrushing....And maybe a few more rust stains!

The biggest problem I had was with those lines on top! Right now, the Force Exchange, which is just an oversized convienence store, doesn't carry any masking tape at all! I figure I'm going to try to shore up the lines a little bit more, and put in one more stripe on the bottom of the orange. Probably a "WELCOME TO OSRIS IV" stenciled on the orange stripe, with a bunch of flakes taken out of it all. As for the biohazardous contamination....
Soon as the water effect finishes drying, I'm putting a ripper coming out of the water, which will be spilling over the side and to the ground.
I'll be quite honest; the pics with the models on it were mostly me having fun...its actually exciting seeing them on there, it brings some real life to it all!

Truth be told, I've had alot of fun building this, and its surprising how easy it is for me. Being a novice doesn't help, but it sure teaches me alot!
 
#22 ·
We're gettin' close to done now. Waiting for the water-effect to dry for the puddles, and still gotta make the ripper. Also debating having a few sandbags piled around, but I dunno for sure. I wanna keep it mostly open so 60mm bases can move freely underneath.


What I've done, though, is I took my gravel and mixed some dark brown with some raw umber, painted that on there, brushed some mustard on top of that, and then did a quick drybrushing with Bleached Bone (which is rapidly becoming my favorite paint.). I had some concertina wire scenery lying around, so I laid that out on the one edge, cut a toothpick for a stake, and hit the pick with brown ink.


Along the top, you can see some lettering; simply took a brush and traced over some pencil I'd done earlier to make my letters, and then used Mithril Silver to chip the paint. As for the dribble down the side of the pump, and the color under the drying water effect, I took shadow grey and codex grey and swirled 'em down individually and together, just like I did under the water effect atop the pump.



Down the water pipe, I put some hot glue with the swirled greys, and then more water effect stuff. All around the entire underside of the reservoir, you can see the staining coming down from the catwalk; that's Vallejo's "Smoke" color, traced down in what's hopefully realistic dribble. The rust spots are a combination of Boltgun Metal, Mithril Silver and Tin Bitz.
The entire piece has also been drybrushed over (rather poorly, in my opinion) with a "Butter" color, which is what I use on my tanks to give them a nice desert-dusty effect.



I'll take some detail pics once the water effects are dried and the ripper's in place...and final pics, too.
 
#26 ·
Very nice.
Ever consider using printed lettering (like what you used on the sign) for the writting on the tower. May give it a more official look.
That aside, great piece. Seems simple and cheap to make, with great instructions. Well done.
 
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