This competition ran in May-June 2007 and was run by sammo. We also owe a word of thanks to Eazy-O for compiling this summary from the information posted on the forum.
The theme for is competition is something that is hastily fortified. As for the fortification portion of the competition the finished entry should provide some kind of protection for troops that use it for shelter on the battlefield. As for the hasty portion of the entry, the piece must be some kind of as semi-permanent or ramshackle structure. Entries can be either something that was rapidly altered by troops to serve as protection or something that was brought by the troops to emplace on the battlefield. As for an existing thing that was altered by combatants to provide protection: Ruined or bombed out buildings that have been made into makeshift bunkers or ramparts would be fine. Likewise piles of earth or rubble could be reinforced with pikes or be formed into a machine gun nest.
The bridge obviously is not a stand alone piece, but rather is part of a modular canal-system that I am building. The base and the walls of the canal were made of MDF (3mm and 18mm). The bridge itself was also made of 3mm MDF. The texture on it was made of a clear plastic tray of smoked bacon. The sides of the bridge are parts of a technologix sprue I had lying around. And the slopes are just corrugated cardboard (the fine kind). Then I added some details like barrels and crates floating in the water. I made these from a mold I made earlier. I chose to make the barricade on the bridge removable so that I can use the bridge in any kind of scenario. The barricade itself was made of various bits: The tires, barrels and crate are casts of a mold I made earlier. I also added some bits of a Warhammer 40K sprue and a car door that was salvaged from a toy-car. The paintjob was rather simple; I just applied a gray undercoat and then added several drybrush layers of brown, orange and white to achieve the weathered effect. I also applied glossy varnish to the water to achieve the water-effect. I had a great time making this piece and look forward to making the rest of the canal-system.
The object is to have an urban barricade made of what could be found in an alley or street. Obviously cars make good hard cover so I got a couple of toys and tormented them. The plastic wheels on the gold die-cast car were too toy-like so I removed them and replaced them with cast wheels. The wheels were cast from latex molds using hot glue. Bullet holes were added to the windows by drilling small holes and scratching with the back side of an X-Acto knife blade. The side windows were simply busted with a pair of wire cutters. Clear plastic like this is often brittle and it worked to my advantage in this case. The red car was the body of a cheap slot car I got on clearance. The window plastic was opaque black so it was removed and replaced with blister package plastic. This plastic was cut with scissors and then tormented with an X-Acto knife. Shattered glass is clear glitter. The red car had no interior so I made one from cereal box cardboard. Seats were made from black Sculpey. The wheels were cast from smaller molds to make the car lower to the ground. Dumpsters are made from illustration board. The front and back were made from strips of board glued onto heavy paper to create those corrugations dumpsters have for strength. The paper was also used to make the side sockets. Glass beads became the wheels. The spool was made by gluing skinny craft sticks together and then sawing circles. The bolts of the spool are tiny glass beads. The forklift pallets are plastic and came in a kit. The trash bags were made by crumpling paper and other trash and wrapping a 3" square of plastic shopping bag material around them.
The wagons have been scratchbuilt using thin strips of wood from fruit & vegetable crates. I added bits modeled from greenstuff or taken from old kits. The wheels come from a 1:72 Imex kit. I chose not to base the wagons, because I intend to use them as separate vehicles for gaming and I want to be able to do all kinds of things, like overturn them. All the wagons were sprayed with white primer, then the various metal/plastic/greenstuff parts were painted normally, and finally the wood surfaces were treated with a mix of rubbing alcohol, India ink and brown ink, directly on the white basecoat. Doc Johnson's cart was painted with a similar technique, but using a much less concentrated mix so as to make it seem freshly painted. I'm really happy with the results of the alcohol+inks technique and I'll use it for all my Wild West terrain. The central piece is based on a small piece of MDF textured with spackle/filler and sand. I added all kinds of greenstuff bits (the gun belt, the cooking pots, the coffee pot, the whisky bottle, the cowboy hat) and used twigs for firewood. The sleeping cowboy is a resin figure that has been sleeping in my bits box for many years. It's 28mm so that gives an idea of the scale.
