Saturday 3 July 2021

ONE MANS RUBBISH IS ANOTHER MANS SCENERY

 Must admit I have no clear plan on what I want to achieve over the Season of Scenery challenge, so will just go with the flow and see what happens.


When we moved into our house, we had an over abundance of smoke alarms, which the building work would constantly set off, so took them all down, and once the building work was finished on the main house, put a more reasonable number back up, which left a lot of spares ! While looking at one it reminded me of the big disk in the sand at the Lars Homestead on Tatooine, which sparked an idea of why not make one.


The first thing I did was separate the two halves and remove the internal workings, looking at the vented section, I thought it would looking more like the reference picture by turning it upside down, this then ment the white top disk was now too wide to fit on, so I marked the new diameter onto the white piece and cut off the excess using a Dremel cutting wheel. I then cut some bluefoam to make the surrounding area, shaped and textured it. It's now got the basics done, but needs finishing and detailing.


While I've been working on that I've also been building the underground entrance as well, this was made with insulation foam, and then textured with wall filler. I find the trick with this foam is to think of it like soft wood, so you can cut it with a saw, also a sharp blade, and you can sand it very easily. For this piece I built it in 5 sections, the dome, the bottom ring and the 3 arches, once they were all shaped, I stuck it all together and then textured. I've made it hollow for two reasons, can put figures inside it, and I'm thinking of putting these into production, so being hollowed out means I can keep the price  down, now I know you can get similar in MDF and 3D print, but the difference here is the texture as the other two mediums leave that to the individual.


That's all for this post, hopefully will have these and other projects finished soon, and if anyone hasn't signed up for the Season of Scenery challenge yet, can sign up in the comments below, as there is still plenty of time as You've got until the 31 st of August 2021 to show your entries.

So until next time stay safe and have fun ! 

Cheers Dave

29 comments:

  1. Super stuff Dave, and very much in keeping with your current Star Wars obsession, LOL!!! Great use of the fire alarm and some splendid foam work too. I'd certainly be interested in a few similar buildings. Are you planning on doing them in foam..?

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    1. Thank you Simon, there may well be some other subject material over the 2 months as I have a couple of 41K buildings I need to paint, but Star Wars will probably feature a lot ! LOL When I release the buildings they will be in resin, just the masters made in the foam, may look at some bigger buildings as well, but will have to make them as kits to be able to get them in the vacuum chamber

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  2. John@justneedsvarnish3 July 2021 at 11:02

    A good start there Dave! :-) I have also stuck my first bits of cardboard together for the challenge and quite enjoyed it! Have a story about smoke alarms! One of our Chihuahuas, Jago (who sadly passed away in 2015), used to hate the smoke alarms going off and would bark his head off when it happened. The biggest culprit for setting the alarms off was the toaster burning the toast. In the end, because of his keen sense of smell, Jago could tell when the toast had been done enough that it would set the smoke alarm off, and so he'd bark before the alarm went off so that you could take the toast out! He never got it wrong either! So in our house, the smoke alarm was the fallback measure!

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    1. Thank you John, good to hear you've already started, as many seem to have this year.
      Great story, and never burning the toast would be a great bonus ! LOL

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  3. Bloody hell, Dave, between you, John, Simon and Roger I'm feeling really lazy; you've all kicked off on your entries and I'm still sitting on the sofa LOL! I'm gonna go get a move on in a minute... honest.

    What an excellent use of an old item anyone else would just chuck in the bin. Really looking forward to seeing how you paint it up, and put it together with the entrance piece, which is also superb.

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    1. Thank you Matt, we all work at different speeds, so should never judge yourself against someone elses work, as long as your happy with what you achieve, that's the main thing !
      I have boxes of saved plastic shapes as you never know when a project comes up, and you think I've got a bit that would be perfect for that. Lot's of detailing to add to both pieces before painting, to get all the clutter around them that you see in the movie, but should hopefully be a good rendition when done

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    2. I've made a start on my main project out of sheer embarrassment LOL! It's currently sitting on the kitchen counter while the PVA dries.

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    3. Nothing to be embarrassed about mate, but getting bits that take a long drying time out of the way, is always a good start

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    4. would that be a Warhammer cottage by any chance? 😉

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    5. LOL! The cottage is part of what I'm going to do, but not yet. I have my main project to start first.

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    6. I applaud you for completely going for it Matt

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    1. Thank you Tamsin, long way to go yet ! LOL

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  5. That's definetly some 'out of the box' thinking and a great conversion/scratchbuild (?). The insulation foam looks the part too, I'd have never thoguht of using that stuff.

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    1. Thank you Joe, I think the first one would be a conversion, and the second would be a scratchbuild. The heavy duty foam is a great resource for modelling, and can be quite strong when sealed with the filler, if I was making it as a one off.

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  6. Lovely bit of green conversion work and the foam build looks good too!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thank you Iain, every little helps with the environment, plus I get some more scenery ! LOL

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  7. Great stuff mate, love the...whatever it is that you made with the smoke alarm (maybe its a baby Sarlac cover?) the entrance looks spot on too, so that's the reason for the challenge to generate sale eh! 😁

    It makes me laugh when you see all these people banging on about recycling, we gamers have been doing it for years!!

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thank you Roger, It's actually the roof of the maintenance bay that Luke works on the droids. Would be good to actually get some scenery done for the business, as I haven't done a massive amount over the last couple of years, plus it's scenery I want for my gaming ! LOL
      Probably got enough plastic stored up, I could start my own small landfill ! LOL "so I'm doing my part"

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  8. Very creative Dave! I think it will be a great addition to your Tatooine terrain.

    (And don’t worry, a tank is being painted as we speak so I’m only a little behind in for this challenge.)

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    1. Thank you Dai, eventually I'd like to be able to have a 6' x 4' board covered in buildings for Mos Eisley, but that's a long way off, just have to keep chipping away at it ! LOL
      No worries mate, as they say it's not how you start it's how you finish ! LOL To be honest if everyone only got one piece of scenery done in the two months, I would call it a success, but if they can get more done then that's a bonus

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  9. Absolutely speechless Dave! That is all kinds of brilliant 😀 I'm sure a crispy Owen and Beru are happening some time in the future lol

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    1. Thank you Ivor, glad you like them, you never know ! LOL The timeline I will be playing is during Rebels, and before Rogue One, but a couple of crispy skeletons could be useful incase of any disintegrations during my gaming ! LOL

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  10. This is very clever! Tatooine is so iconic and having terrain like this will really bring any games you play there to life. Will we see some moisture vaporators soon? Those are another fixture of Tatooine that would be worth the effort to make if you have the desire.

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    1. Thank you Jeff, indeed Tatooine is one of the worlds where everyone knows what it should look like, and is visited so often in films and series. Last year when I made Ben's house I bought a moisture vaporator off of Ebay, but with the number I'm going to need it might well be time to make some that I can reproduce

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  11. That turned out really well. Great bit of repurposing there. When I first started reading I though UFO! But was pleasantly surprised by the terrain piece you have used it for.

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    1. Thank you Simon, funnily enough I was only thinking last night that it wouldn't surprise me if someone used one for a UFO ! LOL

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  12. Pretty nice! I like how you envisioned something out of that piece! Thumbs up!

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    1. Thank you Suber, being able to see shapes within a piece can come in handy

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