Trash Terrain: Egg-Box Shipping Containers

Gangers ambush a Dalek patrol deep in the Underhive, obviously not knowing what the hell they're getting into...

As I may have mentioned before, I have literally zero money available to spend of terrain for gaming, and so my first recourse is always to dig around in the recycling bin for ideas, and recently I noticed that the large plastic boxes that hold around sixteen eggs or so are rather nicely futuristic in appearance.

Experimentally I stuck one together, primed it and then used some very basic techniques to paint up a sort of prototype, thinking of a sci-fi themed shipping container, and I was so pleased with the results that I pimped it around some FB groups, asking if people would be interested in a tutorial.

They were and so here it is.

Raw materials - except for the lamp and the pink Kindle...

Begin by super-gluing the egg boxes together (I suppose you could leave them open, but its far more faff that way) and then priming them with a rattle can. I use grey, because the paints that will follow aren't intimidated by it, but white would be an alternative.

Egg boxes glued shut, with one I prepared earlier.

Primed like a 90's Tory PM.

Painted and posed.

The next step is the base colour, for which I've deliberately chosen a fairly drab, industrial palette. I used a selection of paint samples from Wilko's for this coat, as they're cheap and you get quite a lot for the £1.50 price tag (avoid B&Q, as the buggers include a brush built into the cap of the pot, which takes up roughly half the volume and makes them far worse value for money).

Emulsion really is the best option here, as using model paint or even craft paints would be crazy for the amount of space needing to be covered and the relative cheapness of the project in all other areas. Another tip is to pick darker colours, as they usually take less coats to cover (the yellow here was a nightmare for this).

Stencils, how doth I hate thee?

Next came the stencils...dear gods.

With the original, I'd just cut something out of card and made sure it was large enough to keep the white paint from the pound shop rattle can from getting anywhere it shouldn't have been. But with these, I had to get fancy and get some manufactured ones from Hobbyworld.

They were advertised as sticking to almost anything and being reusable, but those were lies, the kind of lies that make the God Emperor cry. And so the things slipped at the slightest chance, ensuring that the paint went everywhere it shouldn't have.

The larger boxes were saved by repainting, but the smaller was so far gone that I just decided to screw it and think of the mess as more signs of industrial decay instead.

Shipping Container #425 - Small and a bit squashy.

Shipping Container #780 - Green for GO!

Shipping Container #369 - The Goon drank wine...

Mount Up!

Next came the weathering, for which I used a mixture of black and brown craft paints from The Works (£1 a piece), working on a rough 2:1 ratio in favour of the brown, but then adding more of the black until the resulting mix was a colour that resembled very dark chocolate, which I feel better resembles actual corrosion and rust better than a more "milk chocolate" shade.

I applied the paint with a torn up kitchen sponge, fraying the tip and then blotting it on a paper towel until most of the paint was removed. From there it was a case of dabbing the crates at random with different parts of the sponge, but paying more close attention to corners and lines where common sense tells you that there would be more chance of chipping and scraping.

Once you're done, don't get rid of the paint, as you'll need it again pretty soon.

That done, it was out with the Citadel Lead Belcher (formerly Boltgun Metal) and a fairly fine brush to pick out some of the larger spots of brown paint in order to create the illusion of exposed metal beneath. This needs to be done again with particular attention to edges and raised points that would show such wear prominently.

Now take the left-over paint from the weathering (or mix some more, if you chucked it away like a twit) and dilute it heavily with water and add a drop of flow-aid (or washing-up liquid, if you're me). Seriously, the water should be something like 70 to 80 percent of the wash. Don't be afraid to use the water you've been using to wash your brushes if it's not got much muck in it, as this will add to the griminess of the wash.

Mount the containers on a box or piece of scrap card and hold them in place with blu-tack, as this part gets somewhat messy and there will be run-off to deal with. Apply the wash liberally with a large brush, making sure to get it into all of the nooks and crannies, horizontally across vertical grooves and downwards in all other places.

Tah Dah!

Can you tell whether it weathered well?

Red Ready...

We all live in a yellow...shipping container?

And there you have the finished article - all they need now is a coat of varnish and they're good to go.

Howlin' Eddie and Eyeball line up their next targets.

Eager gangers from Widdershin's Corpse Junkies rush to attack, while the Fat Biker dreams of rat burgers.

"They look like bloody pepper pots - how hard can they be?!?"

I think the result looks pretty damn good for the cheapness of the materials and the simplicity of the techniques used in making them, and the fact that they're made to be stacked on shelves means that they can be used to easily create multi-level obstacles and terrain.

I hope this tutorial was of use, and while I realise that this is likely to be me teaching many more experienced hobbyists to suck eggs, some people really did seem to be interested in being shown some of the more basic techniques needed in order to make terrain work like this.

So, as always, please comment below and let me know what you think.