I cut out the bases from hardboard using a jigsaw and then glued some layers of cork on top to try and make the twigs stick up more. I then cut out some twigs, sharpening as I went. Originally, I wanted to have just one piece on each, but it's hard to find a decent twig that looks like a tree. The next stage is to mastic the base to make it look more natural. Then, I pressed the twigs (mature trees) into the mastic. I had to glue some down where the mastic didn't take too well, but essentially it works.
For the lines I started with a larger piece of hardboard. The idea was to create a modular defence that can be joined together. I then cut out a piece of packing foam. The rear is sloped and the front has a hard edge with holes for posts. The next stage was to fill in the front with mastic. First I put the vertical logs in the post holes, then laid out the horizontals one on top of the other. I used mastic as the glue as it looks the same colour and seems to hold quite well. Finally I glued a second set of verticals to the front.
For the redoubt I used the same techniques as for the lines, except I split some twigs in half to look like split logs. I glued the sharp sand down with a mixture of diluted white glue and then I washed over with a more diluted coat. I've drybrushed three paler shades and stuck down static grass. Also, the references say that the abattis was camouflaged, so I've stuck down some bushes to give the impression of it being covered up.
The 2 hills are just foam wedges, built up to shape, carved back down with a knife, and then slathered with caulk to make them smooth-ish. There was a hole in one piece, but I liked it, so now it's a small hidey hole. The drainage rocks are just hot glued on. I had to paint the underpass before I could assemble the overpass which was a logistical nightmare. The overpass is a thin sheet of foam bent down and held in place (frankly I over-engineered this part) and hot glued down in 5 points. The support beams underneath actually serve to hold it down, not up. The side rails are stiff foam board also glued in a solid line for support keeping it down. The centre rail is foamboard and coffee stirring straws.
Then when it was all done, I beat the stuffing out of it with a claw hammer to break it up in nice uneven chunks. I used the same coffee stirrers for the hedgehogs, since you'll notice, large sections of the guard rail are missing. Everything is painted with a "freshly dead" look, as if the road was in use till recently.
The idea was to create a set of quick-set barricades that the Arbites use to create cover in a hurry. They would use these when they expect resistance to be heavier than a standard civilian riot or queue war. I used a strip of wood molding that had a nice, semi-gothic-looking pattern etched into it, cutting it into 6" pieces that were then glued back-to-back to create the basic rail shape. Details were added with brass rod, jewellery-making pieces, yellow ribbon, sand and parts from my bits box. The rails were painted black, then drybrushed three successive shades of gray to achieve a nice look of concrete. The striping on the ribbon was added with a black permanent marker. I also built a few reflective barriers to add to the "Police Emergency" atmosphere. These were made from thick card painted white with orange marker used for the emergency striping. The reflectors on the tops of the small barriers are made with yellow rhinestones glued to a piece of jewellery-making wire.
These barricades were thrown up in record time. Using some scraps left over from other projects and a little imagination I managed to pile these together and paint them in less than a week. I tried out a new technique for painting these pieces. After being undercoated in black, I drybrushed them with a light gray, then added watered down paint to colour it. This process saved a lot of time and is certainly something I'll continue to use in the future.
The benches are made from popsicle sticks with a heavy wash of regular brown paint. The barrels are cut wooden beads with black thread on the top and bottom for hoops. The broken statues are vinyl figures that I bought at a dollar store. They first received a coat of watered down glue and then painted up to look as worn statues. Finally, the rubble are bits of broken clay that I soaked in watered down grey acrylic paint. I then brushed on some more of the same color slightly thicker in some places. For the bases I used masonite that I painted a cool grey tone as the base coat, then sponged on a warmer color of a grey to add texture, and then a mossy green for...moss (I used the same on the statues).
It appears I took the thematic word "hasty" to heart. While camping, I put together four mounds of rubble and dirt for troops to hide behind. Two are reinforced to add more structure and reinforcement. One is reinforced with metal and the other with wood. All were made in essentially the same way. A rectangle of Masonite was cut to size (about six inches by two inches) and a bit of pink insulation foam was glued down to bulk out the pile. The foam was covered with wall filler mixed with paint and PVA. While wet, sand, dirt, and rocks of various sized were embedded in the filler. Once dry they were primed and painted.
