Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Terraforming Necromunda 006: The Drawbridge

I've been working on the bridge and platform this past week, and made quite a bit of progress.

I'm using the robot kit I got from Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago to make the frame for the bridge and platform. The deck of the bridge and the catwalk over the platform are black plastic canvas (granny grate) with thin card overlays. I traced out the design with a ruler and protractor and then used a stencil knife to cut it all out.

The biggest challenge of this piece is that I wanted the bridge platform to 'float' over the ruined building. The idea being that where ever this happens to be in the underhive, a rotted out section of makeshift gantries crossing a anchient administratum ruin wasn't going to cut it anymore. The powers that be had the ruin 'leveled' and then the platform and bridge installed. If you build it, charge the underhivers to use it!

In the underhive the powers that be are of course the gang that controls that section of the sump... so I wanted the construction to resemble that. The platform and rigging is solid and suitably industrial, but the keepers hut is ramshackle. The bridge stolen from somewhere else and incorporated into the structure.

But none of that explains the 'float' part.

Well, how do you keep your new toll road mostly level? Build it on stilts, of course.

And by the gods of the warp, it worked. AND even before I glued the stilts in place it was mostly holding itself up.
You can see here the entire superstructure has a decided lean to the right. I glued the stilts to the base of the platform and pinned them with floral wire, which took care of the stability issue.

The bridge keeper's hut is made of foamcore clad in thin card, and fronted by a cut down Necromunda bulkhead. The deck of the platform is more thin card, this time with the plastic canvas on top.

...aaand it's big. I mean, it got away from me from the go, with the footprint being larger overall than I envisioned. It's also more squat than I wanted, but at the same time it ended up being taller in the super structure. It had to be to 'work' properly. I set the drawbridge and the industrial ruin from a few posts back on the floor and took a picture to really get a sense of what I've got.

So there it is. The industrial ruin is going on a 24"x24" base, so I built the drawbridge long enough to reach. That spot on the deck of the industrial piece is a Skitarii. There is an Inquisimunda henchman on the deck for the drawbridge. Oh and my cat. Cat for scale.

Eventually I'll get more work done on the industrial ruin, too.

Cheers,

CJ