Quick and Easy Terrain Part 3

Following up on the previous two posts we have another building to finish off the 15mm scale settlement.

This building started life as a piece of vacuum formed clam-shell packaging (it contained a new mini tripod I recently bought). As soon as I had the empty clam-shell I could see it had architectural possibilities…

The first thing I did was cut away the back of the pack and trim down the edges.

I then cut a piece of 6mm MDF and sanded it down to use as a base.

I decided that the best way to attach the vac-formed plastic to the base was to use a hot glue gun. I sanded the flat area of the plastic, to rough it up and give a good key for the glue to hold.

Now to start adding some of the details. Once again I am going to use some of the 15mm scaled doors and windows from The Scene. While trying them on the model I felt they would look better, in this instance if I added a doorstep. So I cut some small rectangles of plasticard. One end of the building is curved, so I had to shape the back of the step to get a good fit.

I had to decide the best way to fit the door to the curved end now. I could have built a frame out from the wall to give a flat surface for the door. However, the door is quite thin (and the metal quite soft) and for simplicity and speed I simply bent the door a little instead.

Once again, to attach the doors and windows I used the hot glue gun, sanding the plastic and the backs of the doors to key them again.

Once glued in place the windows and doors need a little filler to get a reasonable fit.

The simplest filler to use was Revell Plasto. Applied with the blade of a craft knife, it set overnight and sanded it down to finish it off.

At this point I was fairly happy with how things were going, however, due to the lack of texture or detail on the vac-formed shell I wanted to add something more to add a little interest to the model. I raidied my bits box and found a couple of old aftershave bottle tops and part of a broken kids weather station, plus a few other odd bits and bobs.

I played around the bits until I was happy with the look, something like a couple of silos and odd details. The weather station cups fitted nicely onto the top of the bottle tops, finishing them off nicely and the other pieces I just dotted around until I was happy with the layout.

I glued these bits in place with some epoxy adhesive. A couple of the odd bits were part of the packaging that comes with printer ink cartridges. This blue one, I thought looked like a reasonable antenna. To fit this one I had to drill a small hole in the top of the building, apply some epoxy and then insert the spike on the back of the piece into the hole

Once I was happy with the added detail I gave the whole model a blast of primer. This always helps tie together all the disparate parts and make a pile of odds and ends start to look more like a model building…

I was satisfied with the look of the model once the primer was on, so I jumped straight in and slapped some paint on. Keeping it “quick and easy”, I gave the building itself a quick coat of an ivory kind of colour, it kind of has an adobe like effect. I painted all the other fittings and details a straight steel.

The plain colours looked a little boring, so to liven things up I added a brown wash to the metal work and a rusty yellow wash around the edges and joints of the main building.

I also painted the two “un-shuttered” windows blue with added highlights. I don’t know why i chose blue as my alien world scenery is all red themed, I suppose blue is something of a standard when it comes to window reflections…

Happy with the paint job on the building I turned to finishing off the base. Normally I simply apply a layer of PVA and and sand, but I have just picked up a couple of pots of “Modelling Paste” I picked it up in the local Lidl (a “European style” supermarket) as one of their weekly offers. It is sold as for artists to add depth and texture to their paintings. At £2.50 a pot I thought it was worth giving it a shot to see how it would work for bases.

There were two types of Paste, described as “Smooth” and “Fine”. Unfortunately there was no description on the tubs, so I didn’t really know what I was getting. Once I started to play around with them it appears they are basically thick, spreadable, white acrylic paint. The “Fine” grade has a grit through and the “Smooth” is, well, smooth!

I used the fine grade on this base, saving a step, so that I don’t have to add sand. I would say that it is quite time consuming adding the paste to this size of base, and in future i will probably go back to using PVA and sand. However the paste will certainly be used on smaller figure bases, to hide slots, build up ground etc.

Finally I gave the base a coat of brown paint.

I will be adding some of the alien foliage (primarily reds and yellows) to the base, but I am going to to that when I am adding stuff to some other bases, as it can be quite messy and i prefer to do it in batches.

This is the last 15mm scale building I am going to do for the time being. I have enough for a small settlement now. Next up I will be finishing off the next Retro Rocket and then I will be returning to the 28mm pulp sci-fi scenics and my terrain tile boards (a project that has been on hold for 5 or 6 years). As a crossover part of the terrain board and pulp scenics project I will finally be finishing off the Habitation Dome I started a couple of years ago too…