Terrain Tutorial: Earthworks for IG HW Teams + Painted Bunker

Good morning, folks! From the title you can see I have penned a follow-up to my mini-bunker idea from last time. If you want to depict an entrenched IG force from a lower tech world or one which has had to throw up defences more quickly, this is what you want. You will need the following.

* Hot glue gun and glue sticks
* Matchsticks
* Superglue
* Sharp knife
* Some old CDs
* Chunks of polystyrene
* PVA glue
* Sand
* Filler
* Cardboard
* Pencil
* Ruler
* Paint & brushes

1) Get a piece of light cardboard and copy the dimensions of the piece in Figure 1 (see below). Cut out the rhomboid marked with blue slashes. Retain the rest of the cardboard.
2) Glue this piece of cardboard to your CD with superglue (see Fig. 2). If you are making several sets of earthworks, you can cut a smaller pieces of cardboard to cover the hole in the other CDs.
3) Use either rhomboid or the silhouette left in the original piece of cardboard, and carefully cut out an indentation in a piece of polystyrene foam. Glue this onto the CD with the hot glue gun, making sure that you can fit your HW Team onto the base. See Fig.3.
4) Using your knife, carefully carve the sides of the foam so that they do not protrude over the edges of the base. See Fig. 4. Test fit your HW Teams. If the earthwork is too high at the front, use your knife to carve a dip in it. You want your guns to be able to fire out!
5) Cut a number of matchsticks to size, so that they appear to be stakes driven into the ground to support the internal walls of the earthwork. See Fig. 5.
6) If you are making a large number of earthworks, it is easiest to bring them all to this point before proceeding. For a load of earthworks, see Fig. 6.
7) Mix some filler, PVA glue and water together, and apply to the polystyrene foam. Try to avoid the matchsticks as much as possible. Leave to dry overnight. Once dry apply a diluted layer of PVA glue to fix the sand in place. See Figs. 7&8.
8) Paint the earthworks. I applied a basecoat of black, and then drybrushed the woodwork with progressively lighter shades of grey (Adeptus Battlegrey, then Codex Grey, then Space Wolves Grey), and then the earth with progressively lighter shades of brown (Burnt Umber artist's paint, then Khemri Brown, then Khemri Brown mixed with Dheneb Stone). Then I lightly drybrushed Dheneb Stone over the whole to unify all the colours. The bunker received the same shades of brown, while the structure was drybrushed with Charadon Granite, then Codex Grey, then Space Wolves Grey. The door at the rear was painted with a basecoat of Chainmail, then dirtied by adding "scratches" with other metallic colours, and tying it all together with a few washes. The buttons on the door control panel are just Mordian Blue. See Figs. 9&10.

Once I have finished painting all of this, I shall drag out my Heavy Weapon Teams, and get a shot of them all taking sensible cover against the enemies of the Imperium. I hope you find the above useful! Until next time, folks, goodbye!