Sunday, August 17, 2014

Terrain: Fuel Bunker

No updates this week, my apologies there. I did get some work done, though. My girlfriend brought home a small can of Pepsi, which I immediately saw as a fuel tank. I loved the Forgeworld model, which I think is not available any longer. This small bit of terrain will make for some nice scatter terrain most of the time, and occasionally as an objective to be held.

I got a bit more mileage out of my compass in getting me a nice circle of card to seal up the open end of the can here. I cannot tell you how useful simple geometry tools are in terrain construction. There is a packet of Sculpey equivalent shown in the picture there, but in the end I used two full packets and another 2/3 packet (roughly) on top of that.

On what?  On sandbags, of course. I had a running tally until my cat stepped on my number pad while chasing a fly. Ah, well. I know the rough number came out to just shy of 700 sandbags total... all made from hand. Have I mentioned I'm a bit mad when it comes to this stuff?

I also jammed a bit of floral wire into an old hairband. With a bit more wire, some styrene tube, and a bit of brass tube I have a serviceable fuel line. Using some extra sprue and plastic canvas I fashioned a sort of catchment grate thing.

The base was coated with sand and bits of cork tile. I traced around the sandbags and then was careful not to let the sand overlap when it was glued in place.

Once the sandbags were baked in the oven and solid, I carefully drilled holes into them and the base both. A length of bamboo skewer was then used to help secure the sandbags in place.

All done. The piece has been painted in the same fashion as the rest of my terrain: Blue Grey Slate and Seal Grey drybrush over black, black wash, Seal Grey drybrush followed by Fortress Grey on the cork and Kommando Khaki on the sand. The sandbags were painted black, then Ceramcoat Burnt Umber, followed by overbrushing layers of Graveyard Earth and Kommando Khaki. A black wash was applied and followed up by drybrushing on Kommando Khaki and finally Bleached Bone. The fuel hose was painted Tausept Ochre and given a black wash.

I also put together a length of barbed wire, using new and improved finger torture wire. Seriously, this stuff looks awesome but is hard on your fingers to produce... and my cat tries to chew on it, constantly. Pets add a new level of interesting to making terrain and wargaming in general.

Anyway, thanks for watching through these lazy days of the summer months. I am thinking I am terrained out at the moment, and might finally finish first platoon.

Cheers,

CJ