Terrain Showcase: Star Wars Scrapyard, Part 4

The one of the most challenging aspects of the scrapyard project was this complete kitbash of an incinerator and conveyor belt.

 

Atomic Mass Games had sent along a bunch of Star Wars: Shatterpoint buildings, and in addition to the "default" buildings and walkways, I had a bunch of spare buildings and vehicle components that I cut up to scratch build some unique structures. One of those was the large building on the backdrop; the other was the incinerator.

I figured out the best way to break down the wall pieces, and that dictated the layout of the incinerator. I had two halves of the Tech Shed, and used those to build the corners of a half-octagonal wall. 

 

 

The structure was built with foam core board, and the wall pieces glued over top of that. At the front of the building, I used two interior ceiling panels from the A-A5 Speeder Truck and attached the truck's square engine ports. The setup looks like it could be the exhaust for the incinerator's heating system. The door panel from the tech shed fit nicely at the back of the frame, and that took care of most of the bottom half of the building. I only needed minimal sculpting and styrene strips to smooth and cover the joins between the different components.

 

 

The upper deck was made from a sheet of 1/4-inch foam core board, with a large PVC pipe cap for the smelting pit in the center. I had a 40mm base on hand to make sure there was enough room for a miniature to fit on the platform.

 

 

As I mentioned, the available components dictated the building's configuration, so the whole thing came together a bit organically. For the rear wall, I used the engine plate from the speeder truck, the large vent from one of the Shatterpoint buildings, and a bunch of moisture vaporator parts. Again, these items look like they could be part of the exhaust system and other machinery that powers the incinerator. The key to the Star Wars aesthetic is to incorporate mechanical bits that look like they serve some function, and that can connect to the different elements of the build.

 

 

With the bottom mostly taken care of (I was still working out the details on the left side of the building) I started on the upper deck. Drawing inspiration from the Cloud City carbon freezing chamber, I made a floor with oblong slats cut out. To make these, I used a compass to draw the large circles in the styrene, and radiated lines out from the center. I used a pin vise and a larger drill bit to drill holes at the end of where each slot would be, ensuring that they were evenly spaced. Then, I used a hobby knife to cut out the section between each hole. The result is those ubiquitous oval slits that seem to be everywhere in the Star Wars universe. 

 

 

The slots in the above image are still a little rough; I used a sanding stick to sand the inner edges smooth and clean up the transition from the straight sides into the round end. Here is the entire piece for the upper deck. (It was too large to fit on a single sheet of styrene, so I had to tile it together, hiding the seams at the ends of the cut-out slots.)

 

 

The whole thing was super glued onto the foam core, and the back end was trimmed to fit the shape of the level.

 

 

I put strips of thick styrene all the way around the perimeter of the deck, creating a slight lip that the walkways would be able to hook onto. I also finished off the boxy area at the back with more styrene card, and added a little more space for the control console to fit.

 

 

To make some floor panels, I cut a thinner sheet of styrene to fit, and etched panel lines into it.

 

 

Some notches were cut out to add a bit of irregularity, and I added small discs (made with a hole-punch) to the walkway around the edge of the smelting pit. Some of these were strategically placed to help cover the seams in the black styrene.

 

 

It was quite a chore to get to this point, but with a majority of the lower wall and the upper deck complete, I was able to relax a little and add some extra detail. More vaporator parts, pipes made from styrene rod bent with a heat gun, and extra panels and vents cut from textured styrene card.

 

 

The round portion of the control console overhung the edge, and I added some parts from the building generators and antennas to extend the techy bits. It was a happy accident that the depth of that corner on the side allowed the angled vents from the underside of the speeder truck to fit perfectly. I filled in the rest of the space with some other greeblies, and that was it!

 

 

One final step was to add scrap into the smelting pit. I poured some urethane resin into it to represent molten metal, and pulled some of the resin up the walls to add a bit of texture.

 

 

Voila! To paint the molten metal, after the rest of the piece was primed black and grey, I sprayed the pit with red oxide primer, then red, orange, and yellow sprays to create a glow on the walls. The surface of the metal was further embellished by painting darker red around the metal pieces, and brighter yellow, almost to white, in the open areas. Then, all the exposed metal was painted with a mix of red and dark metal, and given a slight drybrush of silver. I also painted some blackened flecks on the surface, and the result came out pretty striking. 

 

 

The rest of the structure was painted to match the aesthetic of the other buildings– Grey with lots of rusty weathering. 

 

 

And, of course, the whole thing was mounted on a foam core base, decorated with loads of scrap.

 

 

The conveyor belt was even trickier. I needed it to serve as a ramp that miniatures could ascend, and have it extend from the ground up to the level of the walkway and over to the smelting pit. The main components for this were a WWII tank kit. (I'm not sure which one it was; maybe some tank aficionados can identify the wheels?)

I simply chose a kit that had separate wheels for the treads (as opposed to being molded as part of the tank's chassis). I drew a template for the angle and height of the conveyor belt, and then spaced out the wheels on it.

 

 

The wheel attachments were part of the tread well, so I separated them by clipping away the extra plastic. All the wheels and attachment bits were laid out on a sheet of foam core, which was then cut out to make the side wall of the conveyor.

 

 

The side wall was covered with a layer of styrene on the outside, and the edges of the foam protected with a thin layer of construction adhesive. Then, I made another template and began construction of the support legs. For these, I used the legs from the Shatterpoint walkways, with the tops cut and angled. I used a bit of walkway and the edge rails to build the attachment point for the legs.

 

 

These were fixed in place, and the tank wheels attached. I had one of these for each side of the conveyor belt. I also made a generator with some spare building and vehicle parts, and some spare plastic pieces I've had in the studio for ages (those white pieces; I think they were parts from an O-Scale model railroad grain silo or something). The extension on the generator connects to the bottom wheel position on the conveyor.

 

 

I test fit the legs to make sure the spacing underneath would allow the belt to pass between them.

 

 

All the wheels were were fixed in place, and then the two sides were joined with strips of foam core.

 

 

To make the belt itself, I measured and cut some thick styrene card. Then, I scored grooves into it to indicate the individual segments of the belt.

 

 

The belt sections were glued in position all the way around the conveyor ramp, and the legs were attached. Everything lined up perfectly!

 

 

One important detail was adding evenly spaced ridges on the belt– These ensured that a miniature's base could catch on them and prevent it from sliding down the ramp.

 

 

I also built a control console out of some spare parts. In this image, you can also see the detail on the edge of the belt– Each segment had anotch cut out and a rectangle of styrene added. So painstaking!

 

 

The final step was to make a base for the whole thing. Because the height of the wheel didn't let the generator sit flush with the ground, I simply propped it up on a mound of foam.

 

 

I didn't want the basing to get out of hand, so I made a separate small strip under the front legs. The idea with the basing is that it represents scrap and debris swept up and cluttered around the edges of everything.

 

 

Here's the finished conveyor belt, in position to carry scrap (or some hapless Stormtrooper) up to the incinerator's smelting pit!

 

 

'Til next time!