TARDIS Objective

Another quick fill-in blog.  Pathetic, I know.  I’ve been using my time on a lot of fill-in projects that most of you wouldn’t find that interesting, like patching together some more Dark Eldar warriors from old and new parts, and building a small allied force for my Relictors.

Considering today, though, I thought I could take a moment to show off one of my favorite objective markers.  The TARDIS, in 40K scale.  I put it together years ago and I’m always making little tweaks and adjustments to it.  Orks and Space Marines have frequently fought to claim this prize.  It showed up on an Apocalypse battlefield once where the Guard were trying to hold off a Tyranid swarm.

As a disclaimer up front, building it was very easy, but it did cost a bit in plasticard.  Exact prices may vary depending on what you’ve got on hand and where

The main body is just a box 1”x 1”x 2” tall.  I used small sprue scraps inside to help it hold its shape.  Once it was solid, I set the whole thing on a slightly larger square (1 3/8”) for the base.  Then I built up the door panels and other details with 5/32” plastic strips I had.

Helpful Hint—If you buy plastic in sheets or strips, make sure to check how thick it is.   Know what you’re buying.  A difference of .015” to .01” may seem miniscule in the store, but once you start building with it it can become a huge headache.  It’s all a matter of scale...

The “roof” of the TARDIS is two stacked fantasy bases, a 20mm on top of a 25mm.  The light is one of the round extrusions that show up on the corners of sprues, although a small piece of tubing would work, too. 

When the whole thing was built I went over a few of the seams with putty to hide some odd joins.  Some blue paint, white for the windows, black for the signs, and... voila.  I really need to get an ultrafine white paint pen, though, to do some text on the signs along the top.

Alternately, there are tons of paper models of the TARDIS out there (and also here and here, for example), and it wouldn’t take too much work to adjust one down to 40K scale and use some of the various Paperhammer hints here to make it solid and even more detailed.

With some of the new rules for terrain and objectives and the narrative approach the game’s taken, I’ve always thought this little blue box could get some wonderful archeotech abilities...

Safely out of the way of rampaging beasts...

Helpful Hint

Just a quick reminder...

We are now in the Halloween retail season.  That means your local discount stores probably have tons of really cheap plastic skulls,  tiny coffins, weird glasses, and tons of rings and necklaces that are decked out in tiny bones of all types.

You can go drop three or four dollars and come home with a pile of items that could make decent objectives, super-heavy details, scenery details, or even whole scenery pieces.

So go check it out and see if there’s any gothic you could add to your grim future.

Skull Rock

Hey, a quick post for whoever’s interested in cheap scenery...

It’s Halloween again, which means your local discount stores probably have a ton of cheap skulls, bones, and other odds and ends that can be used to great effect.

For example, check this out.  My local 99 Cents Store had a couple dozen skulls like this.  A seven-inch skull for a buck!  There are a lot of uses for such a thing in Warhammer 40,000 or Fantasy.  Enough that I figured it was worth reminding people to keep their eyes open for such things.

However, I was inspired by a post I’d seen at the Bell of Lost Souls.  Brent showed how he made a really nice, inexpensive skull monument with the Halloween skull he found.  And he posted it on the internet, which is pretty much akin to smacking the whole world with a gauntlet (in a good natured way).  And I found myself thinking, “heck, I could make something faster and cheaper than that...”

So, I headed out this morning to put my money where my mouth is...

11:55 – I arrive home from errands with my new plastic skull.

12:10 – With groceries put away, I scraped off the big mold line running down the center.  I also figured out the three points where it makes contact when it sits.

12:20 - I superglued it to a CD base.  A plastic plate would work well, too, and the 99 Cents Store has tons of those, too, if you wanted to go a little bigger.  I also added a few wedges of foamcore and card that I had kicking about.  I trimmed a few of them to give it more of an uneven, rocky look.  I also piled them high, because I want this to look like one big chunk.

Honest Disclosure – Okay, the CD base is a bit of a cheat because I’ve got three or four of them sitting around waiting for different scenery projects.  If you’re building one on your own, it’ll probably take an extra hour for that glue to dry and cure.

Helpful Hint – I didn’t do it, but it probably wouldn’t be too hard to put a few small lumps of green stuff or chunks of foamcore on top of this thing as “balance points.”  They’d make it look a bit more rough and uneven at first glance, but actually create a level spot where you could stand figures.

