This competition ran in December 2006-January 2007 and was run by Nagasaurus. It has been summarised here by Andy Slater.
For this contest the most important requirement is to use a sphere or dome as one of the primary shapes. The sphere/dome must have a diameter equal to or greater than a standard tennis table ball a.k.a. a ping-pong ball. The piece must at least fill a standard CD/DVD sized base but should be no larger than a base 12 inches in diameter (without hanging over the side of the 12 inch limit).
The silo represents a storage tank for dangerous chemicals or fuel and will become a part of a larger refinery or processing plant that I plan to build later. The tank is extremely rusted and weathered to fit the setting of my other scenery (LV-426, a barren abandoned world, infested with tyranids ... waiting to be consumed).
The silo itself is made of a clear plastic sphere and has a diameter of 140mm and the supports are made of a cut up plastic coathanger. The details above each support as well as the top of the tank are lids off a small container of kitchen spices. The pipe running along the side of the tank is an ordinary drinking straw.
Painting is fairly straighforward: a dark grey undercoat followed by several washes (black, brown, orange). Next some 'stipling' and drybrushing were used to achieve the extremly rusted surface.
The columns are strips of corrugated cardboard rolled up with the corrugated part on the outside. I painted them bone yellow, then gave a brown wash, and applied bone yellow, white/orange, and white drybrushes.
A polystyrene ball from a Christmas decoration, was used for the roof with tiles made from cereal packet card. The tiles were glued on and painted dark blue, then given a heavy flat blue wash, and finished with a heavy drybrushing of light blue. The ridges are made from scraps of foamcore and pinned on. They were textured and followed the same painting process as the columns.
The base of the bandstand is made from three circles of foamcore with the steps cut out and sanded. More foamcore was used for the little garden areas on the sides of the bandstand. I carved out the shapes and glued them to the triple base. Flock, made from cushion filling, was used for the plants.
For the floor inside the bandstand, I cut squares to make tiles and gave them a dark grey wash to emphasize the cracks, and several white washes to get the white tone that felt right. Then I crammed bits of weed between tiles to give an older feeling.
The bandstand is mounted on a sqaure base, with to make paths and garden areas delimited by flock. At the beggining of the entrance paths I made a sort of kerb using sand/stones I found in my local "euro store" (a chineese bazaar actually). The fence is made from flat toothpicks, given a brown wash, and a light brown, close to white, drybrush.
This build was a departure from my comfort zone. The lack of rigid geometric design in favour of a more free form build was vastly different and suprisingly difficult. (I need to work more on the 'art' side of terrain making.)
The main igloo was made out of 2 inch blue insulation. The base is made from foamcore and trimed in balsa. The deadly glow of doom is from a 5mm LED and is powered by two small batteries nestled in a box made of blue insulation. The snow is a few stepped layers of foamcore covered in spackle and a coat of baking soda for texture. The dog sled is made of balsa and the snow dude is a plastic sphere with clay top sections.
This folly, or monument, is built entirely from plaster bricks cast from about 9 different Hirst Arts molds. The design basically arose out of my wanting to use my newest mold (the dome and the two rows of bricks directly beneath it) over a horizontal circle made from arch pieces laid on their side. The remainder of the folly was imagined around this core structure in a way that would use many of the decorative pieces I hadn't used much before.
My objective was to create a standalone structure that could reasonably be standing in an uninhabited open area where a battle might break out. Moreover I wanted an open base that figures could pass under, so I could have a structure on the battlefield without making several square inches unavailable for miniature positioning.
Painting was straightforward: dark undercoat, two coats of mid-grey drybrushed over that, and light grey lightly drybrushed over that. For the dome the undercoat was dark brown, topped by teal and then teal mixed with white.
The figure is from Reaper Miniatures.
The image to the right is a composite of two images and although they appear to be the same size, the moon is actually about 3 inches in diameter while the planet is about 8 inches. The starship next to the planet is based on a USA penny.
Both 'planets' are domes rather than spheres for use in starship gaming, such as Full Thrust or Battlefleet Gothic. They have already seen a great deal of use on the table, and work well.
They were made from spherical plant-arrangement foam that you can get in most craft stores, coated all over with joint compound (spackle). When this was dried, the craters on the moon were made hitting it with different sized round objects and hammers.
My entry represents a gas refinery chamber. Feedstock is pumped into the chamber from one pipe, a reaction creates a gas, and this is harvested and pumped out another pipe.
The sphere itself is a polystyrene ball bought from a party supply store. Everything else is made from sheet styrene (plasticard), except for the pipes, which are drinking straws.
I've actually made two gas chambers that are connected by walkways but the size restrictions on the competition means that only one is entered. They clip together fairly easily and the walkways are self-supporting.