Trash Terrain: Cyberpunk Nightclub - "The Chibified Assassin"

Andre & Engels were known to moonlight as bouncers in the downtown sprawl when tag matches were scarce...

A little while back I dropped a quite popular blog post about some Hostile Environment Hab Pods that proved quite popular (and which you can read here) and so, as I'd always intended to do more builds in a similar vein, I kept my eyes open for something similar the next time I was in the shop where I found the original materials.

What I found was a container about four times the size of the original ones, but otherwise the exact same kind of shape, and so I grabbed one to see what I could make out of it. My first thought was to simply stick to the same kind of idea and make a larger version of the Hab Pods, as maybe an admin office or lab of some kind.

But then it occurred to me that I'd always liked the idea of formerly utilitarian buildings being repurposed for another, more interesting kind of use. And my eyes fell upon a chibi assassin figurine that I'd bought off of eBay with absolutely no idea whatsoever as to how I would ever find a way to actually use it.

At this point, it's purpose is so obvious as to be transparent...

I used my ever-dwindling supply of Maelstrom's Edge Terrain Sprues (available here) to furnish most of the details, along with things like cable tidies and bits from the packaging of some disposable razor blades to add the final touches.

But once the paint was on, it turned out to be all white...

I primed the whole thing black with a poundshop rattle can, but rather than my usual progressively lighter coats of grey and white, I made sure the coat was more even and smooth to simulate the supposed plastic nature of the prefabricated structure.

But there was still something missing, and I had been planning to use a sprue that had a nice bit of writing in kanji that would have served very well as the basis for a neon sign. The problem was that my memory had played me false, and this had already been used on a previous project.

My solution was to do something that I'm not often guilty of, which was to order an acrylic sign from TT Combat (the website for which can be found here) and mount this on a couple of poles. At least the poles were made from recycled sprues, which made me feel a little less guilty.

The details I picked out with Vallejo Black Grey and drybrushed with Sky Grey from the same range, and then I washed the whole thing with a diluted mixture of black and burnt umber craft paints, favouring the black as I wanted a more urban grime look to the finished product and finally the whole thing was sealed with a matt varnish.

This was one of those projects that only felt like it came together once everything was done and the piece was an actual item of three-dimensional terrain that would work on the table-top. And once it was, the thing just seemed to click and make sense.

I'll probably go back in and add some minor details such as illumination from the lights and a colour on the door-panel screen too, but it's good enough to drop into a cyberpunk skirmish game or a more domestically themed take on 40K as it is.

So, as always, let me know what you think, either here or on social media.