Fort Construction: Towers upon Towers

 

I still need to set up my airbrush to start painting the fort, but why do productive stuff when I can get distracted by random side projects? To that end, I decided that my towers needed to be more towerey, so I made a little watchtower out of plasticard.

In contrast to the main towers of my fort, which are pretty solid, this little guy has more of a ramshackle scaffolding sort of look, supported by a couple of steel beams. I managed to get the beams mostly symmetrical and at the same angle, but found it was pretty hard to attach crossbars to all those weird angles, so the crossbars are basically just long pieces of junk stuck on to hold it all together.

Speaking of my main towers, I made the base of the watchtower slightly smaller than their tops so that it can be set up to overlook the walls.  It can also be set up on the ground or another flat surface, so this piece might get some use beyond fort scenarios.

Also, gotta have a ladder so that da boyz can get in and out.

Fort Construction: Gate

My fort now has an appropriately orky front gate. Astute observers might notice that this gate is substantially different than the original one that I created and isn't actually made of foam. You would be correct.

My original gate was built from XPS foam and had a drawbridge-style gate that was essentially just held in by friction. This severely limited what I could do with the gate, since I couldn't really add any additional detail to any of the parts that had to fit together, nor could I really add any sort of hinges or mechanisms for actually opening the door. As such, I decided to abandon the pressure-fit gate altogether and start out with a new one. 

Since I couldn't really make the foam any thinner without compromising its already weak structure, I opted to build the structural framework out of some aquarium filters. Although they're not made of the most rigid plastic, their grid structure made them pretty stable, except at the joints. Still a definite step up from the foam.

Also, the grid made it super easy to add the magnets!

The doors themselves were also based on the aquarium grating. I built some hinges out of plasticard rod that both allowed the doors to swing open for my vehicles to exit or to be removed if a band of Muties decides to blow them up during a siege.

I also added a nice bulkhead door from Necromunda, since I wouldn't think that they'd want to open and close the gates every time a mobster came in or out.

I made the doors look especially ramshackle, with big sections that looked like they'd been damaged and then hastily patched over. I also made sure to run some wires to that light so that the guards can see who's knocking at the front door in the middle of the night.

The framework of the door can be seen from the back, and I made sure to add plenty of bolts as well. I also added a few big chunks of detail in the corners to help shore those joints up against shearing forces. 

Again, since the fort is modular and meant to be used by all the mobs in our group, I didn't want to put any specific identifying details to tie it to my mob. Instead, I added some magnets above the gate so that whichever mob is using the fort can have their insignia showing.

I'm quite pleased with how my mob's sign turned out.

Finally, I decided to add a bit more detail to the bare walls on the inside of the gate. I modeled some big mechanisms with chains and pulleys that were probably once used to open the doors, but were now clearly broken. I'm sure the spannerz have jury-rigged a temporary solution to operate the doors that has become the norm now.

This makes for the eighth and final wall section of the fort, which means I'm really going to have to hook up my airbrush for real one of these days. Hopefully it won't take me a whole year to actually paint it. 

Fort Construction: Magnets!

I've now magnetized all the wall sections of my fort because of course I have. They were quite a bit easier to magnetize than all the fiddly little gubbinz I made for my vehicles; however, I was pretty surprised at how tightly they hold together. They also snap together in a very satisfying way.

Each wall section and tower got three quarter-inch magnets on each side. I also ended up adding a few extra lead weights at the bottom for some extra stability.  The whole thing is pretty solid once it's all assembled. 

Fort Construction: Workshop

 

Another big section of the fort is finished. This one is the spanners' workbench and tools, including some nice hydraulic arms. I probably went a bit overboard with the cables and the ductwork, but since the workbench itself was so detailed, I wanted the rest of the room to look like it matched.

As you can probably tell, most of this wall section is just built from the Mekboy Workshop terrain set, though it did take a bit of work to take the freestanding workshop and build it into the existing wall of the fort.

The biggest part was flipping the main wall of the workshop around and installing the bench on the wrong side. I decided to make the more detailed side of the piece face forward, since the other side would be glued to the wall. The piece is fairly symmetrical, so I really only had to carve some holes for a couple of wires and pipes to get the bench to sit (mostly) flush with the wall.

I ended up grinding off the back half of the wall to better attach it to the fort, so the workbench is now at a slightly odd angle. Plenty Orky, though.

Nice to see that the Orks keep their workspace as tidy as I keep mine.

Since the Mekboy Workshop came with a big hydraulic arm and I already had another as part of the gubbinz for my big trakk, I wanted to make some spots around the workshop where the arms could be installed. I went a little overboard making the mount for the arm, adding as many motors, compressors, and gears as I could fit into the tiny space I'd allotted myself. Though I guess going overboard is kind of on par with the rest of the workshop.

I was originally going to mount the second arm on the floor right next to the workbench, but that didn't give me much space if I wanted to make sure that this piece still fit together nicely with the other fort walls. Also, there was already more than enough detail crammed in this little section, so it couldn't hurt to spread it out a little bit.

I ended up making a little freestanding platform for the arm to sit in. I modeled it mostly on the assembly line platforms you see in car manufacturing plants, which seemed appropriate. I also had to pack more lead weights into this little thing than any other part of the fort just to keep it from tipping over when the arm swung around. Turned out pretty well, though.

Only a few more sections and this thing will be ready for some paint.