In my earlier post ( Steampunk diorama ), I promised to introduce these steampunk terrain items to you, so here we go.
These Steampunk -themed interior terrain pieces were made a contest (Arcane Legions -contest by Wells expeditions, to honor H.G Wells
on his birthday) in mind, but I would never have made them if I hadn't
had a steampunk game on my mind. I haven't yet used these terrains in a
game, but that day will come... anyway, in this article I tell how
these pieces were made. If you haven't yet my article about scratchbuilding or basic modelling tutorial, I strongly suggest reading them.
Base material for these models is cardboard. All the walls and
floors have been created from 1mm (1/25") cardboard. I happened to have
some old cardboard bases I had made for Star Wars/Dungeons & Dragons
miniature game purposes with grid drawn to them that I could use in
these models - I've drawn the grid by drawning with a ruler and a black
ball-point pen (an expendable one) while pressing the pen very hard very
hard. The plates where than spray-painted with two or more different
colors to achieve right color.
Putting the wall and the floor together
After glueing the pieces togehter, I went the easy way; I glued a
paper from floor piece to the wall piece to keep the pieces togehter. I
created the pieces to be one-sided, but if you want them two -sided you
should glue another wall piece to the other side.
About plank floor and paints
You can also see plank floor in the diorama picture. It was
salvaged ages ago from somewhere in the net, can't find it anymore -
just make a google image search for plank floor or plank floor pattern and you should find something you can use.
About paints - all of the model features were primed with black
spray paint. they were than painted with a combination of various
paints. Not even just various colours, various types of paints - for
example, I don't have gold miniature paint, so I used acrylic color
instead. I've used this technique for quite a while and haven't seen any
complications. Mixing brown with a bit of red and gold, and adding
other colors when needed should get you far. Of course you can use
bronze or similar color if you have such already.
Note about spraying - you should be aware that most spray paints melt down styrofoam!
The models themselves
These boilers have plastic hull; The round one is made from a
ping-pong ball and the second one from an empty ink-jet printer ink
shell. Pipes are made of straws, and few other small salvaged plastic
pieces are used for the rest of the parts. The meter is just drawn with
red crayon and black inkpen, base of it is two pieces of 1mm cardboard
glued togehter. I drilled a small hole to the hull of the tank and cut
part of the meter's cardboard off from the middle so I could put a bit
of wire inside the meter and plug it in the tank.
The clear pipe here is a part of a drawer handle from Ikea. The
wheel I'll explain a bit lower; Steampipes are actually salvaged from my
Star Wars terrain as I was in hurry - cardboard base, straws, salvaged
pieces of plastic and press-stud buttons. See my fire modelling tutorial to see how the smoke was done.
Some cardboard structures and cocktail sticks here. Meters are
drawn to paper with inkpen and then cut off. The 'thing' on the right is
from a broken lightbulb, rods in the console are pieces of thin wire
with a drop of thick paint at the end of them. The thing on the piece's
left end is made from a ball-point pen's lower part, a wooden sphere
(from hobby shop, meant for creating wooden neclaces, bracelets etc) and
a cocktail stick.
The hatch is made out of a 5-cent coin and half of a press-stud
button. Simple, isn't it? Not the most impressive piece ever but works
ok. Pipes are straws, hole in the left wall is just two more layers of
cardboard (one has only borders, the other one is cut to the wanted
shape.
Modelling gears and wheels for Steampunk models
Now, to the gears. I've first printed a sheet of paper full of
various gears I've found online - just use google image search and
'gears'. I've scaled and combined what I've found using Gimp so I'll
need only one paper. I've printed the paper and cut the gears out - you
don't have to be accurate, you just want to separate the gears, not
create correct shapes out of the pieces of paper; Paper is just a tool.
When you have the pieces ready, glue them to various piecs of cardboard,
foamcore or other materials you can easily cut. Use a glue that doesn't
damage the pieces - for example, photo glue that is supposed to come of
quite easily is good for this. Once you have glued a picture of a gear
on the wanted material, you can use precise cutting tools to cut the
gears out (you read the tutorial, right?)
I've used various techniques to fill the edges of a foamcore,
depending on case; A strip of thick paper/thin cardboard can be glued on
it, a filler paste can be applied to it or then you can just use thick
paint to seal it.
This should be quite obvious after reading the earlier
descriptions. Everything new are wooden pieces from a hobby store (small
sphere and the funnel -like piece)
And finally the great window - the window is made of foamcore, and pieces of a plastic pipe are glued on it.
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