The original article says "It’s pretty clearly a sanctuary, but it could just as easily be used to provide elevation or even cover". While this original article appears to be referencing terrain elements which likely existed in Mk1, my idea was for this to be an abandoned bunker, functioning as hill terrain for the game, but a bit cooler-looking than an oval piece of paper labeled "HILL". Plus, I play Cygnar, and I thought it would be fun to make something Khador-themed for a change.
It was difficult at first finding the correct dimensions at which to cut the plastic to get the result I wanted. I knew I wanted the whole thing to have a footprint of about 5", so I allowed 3" for the octagonal roof, and about an inch each of lateral room for the steeply sloped sides. I drew out the shape I thought would work, then cut out the paper and tried to fit things together to be sure my design would work in 3D. Eventually, I got something that worked. But when I cut out the plastic, I found they didn't fit togther as well as I'd planned. I first fit them together and tried holding the mess together with scotch tape to measure things out. I had to shave some pieces down a good bit, and the end result was that the eight sides weren't all the exact same size. It probably didn't help that I was watching Lord of the Rings and drinking while working on the project.
Once I had the final plastic version held together with scotch tape, I mixed up some green stuff and methodically replaced the scotch tape with green stuff along the joints, both on the inside and on the outside. A day later, after the green stuff had hardened, it looked pretty good, and was surprisingly solid.
I spray painted the structure black, and cut out another piece of plastic, which would be the base on which it sat. I then spread air-hardening clay on the base, and pressed my struture into it. I pressed a bit too hard though, and one of the green stuff joints cracked. Thankfully, that was easily fixed.
Then, after the clay air-dried, I painted the ground outside my bunker brown. I also filed down some of the green stuff along all the edges to prevent the lumpy ridge.
Next it came time to cut out the plastic trapezoids I'd place atop each wall for better 3D texture. I wanted each to have that recessed slot, representing a window through which troops inside might theoretically be looking out with guns. But although cutting the trapezoid wasn't difficult, cutting that slot in it was. My first attempt shattered the entire trapezoid. Soon after that, I realized that the only way to get the window was to cut two separate pieces and reassemble them as I attached them to the main structure. This left some visible seams, but I did my best to cover them up. I also cut out the squares to glue atop the trapezoids, drilling four holes in the corners, since rivets that tiny didn't seem feasable. The trapezoids had the added bonus of rising higher away from the surface than the raised bubbles of the green stuff, and thus making the seams less noticable. This whole process of cutting out plastic trapezoids with a razor blade was easily the most time-consuming part of the whole bunker creation process.
After these were in place, I painted my new parts black, and when that had dried, I painted the whole thing a metallic grey, then glued down some sand on the outside terrain. Too bad I didn't have an old tree stump model. That may have fit in well.
The original sketch had a gun and flags. I wanted to use this piece as hill terrain, so I wanted most of the bunker's roof to be free usable space, but I felt this needed something more. When I'd magnetized my centurion/hammersmith a while back, I never used the avenger parts. So I had an extra gun. Paint it up in Khador red, and now my bunker had a gun emplacement.
I also cut out some balsa for a hatch and made a door handle by bending a paper clip, cutting it down small, and pressing the sharp ends into the soft balsa.
Last thing. I wanted a Khador logo. So I tried to model one out of green stuff. Damn, that thing came out lopsided. Best I could do. And it turned out too big to fit where I'd wanted to place it, so it went dead center on the roof. It's flat enough to still put a model on top of it.
Here's my final product.
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