WIP: Tatooine Building

[uti long smile]

Having caught the bug from Akula and Vyper (and inspired by Chris at Wanted for Wargaming and Remi Bostal's work), I've decided to have a go at some Tatooine buildings.

I thought I'd start with something simple, so I took a basic polystyrene box (an iPod carton I think) and added a polystyrene dome. The box was great as it had a raised disc that provided a natural edge for the dome.  I cannibalised some old Action Fleet sets for the frontage and detailing. I filled the smaller stairs with milliput as they jarred with the overall scale and added a plasticard and card door.

I toyed with Chris and Herb Gundt's sandstorm technique, which I think looks great, but with the exposed plastic I was worried I'd lose the detail - so plummed for plastering the whole thing.

It's mounted on hardboard and once I'd fillered any exposed polystyrene, and applied a couple of coats of sand to the base, I PVAed the lot to bond it.

It's currently drying, so thought I'd take a couple of photos to show how it's coming along.

The Action Fleet stuff does all the work IMHO. I think I'll have to try and pick up a couple more of these for parts as they are very handy.





More detailing to add from my bits box for chimney etc, but it seems to be shaping up OK.

BTW - The Speeder is a WotC Flash Speeder conversion - again ripped off for Chris's work!

[The Somnambulist]

Excellent! I love all the little details.

[Thunderchicken]

Lovely work indeed and catches the look of Tatooine rather well.

[anevilgiraffe]

nice one Karl... looks great with the placcy add ons...

[uti long smile]

Ta - hopefully once painted they'll all blend in.

Any recommendation on colour? Stuck between a warm yellowy sandstone and a cooler Dheneb Stone...

[AKULA]

Looks great Karl!

 

[Johnno]

That looks amazing 

[Red Orc]

It really does look excellent. I agree with Somnambulist and Anevilgiraffe, it's the details that make it so cool.

As for painting, I'd vote for the yellow sandstone, for what it's worth.

Not really aware of the Action Fleet stuff, what was it you cannibalised for the bits? My own Mos Eisley-inspired project is somewhat stalled precisely because of a shortage of suitable bits'n'bobs - I look at topics like this one and Vongoosewink's and think, 'ah, my piles of polystyrene could look like that... but they don't'.

[uti long smile]

The two sets I bought - and only recently - were the Action Fleet Mos Espa Pod Racer Hanger and Mos Espa Market that were released around the time of Episode One. I noticed that Chris Fitzpatrick had used these very cleverly in his builds.

The scale of them is a bit all over the place - but broadly 28mm and they both have some great accessories - moisture evaporator, awnings etc and various odds and sods for the bits box.

But the best thing about the Market set are the doorways and alcoves. I essentially took apart the Market set and went at it with clippers to get some free-standing walls, that I can then add as detailing on my other SW builds.

The Pod Racer Hanger doesn't have quite as many handy parts - but it has a great arch that I plan to use for a Hanger build - which will be the next project if this first building comes off OK.

Hoping to pick another of each of these on ebay - as they've proved invaluable so-far - unless anyone has some they want to get rid of?

For inspiration check out these two sites - both are outstanding:

http://wantedforwargaming.blogspot.com/

http://remibostal.canalblog.com/archives/decors_star_wars_miniatures/p10-0.html

[YIU]

Your Mos Eiley building is amazing. As I can see many of us are working on Star Wars projects.

For now I am converting and repainting the miniatures....more to come soon.

[Red Orc]

Uti - thanks for the info; I've been looking at some of the sets. They do look like they have cool bits.

And the French blog has some excellent stuff on it! As does Vongoosewink's of course - I'm already following his.

Looking forward to seeing this develop (and nicking ideas to jump-start my own project)!

[Frank]

What a brilliant project-start! The building looks perfect and the Action Fleet parts a good addition.

[uti long smile]

Cheers all!

The building has dried now so I'll be painting it next.

[Vongoosewink]

Great work!  Nice to see you got the landspeeder up and running!   

[uti long smile]

Chris - well it had been up on blocks for sooo long