I had gotten some positive
comments on the basing for the Gentleman Scavenger and so I thought I would put
together a small tutorial on the construction of the piece.
I began with the gate as that was the most interesting part
of the base for me. I’ll admit this is
definitely not the quickest way to do it, but I couldn’t find a prefabricated
wrought iron gate that I liked. I did
enjoy the process and it was a good learning experience for me.
Step 1: Supplies for the gate
I took some plastic tubing, watch gears and greenstuff for
the bulk of the gate.
The spikey bit was
some GW Chaos sprue that I snipped to have just the very top.
Step 2: Gate Construction
I elected to make the gate just a bit larger than the model
itself. I began with the outer structure
of the gate. The tubing came in a pack
of various sizes that were unlabeled, but measuring it came out to about 1mm in
diameter. At this size, the plastic is
still malleable enough to bend, yet will hold its shape. You could also gently heat the plastic to get
it to bend to your liking. As it cools,
it will hold its shape. The pieces were
then glued with cyanoacrylate glue (or superglue as it is called here in the
States).
The smaller bars (about 0.5mm in diameter) were then
carefully measured and cut to length.
I
tried space them equally moving toward the center of the structure.
This part was especially fiddly and took some
time and patience.
The smaller bars were
secured with superglue as well.
Once the bars were set in place, I took a couple of small
watch gears (I got mine from a fine company called Skullcrafts) and laid them
on top of each other to get a nice little pattern to set in the middle of the
gate as a more elaborate decorative piece.
Finally, I rolled out some greenstuff and cut two small
rectangles for the hinge and a thin piece rolled and curled for some additional
decoration along the bottom of the gate.
The broken lock was another small piece of plasticard.
Step 3: Column Construction
The center column was composed of a stack of cork cut in
2.5cm squares from standard cork sheets.
The bricks on the bottom were small prefabricated ones that I glued to
the bottom.
Once the core of the column was created, I added some thick
plasticard to the top for the capstone and next took some spackle and covered
the cork. This was layer on a bit thick
and smoothed initially just with my fingers.
Once it had dried, I sanded it gently and then carved in the irregular
brickwork and did some initial chipping of some of the corners.
Step 4: Wall Construction
The wall itself was again created from a center tile of cork.
I glued two pieces of prefabricated plastic
on either side.
Spackle and carving
would have been an option as well, but in the interest of time, I chose the
prefabricated plastic and cut it to size.
The next step was to add the stucco, which was derived from
gray texture paste, a product made by the Skullcrafts company. I thinly layered it on and then once it dried
picked and peel off bits to reveal the stonework underneath. The material is quite versatile and I also
used it for the asphalt on the base. I
finished up with the capstones that were made from the same plasticard as the
column and were cut to size. Finally, I
pinned the wall with 3 paperclips to securely fasten the wall to the column.
Step 5: Concrete and asphalt construction
The concrete was simply done with thin plasticard cut to
size and then carved with my metal putty tool to create the seams in the
sidewalk as well as the deeper cracking.
The asphalt, as mentioned above, was created from a layer of gray
texture paste. The curb itself was
modeled from standard Milliput. I chose
this medium instead of greenstuff so that I could sand and carve it more easily
to achieve the curved effect of the curb.
Step 6: Details, details, details...
For me this was the most difficult part. I am a bit of a perfectionist and have
difficulty in creating asymmetry and randomness; I like things to be equal and
symmetric. Nevertheless, I tried to
achieve this using several other materials at my station. The fine bits of broken brick/stucco at the
base of the wall as well as the small rocky chips around the concrete holes was
done with fine ballast. The wooden
planks were wooden stir sticks from Starbucks.
The grass was, of course, static grass.
Finally, I added the trash can and bottles to round out the base.
Step 7: Putting it all together
I added the Gentleman Scavenger last once the entire
basework was completed.
I hope you find this helpful!