12:35 – Union-mandated lunch break.  Well, not really.  But I did need to give everything some time to dry and I hadn’t eaten yet.

2:00 -  Once the glue was dry, I hit the whole thing with some textured spraypaint.  You can buy it at Home Depot or Osh.   It’s a little pricey, so you might not want to buy it just for this, but if you use it for the right things it’s worth it.  I’ve had two and a half cans of it kicking around for a while from an old film job.  

You can also get the same effect by buying a bottle of white glue, painting the whole thing, and then just dumping some coarse sand on it—it’ll just take a while longer.  You could even leave it as is, basecoat it black, and just drybrush it with a lot of different grays.  The goal is to make it rock-like.

4:30 – Done.  The textured paint takes a while to dry, but in the hot sun it did just fine.  In less than an afternoon I have Skull Rock for less than two bucks (less than three if you went for the larger plate-base).  A perfect scenery piece or an objective.  I almost hit it with a coat of gray spraypaint and some drybrushing to make it look more like granite, but I’ve decided to go with this basic, sandstone look.  It fits the desert tabletop my lovely lady and I tend to use at home.  I might do a little work around the edge of the base, but that’s it.

If you’re a Fantasy player, it might even work as an Arcane Fulcrum, yes? Although it may need a few magic symbols painted in blood or some such thing.  Not really sure how those work...

Later this week... well, I’m going to miss the rest of week, to be honest.  I’m one of the guests at ZomBCon up in Seattle.  Maybe I’ll see some of you there. 

Helpful Hint

Stepping away from the Defiler for a moment, I thought this was worth mentioning.

If you’ve got a 99 Cent Store or something similar near you, go check out their Halloween section. I just found a four pack of plastic shot glasses shaped like skulls. Yeah, plastic shot glasses aren’t that great, but the real way to look at this is it's a pack of four 1 3/4” skulls for a dollar.

Imperial scenery. Chaos scenery. Super-heavy vehicles. Doesn’t matter what color they are once you prime them and paint them like granite, marble, or steel. If you can’t think of something in Warhammer 40K you might want to build that would benefit from a skull bigger than a Space Marine... well...

For a buck or two, there are worse things for a scratch builder to have in his or her bitz box.

Awakened Monolith, Part II

Very sorry for the long delay. I had a book come out a week early and it messed up my schedules a bit. There it is over on the side. End shameless plug.

So, the bulk of the Monolith got finished last time. The rest of this is almost all detail work, but it’s kind of key and there is a lot of it. In this version of the model, some of it even ends up being structural.

First off, time to glue the structure so far to a base. The bottom of the Monolith is really wide, especially when you consider it’s a little bigger than it should be. I ended up using a 12” x 12” base. It’s a bit oversized, but odds are this will be one of the major pieces on any table, and it’s big enough for units to actually use as terrain.

Helpful Hint - You can buy cheap vinyl-particle tile squares at most home improvement stores like Home Depot or Osh. They’re only about a dollar each and they’re great for larger bases. My girlfriend got me the Imperial Sector set a few years back and I used these tiles for all the building bases, which gives me great city blocks with curbs. My only word of warning is that they’re a bit soft and will bend over time if you leave part of them hanging ou over an edge. You need room to store them flat.

The tile’s a bit porous, but I hit it with sandpaper to give it a bit more texture for the glue to grab. Then I measured to find the exact center. This let me place the Monolith and line up the corners how I wanted them. I used some superglue on the bottom section, the oversized bastion tabs, and also on the bottom tabs of the front and back doors. A few books on top kept it all in place while it dried.

This is Important - You still don’t want to glue the sides. Leave them as two flaps for now (hinged at the top) so you can reach inside when we’re doing detail work in a bit.

While this was drying Under the Dome, I decided to cut out the rings for the top. Usually I’d save this kind of detail for the end, but once the bastion tops are in place there isn’t going to be as much room to work. I also decided I wouldn’t be doing actual rings but large circles to give it more of a “capstone” look which fit with the idea of an awakened (not active) Monolith . It would also make it easier to position models up there during a game.

