Trash Terrain: 1 Crater Cottages

1 Crater Cottages: Des Res in the Rad Wastes

I can never seem to pin down exactly where inspiration comes from and when it'll strike, but the closest I've ever come is realising that when I see a piece of packaging with an interesting shape or that would produce an equally unique shape when pressed into service as a mould, the wheels of the imagination start turning.

From holding cupcakes to making bunkers

When I came across the packaging my daughter's cupcake had been in, for example, I instantly thought that it resembled a shape like an igloo or pillbox of some kind, and so I experimented with papier mache as I had in the past with making larger bunkers (as shown here), and was thinking that I might base it on an old CD as a small piece of terrain.

Platter to plateau

But later I was taking my daughter to a birthday party (there's a patter emerging here), and I spotted that a couple of foil platters from the buffet were being thrown away and asked if I could take them instead, and then, after the funny looks, explained that I'd been inspired to make a model with them. This instantly launched me into a long and pleasant conversation with the grandfather of the birthday girl, as he was a railway modeler and his ears pricked up at the mention of an aspect of his own hobby.

After I'd washed the platter off, I used the techniques discussed in my post on making craters from tin foil (as shown here) to shape it into a large crater that was open at one end, based it on EPVC scrap and then filled in the edges with smaller craters made out of the kind of tin foil casings found on small mince pies and the like. Next I covered the entire base around the outside of the rim with a combination of budgie sand and budgie grit mixed with filler and a dark emulsion paint, but the inside I used a finer sand in order to simulate the ground having been smoothed out through constant use.

Frontage: no nuisance callers

Left Elevation: paint fence, Daniel San!

Rear: Fully plumbed in...

Right Elevation: Home sweet home

I stuck the small dome at the back of the large crater, gave it plumbing in the form of a couple of drinking straws and the top of a packet of mints, added a door made from Ramshackle Games and then set about completing the rest of the compound. The haphazard fence was made from coffee stirrers and the gateposts from used matchsticks, with an IG vox-caster serving as a kind of makeshift comms system, linked to the dome via a piece of guitar wire wrapped around a pole from a Playmobil toy otherwise destined for the bin. A removable barricade of Lego tyres was the last edition before the entire thing was ready for priming and painting.

Primed and smelling worse than anything.

After priming the whole thing with a cheap can of auto-primer from the pound shop, it was time to bring the project to life with a paint-job that would hopefully reflect the rough and ready craziness that I had in mind when putting the whole thing together.

No welcome matt here.

A small dome, or the entrance to a subterranean bunker?

Who lives in a house like this?

Not likely to feature on George Clarke's Amazing Spaces anytime soon.

I added corrugated card to the front and back of the gateway and a portico to the dome at the last minute (hence then not appearing in the earlier shots) as I thought it needed something a little more to finish it off. I've also added a bit of orange lichen since these were taken as well, in a nice orange to offset the red on the dome and further fill in the gaps at the back where the fence ends.

Widdershins's Corpse Junkies pour out of 1 Crater Cottages, intent upon plunder and stealing anything not nailed down.

Later on, Widdershins himself returns for a crowbar, in order to steal anything that is nailed down as well.

I figured that 1 Crater Cottages was the kind of scummy and disreputable place where Widdershins's Corpse Junkies (who can be viewed in all their glory here) would hang out, so I snapped a few rubbish shots of them milling around and making the place look even more messy than usual.

1 Crater Cottages took a lot longer to complete than I initially hoped, but I'm very happy with the results, and I think it makes a unique and interesting piece of terrain that has multiple functions on the table-top.

Let me know what you think, either here in the comments or on social media - as always, I'd love to hear any feedback you might have to offer.