A New and Improved Mycetic Spore

This update comes from my new computer! Here's another Mycetic Spore that I built last week.

This one looks kind of like the Saarlac. It's a bit big, I thought it would shrink more in the kiln but I was wrong.

It took me a bit longer to build this one compared to the first one. I still was really rough with the lines. I consider this one a rough draft, but I think this is the direction I want to take my spores. It's actually lighter than my first one and less fragile. I just have to figure out the sizing issues now. The next one shouldn't take too long to build as I know what I'm doing now.

Towards a Better Mycetic Spore

So I've seen all the plasmid hatchers and shredded nerf balls (which was actually not a bad idea). None of those really seemed to me like what I imagine a Mycetic Spore to be. In the Apocalypse book, it describes them as "gory flowers." All the other ones I've seen just look like big eggs. So here's what I came up with.
This is built out of clay. It took me about half an hour to build, which is why it looks terrible. I built it to be a proof-of-concept piece, as an ersatz pod until I can build some better ones out of proper wargaming materials. Clay is simply too heavy and too fragile for game pieces, though it makes excellent terrain.
None of the other spore models I've seen have the proper tentacles or bio-weapons. Two of mine broke off during transportation, but they're easily re-glued.
It did come out a bit big, so I'm only going to use the top fold to measure deployment distance. I think I'll make the petals a bit smaller next time, but I wanted it to clearly look like it could hold 20 models or one Carnifex. This model is only a step in the direction I'm going with this.

How To Make Razorwire

Ok, now it's time to put some razorwire on those sprue barricades we made in a previous post.

First off, cut yourself a length of very fine wire. For these I used 22 gauge wire that I got for cheap at Lowe's. There are plenty of ways to get free wire, but I wanted to be spared the hassle. Keep in mind that every foot of wire is going to equal slightly more than 1" of razorwire, so 6' of wire would be a bit more than 6" of wire. Since our sections are 6" long, 6' is a perfect length.

Bend the wire in half, and tie the loose ends around something stable like a chair.



Take the other end and put it into your drill. Make sure it is in there tight.



Now, run the drill until the wire is very tightly wound. Don't let the wire go slack, it will cause wrinkles and folds in the wire line. A few of those will add some character, but too many will ruin the line. Cut off the wire at both ends.

With the long section of wire, wrap it around something round like a larger paintbrush or your hobby knife. Obviously, you can control the diameter of the wire by using different objects. Find whatever looks best to you.



After it is wound up, I like to counter-wind it a bit with my hands. To do this I simply bend the wire gently in the opposite direction of how I just wound it. This loosens it up and makes it a bit more realistic.

Finally, wrap the wire around the 6" section that you had from the previous post. Now, lay it on top of the two barricades and glue it into position. Use superglue to fix the wire to the plastic, and make sure you superglue both ends of the wire. Finally, matte seal it to get rid of the plastic glue sheen.

The reason you want to fix the wire on the support before putting it on the barricade is because the tension in the wire will cause the barricade to buckle. Look at the first picture in this post; you can see that half the feet aren't even on the ground. After trying countless times to fix it, I finally ripped the 6" section off and wound the wire on that, then set it on the barricades and it worked beautifully.

You can of course mount the wire on whatever you want, this is simply the way I do it.

Making Terrain Out of Sprues

Here's a way to make barricades and other obstacles for cheap as free! I can't bear to throw anything away, and as my pile of empty sprues grew higher and higher I figured I had to do something to take care of them all. Finally, I discovered an easy way to make caltrops style tank barricades. I later topped them off with razorwire, but that's a post for another day.

The first step is to cut several straight segments of sprue. For each barricade, cut out three 1 1/2"-2" segments. If you plan on making razorwire-type barricades cut 6 of these smaller segments and a 6" segment as well. After they are cut, sharpen one end to a point on the small sections, and both ends on a 6" section. Whittle down the plastic to make it worn looking.



Sprues are in a somewhat trapezoidal shape. When you whittle them, try to take more off the thicker corners to make them more square.

After whittling them, glue two into an X shape. Give the glue a bit of extra time to dry as you aren't gluing preformed pieces into shape. After they dry stand it up and glue the third piece to form a tripod shape. At this point I use paint bottles on each corner to support the whole thing until it dries completely.





If you are simply going for tank traps, go ahead and stop here. I simply prime them black and give a very light drybrush of Boltgun Metal. You can mount them on a 6"x2" base if you wish, or just set them up on the table as they are. If you want to make the razorwire, check for my next installment on how to make your own wire and how to set it on the barricade without bending the whole thing out of shape (not as easy as it sounds).

Clay Craters

I made some craters out of clay. They took about 5-10 minutes each. The only problem I had was they tend to warp while drying, so I had to sand them down a bit on the bottom. They still wobble a bit so I'm going to patch greenstuff over them to fix that, and to add some asymmetry to them. The double crater developed a crack so I have to patch that up too. After I'm done fixing them, I'm going to paint them to match my table.





I also finished up the bases for my ruined temple heads (like Easter Island heads), but I have to do some battle damage effects before I can glue those on.

(Note that this is not Sculpey or a similar air-dry clay, this is a stoneware clay body, the same stuff used to make pottery.)

Here is how I made them: I took my clay and rolled it out into a slab about 1" thick. I then pressed a curved plaster mold into the clay. With the mold in place I used my thumb to push down the outside into the outward slope. To make them uneven I used my fingers to stretch them out a bit. Finally, I used a loop tool to scrape down the sides to give it texture. After they dried, I sanded the bottoms and fired them. I assume you can make these using air dry clay, they'll just be a little more fragile.

Scratch-Built Revenant Titan, Part 2

Here's what it looked like totally put together. I used heavy epoxy to glue everything together. Looking back, I should have drilled holes in the wet clay so I could pin the joints.







I spray painted it roughly black before gluing, to make sure that black got in all the hard to reach areas. I used a lot of spray paint, because fired clay is so absorbent. This lets the nice acryllic paint coat the surfaces easier.




Next up is the semi-finished product, and the tragic story of its debut.

Scratch-built Revenant Titan

I made this a while ago, but here's my scratch built Revenant Titan. I'd love to own the actual Forgeworld model, but this will do. It was quite the undertaking. I started building it in February of 2008, after playing my first Apocalypse game. My friend had two scratch built Stompas which wreaked havoc, and I wanted to join the fun and show him up.

I have a lot of experience working with clay, so I built it out of that. Clay is wonderful but has some limitations. Once it has been fired, it is very very difficult to drill or do any other post-construction. Also, when it breaks there's not a lot you can do to fix it. No pinning, only glue and you'd better hope it's in a glueable spot. This came back to haunt me after the first game I used it in, but more on that story later.

Here's the starting stages:



You can see that I started out with a round clay base, but I abandoned that idea after I realized I wouldn't be able to drill holes in it after the fact, so I'd have to know exactly where the feet would go, so I bought a 7" round base at Michael's. I messed up on a few parts, after the fact it was obvious. I used printed out pictures for my references, but they messed up the detail slightly because some were so light. I should have referenced the computer more often for accuracy, but ah well. Next update will be the construction of the titan.