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Hello once again friends!

 Ragsta wrote:

Bro. I fragging LOVE that ruin terrain. Genius! Did you ever play the Heavy Gear computer game? Good days.

I really like the pink colour scheme, I feel like your Southers pale in comparison to them

Thanks for your comment Ragsta! I recently installed HG II and messed around with it, although I didn’t finish the campaign yet tbh But I like it, even though it’s pretty hard and the controls are a bit clunky by today's standard And yeah, the pink Northerners do kinda blow my grey Southern army out of the water looks-wise! Though I prefer more realistic/muted schemes, so I'm fine with them


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First off, great news (well, they are a bit old, but I still figured I should let you know regardless): Heavy Gear III, the next entry in the video game series, has officially been announced!



As a big HG fan, I’m over the moon that they finally decided to give this medium another chance. I was just thinking a while ago how I could really go for a good mecha game again, and I even tried out the old HG2 on PC to scratch that itch. We even got an official teaser:




Now, let’s just hope that this game turns out better than the old Heavy Gear Assault, which was unfortunately cancelled if you remember. I am really excited about the announcement, but unfortunately us HG fans will have to remain patient for quite a while, as no definitive release date has been given and the time frame seems to be a couple of years at least.

Regardless, this news has invigorated me to create some more stuff for the tabletop version of the game, which brings me to the actual point of this update: I recently rescued some cool packaging material for tomatoes from the trash bin, figuring it would be perfect as a foundation for a new HG:B terrain piece. I whipped out my x-acto knife, crazy glue and cardboard and got to work. After a few relaxed afternoons of crafting, here’s what I managed to come up with:



I decided that for the build to be interesting, it would need a little more than just the bunker shaped tomato container. Luckily, I had a yoghurt pot lying around that would provide the perfect starting point for a tower. After some copious use of the hot glue gun, I had the basic shape ready to go and connected it to the main building via a hallway made of styrofoam. Here's an image listing most of the materials used in this build:



Making terrain from trash is a very fun and creative process for me, and I much prefer coming up with my own designs as opposed to buying stock buildings from a company. It just allows for so much more customisation and creativity, and it’s basically free if you use leftover trash like I do. The only stuff I have to buy is hobby supplies like super glue, hot glue sticks, paint, and maybe -veeeery occasionally- a sheet of styrofoam (which is pretty cheap and will last you literally forever when building at this scale). You could argue that these supplies are something you would have to buy anyway when hobbying, and since I get a lot of stuff for cheap from the dollar store, I can really make my hobby budget go a long way. The only downside is that this is probably more time consuming than buying ready-made sets, but I still believe the pros far outweigh the cons in this case. Anyway, let’s look at some more images:



After I had the basic shape of the building nailed down, the next step was to add details to convey the scale and make the dimensions of the building more believable. To do this, I added doors and windows in strategic places of the build. I wanted the roof to be accessible for troops too, so I added a dome with a roof exit to help them get up there.



The cardboard tomato container has some gaps at the corners which I decided to keep as part of the build. I think they will add a nice bit of contrast and detail to the finished terrain piece. Some of the flat surfaces were reinforced with cardstock to flatten and smooth them out, as the underlying cardboard can otherwise show its texture a bit too much when drybrushed. I added a set of antennae to the roof which I made from toothpicks. I also had a leftover satellite dish from a Southern “Caiman” APC command variant which I added to the antenna array to give the impression of a communications suite installed on the roof.



I then broke up the large, smooth faces of the building with “greeblies”, simply glueing oddly shaped cardstock panels onto the surfaces to add some depth and interest to otherwise flat areas. I added an AC unit to the roof and also bulked out certain areas around the building to give the impression of concrete reinforcements. Here’s a top-down view of the terrain piece, showing off the L-shaped outline:



Now, let’s take a look at some detail shots:



A closeup shot of what I decided would be the front entrance of the building. I imagine this structure to house a large garage/vehicle bay, thus the windows are all concentrated around the upper level.



This garage features a large roll-up gate to provide access to vehicles and Gears. It was made by scoring smooth cardstock with the tip of my x-acto knife in regular intervals. As with all my terrain, I added sand to the base for texture, creating a more interesting, rocky surface around the building.



Here's a closeup shot of the antenna array on the roof. Let me tell you, this little satellite dish was a nightmare to put together. All those tiny bars come as separate pieces, and even with medical tweezers and super glue, I could barely get them to stay in place. There are no edges to help you align the pieces, and you have to basically get all of them in place at once to ensure it doesn’t turn out crooked. Whew, glad that’s over. Oh, and to make sure that I don’t break off this fiddly piece the instant I touch the terrain piece, I decided to magnetize the antenna array. This way, if I brush up against it, it will just tilt instead of snapping. I tend to do this a lot nowadays with the more flimsy bits on my models. That, or leave them off entirely



This shot shows off the AC unit and the roof access door with the tower in the back.



The tower also features a secondary entrance to the building on the other end.

And that’s all for now. I’m gonna start painting today, and I’ll share pics with you once it’s done. I hope you enjoyed this quick little showcase and you’ll check back for the finished product! I’m looking forward to your C&C on this terrain piece. See you soon!

That's an awesome scratchbuild! Lots of ideas which I'll be stealing ;-)