This is Important - It wasn’t until this stage that I discovered a major flaw with goyo2303's template (available over at Paperhammer 40K). Somehow, while creating his/her PDF, the images got distorted. If you look carefully at the rings on page 11, you’ll see they’re oval, not circular. It’s a difference of about 1/8” altogether. Because of this, alas, I’d now recommend against trying to build an actual Monolith with this template, as it currently exists. I think the oversized parts and distortions may cause too many issues. If you don't mind a challenge or a somewhat distorted final Monolith (again, Doomsday Monolith), go for it.

I went through the cupboards and found a spice jar with a 1 3/4” lid so I could trace new circles. The four circles were stacked, glued, and trimmed with a hobby knife where needed. Then I cut out four small rectangles (3/16” x 1/4”) to represent the brackets that would normally be holding the Necron power matrix/ big green jewel over the rings. I made the rectangles a bit long so a careful score of 1/16” will let you wrap them around the edges of the ring. These got set around the circle at the cardinal points (the lines on the cutting mat are great for this). Once this was dry, I glued the whole disc on top of the Monolith.

Next was those small bastion tops I just mentioned. Normally these would surround the power matrix. For this scenery piece, they’d be cover for anyone on top and a bit of detail. You’re going to need to add your own tabs to these as well, and space is tight on the template so pick carefully.

Helpful Hint - The top bastions have long oval sections to cut out. On the actual model, green plastic rods would go here. By lucky break, these ovals are almost exactly 1/8” wide. You can take a minute, line up your 1/8” hole punch, and get perfectly rounded ends. Then just use a hobby knife and a straight edge to cut out the section between the two holes. As always, it’ll go much easier if you do this fine detail work before cutting the whole piece out of your sheet of cardstock.

Fitting these together is a bit of a pain, and it’s going to take a lot of holding. Try to put them together just like the larger bastions. Glue and clamp one side. Once that’s done, glue the other edges and use your hands to keep them together and square.

Once these were dry, I glued them in place. Note that they don’t sit in the back corner. Each of these should sit near the center of their respective bastion. Another book went on top to hold these down and make sure they dried solid. Keep in mind, you want to use something lighter than a 1500 page Stephen King opus this time around.

Now for the most time-consuming part of the process--the armor plates. On the plus side, goyo2303 included every piece on the templates, so you won’t need to run off a single extra sheet. It may look a bit intimidating at first, but this is actually set out very nice and easy. There are three layers of armor. All the pieces for the first level are marked 1. Once they’re all glued down, move on to the pieces marked 2 (the second layer), and finally the ones marked 3. Take your time and make clean cuts. If your hobby knife’s getting a bit dull, this might be a good time to change the blade so you’re not tearing the edges. When you’re done, you’ll have a very detailed, layered look to your Monolith.

If you peeled off all the templates at this point (like I did), just open the document on your computer and use it as a guide. There are four identical panels, and then the adjoining panel mirrors the others. This means half your plates are going to be flipped over to show the other side of the card if you’re using cereal boxes. You’ll only need to follow the template once and then you should be able to do everything else off that. I’d also suggest assembling the armor on corners, not sides. It’ll be more obvious if things don’t match up at edges, not so much across one of the sides.

Helpful Hint - When you’re doing all the large plates from pages 8 through 10 (and a bit of 7), remember that this scenery piece doesn’t use the bottom section of the Monolith. A lot of these pieces will need to be cut in half at what would normally be crease lines. This is most of the second and third layer. Make sure you throw away the right half (all of the plates are printed right-side-up, for the record).

There’s some details for the back, too. One is the back plate section on page 11, which is pretty straightforward. Alas, the rings for the back are skewed oval, just like the ones for the top. I ended up using a half-dollar coin (1 1/4”) and a quarter (1”) to trace two circles. Again, I’m going for the implication more than actual detail.

The Monolith portal cover normally has some Necron symbols all over it with an elongated skull in the center. There are templates in the set for all the symbols if you want to use them, but I like the idea of the Monolith becoming more detailed as it awakens, as if some of these symbols are rising up to the surface of the living metal. I wanted to imply the skull was only half-formed. I used a disk from a 1/4” hole punch and cut two small triangles out of it. Then I trimmed a tiny bit off one of the pointy edges to give it a slightly more rounded look. I didn’t do it, but if someone felt really daring, you could use a 1/16” punch to put two eyes in it.

