28mm Post-Apocalyptic Block House: A Work in Progress

One the factions of my post apocalyptic world is the a small, high-tech army that is trying to  re-acquire territory for the remnants of the old Federal government.  As the army expands its control over new territory, it builds outposts to mark its claim.  One of the common types of outpost is the Block House.

Today, I managed to complete most of the construction of the blockhouse.  The basic structure is made of extruded polystyrene insulation foam cut with a band-saw or hobby knife, glued with artist's acrylic matte medium, and based on .06" thick styrene sheet.  The foam pieces are held together with straight pins, until the matte medium is dry.  The following photos show the construction process:

The block house drawn onto the base, measuring approx. 13"x10".

Foam stock cut on the band-saw.  The pink, blue , and grey-green foam

 come from different manufacturers, but behaves the same for

construction purposes.

With a GW Cadian in the doorway for size reference.

I need to add a couple of foam walls to the interior of the first floor, pull the pins and then start to paint.

A Sci-Fi Communication Tower in 28mm

This post is in response to questions about construction of my Comm Tower that appeared in the photos with my 28mm bunker complex that were posted sometime back.  Some of the following is a rehash from my long dead website, mixed with some additional info.

The Comm Tower is was conceived as communications station capable of deep space communications on a newly settled world. The base consists of a small bunker that can house a few troops during times of need, and the communications mast.  The idea is that bunker is a precast standardized component designed to mainly resist tampering by civilians or alien fauna.  The  main access door opens into an equipment room with tiny quarters inside. It has two roof hatches to permit access to whatever sort of equipment might be mounted on top.

The design was first sketched out on graph paper in full scale.  Basic construction was is from .06" styrene plastic, solvent welded  with a disposable syringe and Tenax 7R solvent.  The tubes for the roof hatches are acrylic, I think from Plastruct.  They were super glued in place and blended into the basic shape with styrene sheet and automotive glazing compound or putty.  For sanding the styrene and putty, I find that the Squadron wet/dry sanding stick are quite helpful.  Yes, all of the doors and hatches are pinned and hinged.  I am that sad.

  The view below gives some idea of the size with older GW Imperial Guard figs posted next to the door.  

  A view from the rear showing the equipment boxes extending from the back of the base.  They are made from styrene and patterned sheet from Evergreen.  The stairs are part of an Evergreen  kit; the railing is Brass wire from K&S.  

  The comm mast was made from Evergreen tube, sheet, and Plastruct vessel flanges (the gray rings near the top of the mast).  The catwalk is wide enough to permit access by the GW style bases on many of my sci-fi figs.

The comm mast was assembled to allow the later addition of wires for LEDs to give a little more life to the contraption, though I don't know if i will ever get around to it.

  The antenna array complete.  The dome and dish are parts from Plastruct, as are the cage and ladder, the phased-array looking panels are patterned tile sheet from Evergreen.   

  Triangular supports for the catwalk extend beyond the edge of the platform to give a rigid mounting point for the vertical rail supports. The rail itself is made from .02" thick by '06 wide styrene strip. I curved the strip by rapping it around a small bottle, attached one end to a support, then worked may way around the the catwalk, attaching to the supports with solvent as I went. A second strip was glued inside the fist to give the rail more strength.

 

  The base is painted with Polly Scale Israeli Khaki, "metal" parts are painted with Vallejo Russian Green. The base was then weathered with a several mixes of Polly scale Old concrete and Israeli khaki to bring out the waffle pattern a bit and dust up the green parts.

The waffle pattern was made by painting a coat of artist's acrylic paste onto the masonry surfaces of the bunker, letting it surface dry, and then pressing fiberglass drywall tape into the semi dried paste. The result is a Zimmerit-like texture.  

  The roof of the bunker is press fit in place, and is removable to permit eventual interior detailing and battery installation for the LEDs  

  A few more pics, showing how the roof and mast fit into the base unit.  

   

And lastly, a view of the unfinished interior.The plan is to someday put an electronics control bay to the front of the interior, and a submarine-like quarters for 2-4 for those when the natives are restless.

  And there you have the communications tower, a lovely target for any season.

