This competition ran in July-August 2007 and was run by wiz. We also owe a word of thanks to Eazy-O for compiling this summary from the information posted on the forum.
The goal for this competition was to choose a scene from a movie and try to recreate the set or at least a part of it. The idea is to try and capture as many details and features from the original scene but still create a usable scenery piece for the game(s) that you play.
Here is my finished ruin atop the Cliffs of Insanity from "The Princess Bride". I watched the 'Chatty Duellists' scene dozens of times to make sure all the bits were in the right place, the right size, and at the right angles etc. I had to shrink a few features to make the terrain more playable, but they are there. The boulder with the rope tied around it, the gymnastics bar, the ramp, the stone circle, even the arch where Wesley runs off after he knocks out Inigo.
The entire structure is foam that was sculpted with a wood burner that had a spade shaped tip. I wish I could say there is a trick to it, but there isn't; it's just a time intensive and painstaking process carving all the lines without melting huge dents of foam.
The color is latex wall primer paint, and sandbox sand. Again I tried to match the movie set colors as best I could. I used a dark base coat to glue the sand down, which I shook on with a small strainer to get an even layer. Then I brushed off layers of sand until it was as dark as I wanted it.
I approximated where the plants should be. They are lime green kitchen sponge that I ran through a blender to chop them up. Then I glued them on with white glue, and dabbed watery paints of brown and olive to tone down the neon effect.
For further details and pictures, see this article.
This entry for the Movie Set Comp is based on the Endor Landing Platform from "Star Wars VI, Return of the Jedi." This is the place that Luke Skywalker is turned over to his father, Darth Vader, and taken up to the Death Star in a shuttle.
It's built in 1/72 scale. The pad itself is a metal serving tray, filled in with foam supports, covered with thin cardboard and marked with cardstock squares. An LED string has been added around the side, which can be set to blink or to remain steadily lit. The fence is made with fishing line and strung together syringe tops, hotglued on. The four light towers are cut from hard plastic grating, with magnets hotglued on the top and bottom. The spotlights are purple Halloween lights, that had metal bases. The twin base towers are made of disinfectant wipe containers. These have rocks inside them to give stability, and four doorways cut into the sides for the walkways. The tops of the two towers are tops from drink powder containers. These towers have also had various bits added on. The walkways are made from hard plastic grating, with sloping sides made from soft plastic lids. Granny grating makes up the floors and side rails of the walkways. The supports for the walkway roofs are cut plastic plungers for syringes. The walkway roofs are made from textured cardstock. The walkway roofs are removable to place figures on the walkways.
The base paint of this structure is a number of layers and shades of grey. The yellow ring was made with a white basecoat stencil, with two layers of yellow and a black outline painted on.
For further details and pictures, see this article.
I wanted this project to be the last of the work on my modular sewer, but the difficulty I encountered was how to made something interesting. Sewers, by nature, are smooth and featureless. After thinking of some of the movies I have seen I decided that I would adapt the traps from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to suit my purpose.
The invisible bridge uses pink insulation foam for the walls, cut to shape and simply spackled and painted with successive highlights of grey. The invisible bridge effect uses a removable piece of clear plastic from a CD case. I had never used that material and was pleased with how it turned out. Not many new technique were used when making this entry, but I did learn a few ways to improve what I already used.
I've decided to make the blades of doom after they had stopped. The wall is insulation foam while the blades themselves are cardboard. Painting was just bog standard and after that, some spider webbing was added, courtesy of teddy bear stuffing.
The riddle flagstone floor where Indy had to spell "Jehovah" was made from several pieces of cardboard and painted with cheap acrylics. The only difference is that mine spells "Sigmar".
For this Competition I decided to make a windmill from Shrek.
It was made from PVC piping covered in modelling clay. The cobblestones for the stairs are made from Pro-Dough which is an air drying modelling compound. The thatching on the roof is made from pulled apart twine which has been coloured by rubbing small amounts of paint into it. The sails and roof structure were constructed from strips of balsa wood. Same material was used for the door.