Now, an active Monolith has three arches/ buttresses/ arms stretching up to flank the power matrix on each side. These arms are in goyo2303’s templates, but they’re probably the most complex part of the whole model. I decided not to build them because the Monolith is supposed to be more scenery than active. Plus, to be honest, if I couldn’t do them how they were in the game, half folded over, I know I’d get frustrated.

But what to put on the sides? I wanted to imply the arms if nothing else, even if this was supposed to be a barely-awakened Necron structure. So I came up with this...

Cut twelve strips of card, measuring 6 1/2” long by 1/4” wide. Make these as sharp and clean as possible. Measure the height of your sides to your base. Mine came out at about 3 3/4” inches from the top along the side to the base. Take the long strips and score them at 3 3/4” (or whatever yours measured out at). Run these strips down the side and out onto the base as shown in the picture. Once the first six are in place, double them up so each “arm” is two strips thick. There are a few more detail pieces on the template you could add on here if you wanted.

At this point, the model itself was pretty much done. I decided to do some quick patches on a few of the edges where armor plates didn’t line up perfectly. They just helped hide gaps and keep the clean lines of the Monolith.

Helpful Hint-- If you need to do a patch on a paperhammer project, just use white paper. Cut it to size, make any creases you need, and glue it in place with a generous helping of white glue. It’s not structural, but it’s more than sturdy enough for painting and general use.

For a while I considered placing four obelisks around the Monolith, just like in Dawn of War. They’d look cool and they’d be easy to make. In the end, though, I decided they’d be too fragile and easy to break off the base, especially out at the edge where they’d be placed. Instead, I decided to cut down the base a bit. I didn’t want to reshape it drastically, but the solid square base seemed a bit off for what was still an ancient ruin, and an alien one at that.

This is Important - The tile base is resilient and a hobby knife isn’t going to cut it. You need to use an actual tile knife or a matte knife at the very least. On the off chance you’re under twelve and you’re trying this project, ask someone for help with this part. Dad, Mom, or your older brother or sister. This is very tough material and its easy for the knife to slip and hurt you (said as someone whose right thumb has a lot of scar tissue in it). Make three or four shallow passes rather than trying to go through the whole thing at once. If you get halfway through, you can probably even get it to snap off with a clean edge.

I painted superglue across the base with a wide toothpick and covered the whole thing with coarse sand. Not special modeling sand, just some sand I found outside that had a nice grit. There were a few small stones in it, too, which just add to the texture. I made sure to get some of the glue up into the corners, as well, as if the sand had drifted there over the eons. If you have a few spare Necron parts (heads, torsos, arms, scarabs), this would be a good place to add them, half-buried in the sand. Depending on what kind of scenery you and your friends have, you might opt for some trees or grass here, instead (although I’d make it withered, brown grass if it was me).

One other option here (which I did not do) would be to hit the whole model with textured paint. You can buy it spray cans for six or seven dollars. It would give the entire thing a very rough, raw look, as if it had been sitting here for so long it was eroding. If you decided to do this, you could probably skip the whole armored plates step and paint it in slightly more natural colors. The result would give you something even more ominous as it would suggest a Monolith rather than clearly showing one.

I primed the model black, using several light coats over one or two heavy ones. Any places that needed it got touched up with Chaos Black. I also used a bit of Dark Angels Green, so you can just catch a hint of color here and there. It’s as if the systems are just starting to power up.

And there you have it. Suitable for any tombworld... or a centerpiece for the unfortunate Imperial colony that chose their site poorly.

Ork Fuel Depot

Okay, even in the grim cheapness of the future, this week’s project is ridiculously dirt cheap. I’m almost embarassed by it.

I save plastic jars to use for bitz. Six or seven years back--when White Dwarf actually printed mostly fun, useful articles and not just press releases for new products--one of the GW guys mentioned storing his super-small bitz in spice jars, which meant they not only took up a lot less room, but his Guardsmen had a wonderful cinnamon smell. With all the piles of sprues I had, it struck me I could do the same thing with whole armies. Wham--90% of my Space Marine bitz end up in a cleaned out peanut butter jar, vehicle bitz in another. Same thing with the Guard. And Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons... Suddenly my shelves were a whole lot cleaner. Plus it lets me eyeball stuff a lot faster, too.

What does this have to due with a dirt cheap fuel depot?

