A recent build

In the middle of working on the office building for Harpers Ferry, I suddenly felt the urge to produce something simple and quick. I stumbled upon a triangular PVC board base whose edges I'd previously rounded and chamfered so it made sense to stick something on it.

A cardboard carton that had contained something like cotton buds was an obvious start to a sci-fi storage tank. I added some plating from cut-up business cards. It could have had some kind of heavy weapon emplacement on the top but instead I just decided to portray a disused storage tank that some waste-dweller had converted into a dwelling.

I cut a crude hole in the tank as a doorway and then used the same fine corrugated card I've used for the Harpers Ferry tin roofs to define the edges of the entrance path. I then built up piles of windblown sand around the tank and the pathway using offcuts of foamcore covered with quick-drying Polyfilla. A coat of PVA and a scattering of sand completed the build.

Having painted the whole thing with Modpodge to seal it, I undercoated everything in the traditional Bitter Chocolate exterior masonry paint.

The base was then dry-brushed in progressively paler colours ending with a pale grey to pick out the larger stones in my coarse sand mix.

The tank got a base coat of various rusty oranges and browns and then a light dry brush in gunmetal before I added a partial coat of mid-blue and some watered-down orange rust streaks. 

Apart from drying time I reckon the whole thing was done in a couple of hours. Now I just need to find space for it in one of my sci-fi terrain storage boxes!