Friday 1 March 2013

Terrain Tutorial: Multi-level Sci-Fi Walkway

Really funky, this, and really simple. You will need some unusual ingredients for this tutorial, mind.

Desiderata:

* Plasticard sheet (0.5mm is what I'm using)
* Plasticard tube: you want two diameters, one of which will slip inside the other. I used 5.5mm (7/32") and 7.1mm  (9/32")
* Sharp knife
* Polystyrene cement
* Superglue gel
* Embossed plasticard sheet (I used 1:50 treadplate)
* Aluminium car body repair mesh (this stuff is great. Buy loads of it. It'll be in future tutorials)
* Ruler
* Pencil

1) Cut yourself some sheets of 0.5mm-thick plasticard. You'll want at least two. They should measure 6" by 1.5". Leave a border of 1/4" (c.6mm) around the edges. Sub-divide the 6" strip into four 1.5" segments. Cut four holes of 1" by 1 1/8" in the two plasticard sheets. Cut a 1" by 5 3/4" strip of the aluminium mesh. See Figs. 1 & 2.

2) Use the oblongs you cut out of the 0.5mm-thick plasticard sheet to create a 1/8" border. Glue the aluminium mesh in place with the superglue gel, and glue the other layer of plasticard over this. Decorate it with a few bits and bobs, if you like. See Fig. 3.

3) Cut four more 0.5mm-thick and 6"-long bits of plasticard. Glue them together. Cut a 1"wide by 4" long strip of the embossed treadplate plasticard. Cut it into 4 squares with a side of 1". Cut twelve pieces of the thicker plasticard tube. Glue them as shown in Fig. 4: one at each corner, and two halfway along the 6" strips of plasticard sheet.

4) Get the thinner plasticard tube, and cut some 2" pieces. Make them taller or shorter if you like, but make them consistent. When you are absolutely sure that the wider-pieces don't have any wet polystyrene cement in them, you can insert the narrower tubes. Congratulations, you just made a multi-level walkway. See Figs. 5 & 6.

These multi-level walkways offer some nice 3-D options for your gaming(see Fig. 7). Would you like your Terminator squad to be able to blast Genestealers through the floor? You got it, Brother Sergeant. Want your Genestealers to be able to outflank those pesky Termies in three whole dimensions? From above and below as well as the left and the right? You got it, Broodlord. Just to reassure you folks, this aluminium mesh is reasonably strong stuff. So do not worry about placing a wee 28mm-tall pewter model on it. After all, it's designed to repair the bodies of cars! Until next time, folks, good luck iin your gaming!







5 comments:

  1. I love your terrain tutorials Peter.
    I noticed your pics are out of order - I know you mentioned it in a previous post. Just thought I would mention how I resolve it.

    When you do the upload, you don't need to highlight all images to add them. You can add one at a time, and all the uploads remain in that cache. So if you click the image button again, you can keep re-positioning your cursor and adding a single image in that exact spot.

    Also, I started a terrain blog - http://terrainfromjunk.blogspot.com - any chance you would like to be an author and duplicate your tutorials there?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cheers! I shall give that a go next time. Thank you for the offer. I'll take you up on that gladly. Not everything I make is recycled, so might not be suitable, but I think most of it is. I did take a look at Terrain from Junk the other day, and I did try to drop you an email with some pictures of spray paint lids (which I'd turned into storage silos) for this entry ( http://terrainfromjunk.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/spray-paint-lids.html ). I don't know if it got through or if I sent it to the right address, though.

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    2. Ah, very likely I just haven't checked it yet. I need to just get a gmail address that I can link to mine.

      All your tutorials I've seen are perfect.

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  2. You have been invited and I found your email in the spam folder (LOL, while emails with asian characters are sitting in the inbox)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Always the way, eh? I keep meaning to learn enough Cantonese that I don't seem quite so rude to some friends - I could use that to get into inboxes. :D

      Delete

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