Well, I had a peanut butter jar in the sink a few weeks back that I'd forgotten about. The lovely lady and I were making dinner and I strained a bunch of noodles. Boiling water filled up the jar in the sink and washed all over it. I watched it melt and deform. The bottom shrunk, the sides bubbled...it was useless.

I went to toss this mutant jar in the trash bin and absently screwed the lid back on. Wait, what? Much to my surprise, the lid still fit fine, even though the bottom was way too deformed for it to stand up. I mused on this for a bit, flipped it over, and stood it on its lid.

Wham again! It was a beat-up fuel tank. And who would keep such an old thing? Why, the Orks of course. Suddenly I had a scenery piece/ objective.

Helpful Hint--I've mentioned this once or thrice before. One of the best ways to make cheap, oversized bases is just to superglue three old CDs together. Old AOL discs or game demos, drivers for hardware you dumped years ago, backup discs that didn't burn right for some reason, whatever. Three discs glued together is almost the precise thickness as your standard 40K model base. Make sure you hit your “project side” with sandpaper, too, so the glue will have a coarse surface to grab.

Once the base dried, I just superglued the jar lid onto it. It’s worth noting that the lid is bit off-center, so there’ll be room on the base for a few models to be placed on it.

Once the lid was solid I put some superglue on the threads and screwed the “tank” onto it. It was tempting to leave this part unglued so I could hide objective markers, models, etc., inside the tank. Thing is, I know all that would really do is lead to chipped paint and messed-up scenery. So it’s going to be a solid piece.

A fuel tank is no good with no way to get the fuel out, so I decided to make a little pumping station where trukks, battlewagons, and maybe killa kans could get topped off (poor little grots--the crew compartment and fuel tank are one and the same). The pump is just a little card box with some details on it. It’s 1 1/4” x 1” x 3/4”. The buttons are made with the 1/8” hole punch. The sign is a Warhammer Fantasy orc shield with a skeleton crest. A few rivets from the 1/16” punch accented the details.

Helpful Hint--Here’s the best method I’ve found to attach these little card rivets. Put a dot of white glue down where you want them. If you end up with a blob that’s too big (larger than the pip on a die, say) use a hobby knife to scrape a bit away. Now, use the tip of the knife to spear a rivet and press it down on the glue. The excess will swell up, yes, but ignore it for a minute. Make sure the rivet’s solid on the surface you’re gluing it to. Put on all your rivets (I usually do ten or twelve at a time), then go back over them and just give each one a quick, gentle press with your fingertip. The momentary pressure will help the glue cover the edges of the rivet (more durability) and the excess will come away on your fingertip. Wipe it on the back of your other hand and repeat until this batch is done.

I glued the pump off to the side next to the tank, still leaving a lot of open space for other models. Then I painted some superglue onto the base with a wide toothpick and covered the whole thing with coarse sand. Not modeling sand or anything clever like that. Just some gritty sand I found outside. There were a few small stones in it, too, which just add to the texture.

The pump’s hose is a short length of wire from a broken set of iPod headphones. The “patch” on the hose is made from dental floss. Just wrap it and tie it tight. The nozzle is a bit of plastic sprue with one of the circular bits drilled out.

Now, here’s a last clever bit. I took four disks from a 1/4” hole punch and used the 1/16” punch to knock a hole in the center of them. The four of them stacked on top of each other and the iPod wire fit right through the middle. This little anchor glued to the pump. Then I glued the nozzle in place with a big blob of superglue to create a puddle. If the Orks are going to have a fuel depot, you know it’s going to be a fire hazard.

And that was pretty much it. It was ready to prime.

The tank and pump both got a lot of Tin Bitz and Boltgun Metal. I freehanded a big Deathskulls logo one side with pencil and filled it in with Enchanted Blue. On the other side, where the jar was still a bit rough where the label had been, I painted it to look like a big patch of rust. The puddle got a few coats of Chestnut Ink.

Total cost (not counting paint, glue, or peanut butter)... zero.

Also, I’ve tossed up a link in the sidebar there for the featured anthology of the month. They’re not Black Library compilations, just other collections of fun stories from other sources. And, yes, I shamelessly admit I’ve got stories in some of them. This month’s is Cthulhu Unbound 2, which is a bunch of genre-twisting stories involving the Lovecraft mythos. If you’ve got a couple bucks to spare, check it out and maybe get some inspiration for the grim darkness of the future.