Aquilla Strongpoint - In Progress Despite Injury

OK, maybe this picture is a bit over the top, but it really really hurt, OK?

You may have noticed updates are a little thin on the ground the past week.  I have made some progress on the Aquilla Strongpoint but unfortunately I hit a hurdle on Friday night.

This hurdle was a self-inflicted injury from when I ignored advice my Dad has given me since I was a small child, namely, "Always cut away from yourself".  While trimming a piece for the model I held it up in my hand and gently cut with a knife.... then the knife hit a bump, buckled and changed direction, hitting me on the pad of the right thumb.

Cue much wailing and gnashing of teeth!

Thankfully, while it was a bit of a bleeder (fingers always are) it's nothing serious and with the ministrations of my girlfriend I will yet live.  I attempted on Sunday night to restart only to bust the wound back open, so I've been ordered by Sister-Superior to lay off the modelmaking until I'm properly healed.

"MEDIC!"

 I was pretty bummed about this because I wouldn't be able to make my deadline of Saturday completion with all the time I had lost, but in the end the game has been delated for other reasons so it isn't the end of the world.  Still itching to get the model completed, though, because very little work was left until I could spray paint it and begin prettifying it.

In the interim, however, here are some pics of what I've made out of cardboard, milliput, all-purpose filler and plastic barricades:

Current progress (with Space Marine for Scale)

So, as you can see, this is mostly made of scavenged bits from around the house.  As mentioned before the octagonal body of the silo is a gift box from cosmetic company Lush, with several layers of cardboard added to help build up detail and add windows, doors etc.  The whole thing has had several slatherings of all-purpose filler that was then filed to smooth out any sections where cardboard edges are visible.

Some misc details here include the cardboard slats with milliput "rivets" to create a panelled look, and the bottle top with clothes fastener to make a sort of chimney at the rear of the side building.

The side building under construction.

Speaking of the side building, it was made wholesale from cardboard.  Corrugated cardboard was used for walls, thinner cereal card for the body.  More corrugated cardboard was put inside to build up a framework to support the weight of models that went on top.  It was sized to match the main silo and the plastic barricades I'd be using - the overall model is a bit smaller than an official Aquila Strongpoint.

Our scaling Space Marine takes cover behind the barricades.

The barricades will be made out of two packs of Mantic Sci-Fi Defence Lines.  At only £20 I'll have enough pieces to cover this thing in walls while still having odds and ends left to make a defence line for my army to use independently.

You'll see some other details there.  The door is made by cutting two identically sized rectangles of cardboard to match the wall, then cutting the door shape out of both of them.  One door shape was cut in half and put back in the hole, making it look like a sliding door.  Off cuts of cardboard and filler made a little step up.

The rear view, with ladders and doors and that bloody Space Marine again.

The same process was used at the rear to make a larger access door: I also gave it a little control panel.  The ladders between levels was an Ailsa idea, using a similar idea to how I made tracks for my scratch built tanks - it's corrugated cardboard which I've peeled on of the two sides clear off, leaving an undulating shape behind.

ARGH WILL SOMEONE GET RID OF THAT GODDAMN SPACE MARINE

The top shows a closer detail on the cardboard & milliput combo used to imply metal panels.  You can also see the central missile launching section.  Several identically sized octagons of card were cut with increasingly smaller holes - I had fun sweeping the house for templates to use to get the size right, leaving space for seven missile bays but also room for figures to stand around the edge of the building.

Originally I was going to use some girlfriend-scavenged bits for missiles: a few Maybelline Mascara tubes I've stored up.  However they were just a bit too large for the scale of everything else so I just used some rolled & filed Milliput blobs, placed onto cardboard cut launch holes.

So, the big thing left is the perimeter of the top Octagon needs barricades.  I'll be using the two small ones at either side of the ladder to create a gap for people to climb up and enter, with the normal size around the rest.  (This may be just a touch too small so I may need to use some straws or sprue to make little connecting sections to plug any holes.)  A few pieces of magnetic tape here and there to allow additional guns to be mounted and at that point I'll be pretty much set to spray undercoat and paint.

That said, I did buy something else to use with this model.  Can you guess how?