This competition ran in September/October 2006 and was run by Spanky. We also owe a word of thanks to Eazy-O for writing up this summary from the information posted on the forum.
What I envision are entries themed around crashed vehicles. By vehicles I mean anything that has a propulsion system and can ride, fly, hover, walk, float, ect. It can be as big as a starship or as small as a bicycle, piloted or unpiloted. Commercial models can be used, but should be modified extensively to fill the competition criteria and should have other 'environmental terrain' built with it. Age doesn't matter - it can be a recent crash or old hulk half sunken into the earth.
My entry represents an Imperial war machine called a Knight that has been destroyed by enemy fire and that has collapsed into a factory, destroying the factory too. In keeping with my other buildings I have tried to give the factory some art deco elements.
The factory was made from foamcore, some balsa planks and some wire. Basically the walls and floors are foamcore, the top floor's wooden floor is balsa and the rebar is wire.
The Knight was made entirely from cardboard taken from a cereal pockets. The design for the knight was a downloaded paper model I found on the Internet. Detailing for the knight was made from ear buds (weapons and hydraulics), plastic card (weapon details) and copper tubing (the assault cannon barrel housings).
The Knight and building have been wrecked fairly recently so there is no rust or excessive weather effects on the building. I was tempted to do streaks of rust and other weathering but I felt that if I had set the scene some time after the knight had been destroyed then it would not have had any weapons as these would have been stripped off by someone for use elsewhere. I really wanted to do the weapons so the Knight has fallen in the last few days.
As far as crashes, bashes and wrecks are concerned there is only one thing that I really wanted to crash: a heavy Warjack. I envisioned a critically damaged 'Jack tromping headlong across the battlefield with no objective, blindly slamming one foot down in front of the other until it smashed into a low, decorated hill. It ground and flailed and smashed into the hill until it had mangled itself beyond functioning and then sat there for years to be ravaged by time. That was my initial premise and that is what I set out to make.
Firstly the ruined 'Jack: Essentially this is a collection of bits. The real find was the starter from a model kit that was trashed which made the jacks steam tank. The pelvis and hand are an odd shaped piece of plastic I split and carved to shape. Other parts include a small wooden spool, bits of wire, wire connectors for smoke stacks and a plastic plug split in half for the shoulders. The gears came from the inside of a defunct water meter. All of these were fitted and then assembled on a card base with hot glue.
As far as construction goes the hillside is made from your standard fare, blue polystyrene as a basic structure on a hardboard base. This was covered with smaller rocks to make the rubble. The bases of the pillars are made from Hirst Arts blocks that I damaged with pliers. The top of the pillars were made from foam 'marshmallows' that I got from the craft store that I cut and damaged appropriately. After gluing all these in place, along with the 'Jack, I covered the bare areas with a sand/PVA/filler mixture followed by more accents of sand and rubble. Then it was a matter of painting: dry brushing and weathering before adding flock and vegetation and finally sealing the whole lot with varnish and matte finish.
The cars were made by pressing aluminum foil over toy cars, removing the foil, then crushing them in imaginative ways. The finished foil cars were filled with plaster of Paris to keep their shape.
After a coat of primer and a base coat of rusty brown, the cars were painted with the standard methods.
The stacked cars are held together with glue and spackle but they're still kind of fragile. I may drill a hole down through the top and pin them together.
The bases are masonite covered with a thin coat of spackle mixed with sand. Tyre tracks were made with a toy truck. After painting, vegetation was added using lichen and paint brush bristles from a cheap brush.
Most of the cars have empty wheel wells, but the Skyline had them ground out with a Dremel tool and toy car wheels glued in.
This is my entry that has evolved from something to a supply dump to an Imperial Field command post. There is room for 10 figures in the main command bunker, 20 figures and two tanks in the fortified area. The command post is in what was a heavily contested water distribution station.
The piece is based on 24"x24" masonite (hardboard) and constructed from 1" thick pink insulation foam, sculpy, platicard, PVC pipe, cardboard tube, craft sticks, sprue rubble, and of course two wrecked GW tanks. The ladder is HO gauge rail road track and 1/16" brass rod. The razor wire is two gauges of floral wire wrapped together.
Hopefully in the future I can expand on the detail of the command bunker, but for ease of play it has remained open.
Here is the Catapult on the Rocks.
It was created using an Easter Egg for the nose, foam-core body, skinned with thin plastic sheet. The same plastic sheet was used to create detailed body panels. Tank parts make up the exposed 'Mech guts in the right torso.
Painting started out black, then used brown and green to make an L & Square camo pattern, then lighter green dots. All heavy dry-brushed with lighter brown. Some metallic gunmetal used on the foil, 'Mech-parts and the launcher tubes. Painting of the base was sand, dark brown, two dry-brushes to the base and the lava rocks. Based on an offcut of base-board.
The purpose of the piece was to wreck a 'Mech. It is practice for building this as a future project. I think it looks good, and it will work with some other pieces I'm working on, like my 28mm MadCat. Plus, I can use my 'Mech Warrior encampment.