More clockwork planets

I have finished off the first hill, built the barricades, and made a start on the second hill. I have dropped the idea of a metal planet; I couldn't make it look right, and fell back on the 'red martian soil' concept. And it gives a contrast with the dark metal, which is also good.

Building the second hill is easier, since I now know that I don't need holes in the base board for the pegs; the lowest cog is tall enough to make a sturdy foundation for the platforms. I simply pushed all the components together, checked for alignment and height with a couple of figures, and
then epoxied the bottom of each cog to the board. The axles slip in easily enough, so I will paint the parts separately, clip the axles to length and assemble afterwards.

Next step will be to rifle the local charity shops for a set of plastic Meccano to make some buildings from...

Clockwork planets (2)

Yesterday's K'nex with some paint on... spray black, drybrush gunmetal and brass. That's a space marine for scale. I am hoping to get time to make another hill this week.

I have ideas for how to make barriers and barricades, too... half a dozen of these based on 3mm MDF.

Clockwork planets

Why do all my 40k games get played on a planet that either looks like a Surrey golfcourse or like Stalingrad?

Here's something different - a clockwork hill for a clockwork planet...

K'nex from Ebay, plastic grating from the hobby shop, all mounted on 6mm MDF. I need to go buy another can of spray black primer and I can get some colour on it as well. Dead easy. The lower cogs are about an inch off the board, the higher one is about 2 inches up. The yellow wheels are about 5 inches diameter...

More with that hill

I took this picture halfway through planting the flower beds, so you can see what's going on under the plants. Since the last picture, I have built little retaining walls from 5mm foamcore, filled the beds with some scrap polystyrene foam, and punched holes into it with an apple corer. Two coats of black acrylic, then a heavy drybrush of my ground colour to bring out the tiles.

The plants are from an aquarium plant ball, and they pop off on little cores that fit those holes. A bit of hot glue, and we're away. I think this looks quite decent, and it certainly fits with the 'Imperial Urban' theme I've got going on here. So. Happy :)

A hill, by any other name... part 2

Update - I spent a good hour sticking paving slabs down. I printed up a 1cm square grid onto thin card, and cut out loads of 2x2 and 2x1 pieces. Stuck down with white glue, they are what I'm using around all my building bases to bring them together in style. Next will be building the low walls and the flower beds...

A hill, by any other name...

I was trying to think of what I could make that would be like a hill, but more, well, urban. And this is what I came up with. When it's finished, it will have paving all over it, and flower beds in all four corners - like the second drawing on the second photo (apologies for the drawing, there's a good reason why I'm not a graphic artist)