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As sime goofy fun with my local gaming group I'm doing an "EPIC MARINE" 40k space wolves list with half a dozen or so drop pods. I thought to myself "Drop pods though effective are not very epic in the least....how can I make Marine falling from the sky awesome?" Well I saw an idea at the local gaming shop but then thought it wasn't a close enough match. I needed something that acted as a memorial to the epicness of the marines falling from their carriers feet first so I ask....

Has anyone found or built craters with rocks jutting up that could reasonably be the same size as a drop pod in width and height?

Not sure what the size of the footprint of a drop pod is but, a great way to make craters is to take a foil pie tin, glue it upside down onto a piece of card, and punch it in the middle. Hey-Presto, instant crater

Then you can add rocks/whatever to it, and claim to eat pies the size of drop-pods

J.Black wrote:Not sure what the size of the footprint of a drop pod is but, a great way to make craters is to take a foil pie tin, glue it upside down onto a piece of card, and punch it in the middle. Hey-Presto, instant crater

Then you can add rocks/whatever to it, and claim to eat pies the size of drop-pods

interesting idea.....i'll try it out tomarrow but i have a feeling it may just not be deep enough

Plastic pod kits have a footprint around the size of the 5" blast.

I use upturned (and caved in) aluminium pie trays for the basis of my craters. The 'family' sized pies (8"?) make nice large craters.

Glue down to a base with liquid nails, add scatters, prime with auto-primer and go from there.

chromedog wrote:Plastic pod kits have a footprint around the size of the 5" blast.

I use upturned (and caved in) aluminium pie trays for the basis of my craters. The 'family' sized pies (8"?) make nice large craters.

Glue down to a base with liquid nails, add scatters, prime with auto-primer and go from there.

okay well looks like i'll be giving this a shot then

Another tried and true method is to use an old CD for a base and then use either bluefoam or cardboard cut into small triangles to form the edge.

You then fill in with your favorite putty. I use a drywall spackle.

Then add your scatter, sand and whatnot before painting.

The concept sounds good, but probably works better in manga style cartoon 2d. The old landing crouched punching the floor pose.
The GW craters are really your best bet imo. They only cost £10 for 5. For the amount of effort it takes to build, texture your own.
I'd say start with these and then add foam rocks jutting in all directions from the point of impact.
It will be a very hard effect to pull off within the size and shape of a drop pod.
Also, watch Hulk, the bit where he is jumping around in the desert with the choppers. Could be some good ideas there?

This reminded me of something I did before for tanks. The concept was to make sandbags and gear that fit perfectly to the contours of the vehicle - in this case the drop pod to the crater.

Grab your drop pod, your base (I use hardboard, like for terrain pieces), saran wrap and oven-baking Sculpty product. Sculpty is pretty soft modelling clay, but when you are done working with it, you oven-bake it and it is rock solid. You can then cut it, sand it, drill it, whatever.

You can't put the hardboard in the oven, so put saran warp over it so you can work the Sculpty over it and remove it when you need to bake it.

Sculpt a rough estimation of where you want the crater on the hardboard to be. Don't be too precise, because you are about to put saran wrap over that and push the drop pod into place.

Firmly push the drop pod into place so it fits snugly into the sculpty. Keep the end result in mind - making a crater that matches up with a drop pod. After securing the drop pod, CAREFULLY pull it out of the crater and remove the saran wrap.

Now you can sculpt the rest of the crater as you like, being careful not to disturb the area the drop pod site in. Keep in mind that after it is oven-baked, you can cut/sand/drill to make it look like upturned rocks. You will also be covering some of the outer/inner parts with ballast (rocks for model bases).

CAREFULLY remove Sculpty from hardboard and transfer to aluminum foil on baking sheet. Oven-bake according to instructions. After pulling them out and letting them cool off completely, try fitting the drop pod to the crater you made it for. In this way, you can make drop pod landings that are slightly tilted and will snugly fit into the crater like a terrain piece!

Since it's an impact crater, I would do some nice scorched marks going back and forth with dark browns and blacks.

It seems like a very long process, but you can do it in an assembly-line process and make some really nice pieces that will really add to your army appearance and theme.

- Blackbone