Terrain Showcase: The Danger Room, Part 5

The Danger Room and ruined city was an extensive project. This week, we'll take a look at the smashed Sentinels and the finished vehicle wrecks.

 

 

More Wrecked Cars

 
I made a bunch of cars to populate the city (You can see how I smashed up the frames and added the interiors in part 4 of this series). I glued the card together with some bits of rubble from one of the Marvel: Crisis Protocol kits. The SUV has a hood that's already smashed, with the option to have either an I-beam or a Sentinel arm crushing it. I went with the latter to tie into the board's theme.

 

 

For the next two cars, I had whole Sentinels collapsed on top of them.

 

 

Making Wrecked Sentinels

 
The Sentinel kit was great to work with for scenery. The miniature includes a couple different arm poses, and an alternate damaged chest plate and head. It also comes in enough pieces that cutting things apart and reposing them is a breeze. Only the leg attachments are locked in a fixed position, and that was easily addressed with some cuts and using styrene tubes and rods to create broken pistons and joints.

 

 

To build the Sentinel resting in the trash, I used a heat gun to soften the plastic of the dumpster and press the torso into it, creating a realistic dent that the machine could rest in. This style of dumpster looks like it has a black plastic lid, so I bent those to also fit around the Sentinel's body. I removed the lower half of each leg, and cut apart the panels on its right thigh.

 

 

I attached the dumpster to a base of thin styrene and added some trash cans and trash made from the bottles and cups on the base sprue, and other off cuts of plastic. I positioned the Sentinel's arm over an oil drum, and used styrene rod and tubes of different sized to build the leg pistons and broken knee linkages.

 

 

Making Smashed-up Shops

 

The small shops have also been destroyed in the fighting– I cut apart the roofs and bent the panels to appear caved-in. The sloping roof helps hide the hollow interior, but where the gaps were too large, I filled the inside with insulation foam coated with sand, and added a bunch of broken I-beams and other styrene scrap. The Sentinel was posed lying in one building with its left arm in the other. Because the bottoms of its feet were visible, I made a sole for his boot with ridged styrene.

 

 

I extended the building's footprint with styrene, and added sand and rubble below the Sentinel's legs.

 

 

The buildings were painted separately from the Sentinels:

 

 

Painting the Sentinels

To paint the Sentinels, I primed them black, then sprayed with grey and drybrushed them silver. The purple and blue panels were painted with several coats of GW Contrast paints:

For the purple, I applied a layer of Volpus Pink Contrast, then two coats of Magos Purple Contrast, allowing each layer to thoroughly dry in between. The purple was shaded with a mix of Magos Purple and Formula P3 Piggy Purple Ink.

The blue was washed with two coats of Aethermatic Blue Contrast, and then shaded with a mix of Aethermatic Blue and Formula P3 Blue Ink.

I highlighted the edges of the panels and damaged areas with silver, and then applied Formula P3 Armor Wash over the blue panels and the exposed metal.

The final step was to paint the faces with a mix of Army Painter Leather Brown and Skeleton Bone, and then sponge some rust chips with a mix of Vallejo Grunge Brown, silver, and a tiny bit of black.

The Sentinel carcasses were then glued into their new homes: 

 

 

 

Finishing the Wrecked Vehicles

Likewise, the cars were painted separately from the Sentinels. I painted the top shell of each car separate from its interior and base; essentially each wreck had the base and bottom of the car with its wheels and interior seats, and then the shell of the car fit over top once painted. That allowed me to spray the card with different colors and then paint in all the detail like the trim and lights. Meanwhile, I could spray the interiors with beige or grey for the upholstery, and drybrush and wash everything. The dented areas of the car were painted with a sponge to apply the metal chips. I kept the rust color to a minimum, since it represented new damage.

 

 

It's difficult to see, but the Sentinel's head is in the passenger seat!

 

 

Another vehicle I built for the set was the garbage truck– It's built mostly stock...

 

 

...but I cut up the windshield and smashed up the bumper and grill.

 

 

On the left side, I cut open the door and chopped up the side mirror. Gouges were carved into the container with a hobby knife.

 

 

The truck was designed to fit into the smashed concrete barrier in the street.

 

 

I kept the rear container and the cab separate for painting– The container was sprayed with shades of green, and then I highlighted the edges and added a ton of weathering and rust. The cab was also sprayed, and the rust and chipping was added with a sponge. I wanted this truck to appear old and dirty, unlike the wrecked cars which didn't have any rust because their damage was more recent.

 

 

Coming up, I'll talk about the larger buildings and Sentinel wrecks.

 

 

'Til next time!