AT-AT on Ice

Crashed vehicles are a relatively simple terrain piece to make as suitable toy vehicles are cheap and easy to acquire at discount stores. In this case however, dragonflies7033 created a Star Wars inspired piece for our "Fallen Over Competition" using relatively simple scratch building techniques:

I intend for this to be a salvage mission destination, so it had to be somewhere that the Empire might regard it as unsalvageable. Plus, I had a slew of other ideas for snow terrain.

I had hoped to find a plastic blister pack style package that had the right shape for the body of the AT-AT but, as I had no luck, I made one. I began with a cardboard package from my collection of bits that had almost the right shape, and I cut it up. Then I used thin clear plastic sheets, fixed in place with caulk, to fold the angles origami style. The head is done in the same way and, although it involved a lot of trial and error, in the end I got a result that I thought would be convincing when painted.

The body and head were then mounted onto a foamcore base with bevelled edges. The legs are parts from an old printer and the feet are fittings found in the plumbing section of a hardware store. Further details were added prior to painting such as metal washers to make the joints in the legs and some bits left over from a kit of the Batmobile for the head mounted guns.

Leftover polystyrene foam for the snowdrifts and caulk to fill in small gaps. They don't actually support the legs, but I wanted there to be a way for figures to climb up onto the legs, and make them usable space.

With all the bits in place I sprayed the whole thing grey and then added scenic snow onto a layer of diluted Elmers glue.

I am not sure how fast metal rusts if all the available water is frozen, but the rust free look just wasn't doing it for me. So although it wasn't a part of the original plan, the final step was an application of rust colored paint in appropriate areas.