After gluing down a foam sheet to a thin MDF base, I then glued down the wall sections where I wanted them. After this, I textured the wall with sand, and then the floor. The floor had some larger pieces of gravel glued down. I decided to just use plaster of paris for all of the barricades. I plopped some of it down, and then stuck the various items in. A combination of hot glue and plaster of paris was used. For the sandbags, I used DAS air drying clay. I rolled them into sausages, flattened them just a bit, then pressed a tool into them part way to give the appearance of separate sandbags. Finally, I cut a seam into the side of the roll of sandbags. Then, simply glue them into place. After all this was done, I made large puddles of glue on the floor, and sprinkled chunks of broken plaster. It was all given an undercoat with latex black spray paint, and drybrushed with greys. The wood on the barricades was painted wood brown, and drybrushed with tan. The sandbags had some pva glue put on, and then a light sprinkle of sand, for texture. They were painted with a muddy brown color, and then drybrushed with a light tan-cream color. The "hologram screen" is just a piece of painted balsa wood with graphics printed out from this site. The laser cannon was a little toy rocket launcher that I ripped the trigger off of, and then added another toy rocket launcher.
Here are the market barricades. Taking items that might be found in a Fantasy market, and lining them up for defensive purposes. The barrels are wood turnings that I found at a dollar store craft section. They were painted with various browns (and a blue) and washed with black paint, then slightly drybrushed. The crates are off cuts of treated wood from some project at my house. I added the plank lines with a hobby saw. I think this turned out good, it gives it a better look, but didn't take as much time as planking for real. Additional planks were added from my dwindling supply of coffee stirrers. The crates are colored the same as the barrels (paint, wash, drybrush). The apples are small craft beads glued in place. I used a black puff paint to fill the bead holes that were showing. This filled well, but was hard to cover with the red paint. Finally, a bit of varnish to make the apples shine a little. The hay cart is the best of the carts. It is based, as it's meant to stay tipped this way. A block of foam is in the cart, then covered with hay, made from cut up hemp rope fibers.
The goal was to produce a small, fast earthwork terrain piece using clay molding to create the master. From the clay cavity, a plaster cast was made to service as a foundation of the terrain piece. Additional details can either be sculpted into the plaster, or added from other materials. An 1/8" MDF base was added for strength and to protect the corners from handling. A roll of barbed wire was created by twisting 2 lengths of 19 gage wire around each other, then coiling the wire around a 1/4 inch dowel. The grey armoured plates are floor tile, fronted in plastic card with plastic card rivets made with a hold punch. Over all, the Hasty Fortification was hasty project with not more than 2 hours work spread out over three sessions.
I made a bunch of sandbag walls, bunkers and towers, weapon emplacements, barbed wire, fortified craters and spiky things. Also included is a random ancient ruin. Materials used were toothpicks (spikes), random junk (bunker, tower, et cetera), Sculpey clay and metal mesh. The mines were made from Sculpey; they were just squares textured and based. I didn't even paint them, they were already of suitable color. The barbed wire is just cut wire mesh. The silver circle thing is a 1-man bunker with spikes and a big metal shield. The tower is just made of dry wall anchors for screws. The sandbags are made out of Sculpey, and the pointy bits are toothpicks based in Sculpey.
The bases are credit card adverts and an old CD. Then came a layer of Playdough clay, and a wall of Playdough clay on the trench wall and emplacement with gravel pressed in. The trench wall has matchsticks for wood, while the emplacement has a series of plastic caps. After spreading a layer of white glue, I covered the pieces with gravel and sand from my driveway. A basecoat of black was sprayed on, and then drybrushed highlights of tans, browns (and with the car, greys) were given. Then, finally, the emplacement received a roof of two magnet cards. The top card can be removed, so that cammo nets (made of medical gauze dyed with green food coloring), can be added or taken away.