Terrain Talk Pt. 13 – Lots Of Extraordinary Riveting: A Vrilfire Reactor for Hyperian Wars

Some of you may be familiar with Dakkadakka.com, one of the biggest hubs for wargaming (mainly GW, but by no means exclusively), as well as painting and modelling. Jim and I are regular visitors, and over the years have come upon many PLOGs to loot for ideas and inspiration (see here, for example).

And lo, it was on a recent trawl for ideas to pinch that we came upon the elite secret society (well, sort of) of Dakka terrain builders, the League Of Extraordinary Riveters – so named for being the detail obsessed, practically OCD modellers who will go to the extent of modelling every rivet onto their pieces.

Frankly, this rather appealed! And so when this month’s terrain competition was announced, with “food” as it’s theme, we thought, let’s have a go.

Now, every year I get a Cadbury’s Creme Egg easter egg. And every year it’s awesome, even though it does nudge me a step closer to type 2 diabetes. But every year, after I’ve gorged myself on sugar and then gone through the inevitable grinding comedown, I look at the packaging and think, “That could be…. SOMETHING”

Well, this year? It’s going to be SOMETHING.

 

It begins…

Planning (PLANNING?!?) stage….

Enter a caption

Detailing and tiling with cardboard

Boiler plate detailed with PVA blobs for rivets

More tiling, gates added – made from cardboard, three layers, woodwork patterns carved in to the door and rivets added. Cooling towers from drinking straws.

Pipework made from sprues sawn up with new toy – a razor saw!

Entire piece sprayed black and then texture paste added on top – a mix of PVA, filler, sand and water.

Base made from a handily sized hardboard square I happened to have left ovr, edges bevelled and then texture paste applied there too.

And done! Prime black, drybrush up using our Lukes APS ruins palette.. metallics done with gun metal washed with black and brown ink, skin wash added in places for a rusty vibe. Honourable mention for semicircular flywheel casings – they were peanut butter jar lids cut in half with the razor saw!

Ground primed black and drybrushed up through dark to light browns, three tone flock added

1/72 Virum Nascii ratmen shown for scale

Vallejo Skin Wash used to represent rust

Added some flock and clump foliage to represent wear and weathering

Not too shabby overall!

So no idea how we’ve placed in the end, but it’s been a good fun ride!

So until next time, stay thrifty and we’ll see you soon!