28mm Sci-Fi Bunker Complex Revisited (Photo heavy)

This is a re-post of the pics from my 28mm sci-fi bunker complex from my old website.   Over the last couple of weeks, I've been toying with design ideas for my post-apoc terrain, and got some of my bunker bits out, while considering how I might fit them into my PA world.  'veI had a few requests to re-post some of the pics. including one this past week, and figured since I can't do much else right now, that I might as well do so.


The first stage of the bunker complex was built over the Thanksgiving holiday about five years back.  It was originally an objective for my daughter's space orks, with visions of expanding it for all sorts of sci-fi and PA gaming.  The most important aspect was the modular design that would permit adaptation to the needs of various games and settings. 

The basic layout was drawn onto sheet styrene, which would act of the floor for some of the modules, and a base for the foam construction otherwise.  The figures are 28mm Imperial Guard to give a sense of scale.

The walls and roof sections were constructed from blue polystyrene insulation board, with the various strips and sheets of the foam cut on a bandsaw.  The foam shapes were cut to size, glued with artists matte medium, and pinned until dry with straight-pins.

This view shows some of the pins still in place, holding layers on foam strips on the front of one of the smaller gatling laser turrets.

This is a view with foam construction complete, and after a coat of acrylic paste has been painted on to protect the foam a little.

A view of the overall base painted with artist's acrylics.  Below is another shot of the painted base.

Next step was to build the weapons for the turrets and rooftop.

The last four pics are views of the air defense mount for the rooftop.  The gun was scratch-built from styrene sheet, strips, and shapes from Plastruct and Evergreen Plastics.

Above are four views of the gatling lasers for the smaller turrets.  The gun shield was made from a piece of acrylic tube.

Above is a view of one of the main guns for the two double turrets early in the construction.  Unfortunately, I can't find any other pics of these guns after more work was completed.

An overall view with the guns still in process.  In this configuration the model measures roughly 4'x5'.

I also made some obstacles to place around the complex.  Dragons teeth for tracked and wheeled vehicles and the structural thingies to annoy skimmers, grav and hovering vehicles.

The last two shots are of the first stage of construction more or less complete.  The last photo shows the business end of one of the primary double turrets.

A little over a year later, I added the second stage of the bunker complex, which consisted of 29 new pieces.  These included more tunnel sections, entrances,  intersections for the tunnels, and open  fighting positions for the infantry.

The two photos above show second stage construction incorporated with first stage turrets, and a communications tower that I made a year or so prior to the first stage of the bunker complex.

I also added a bunch more obstacles, including some to represent battle damaged obstacles.

All of the new sections from the second stage of construction are shown above.  I also made a few sections with battle damage.  The new modules measure about seven feet in length, when arranged as in the photo above.

The view above shows some the construction detail in the new modules.  Just beyond the two open fighting positions in the foreground is a four-way tunnel intersection.  Covering the front entrance is a free standing bulkhead.  I made a number of these bulkheads to cap unused doorways, and to place in front of entrances to protect them from direct assault.  The fighting position on top of the 4-way module is also a free standing piece.

A view of the battle damaged sections.   There are two types of open position modules, one has a doorway/walkway to the rear, shown in the nearest unit, and the other has a solid wall in back.  I also had to make end caps for the fighting positions.

The last three shots are of the battle damaged sections.  I made bunch of broken concrete debris, but never could settle on how to attach or place them, so they remain loose chunks that my cats just love to bat around.

Even before the second stage was complete, I had already design pieces for the third stage, including corner bastions for the open positions, checkpoints, small blockhouses to cap tunnel sections, smaller watchtowers, and various clutter for the rooftops, including equipment, antennae, smaller air defence guns and missiles,etc.

A fourth stage was to include about a dozen more damaged sections including one of each style of turret, but after I completed the second stage, my daughter's interest in spaceorks started to fade.  So for now, the last two stages exist only as a dozen pages of notes and plans.  Hopefully, as I explore the role that the bunker might play in my post-apoc games, I will find need to complete some portion of the last two stages.

Hope the pics are of some interest or inspiration, if nothing else, I had a lot of fun building it.