Trash Terrain: Giftbox Sci-Fi Dwelling

It's hip to be square...

This is my first blog entry in literally months, mainly because my day-job as a full professional writer has also been full-on over the past couple of months. So this is a short and sweet little entry to let anyone that cares know I'm still alive and trying to find the odd hour here and there to paint and model.



Whenever I get a box, I always size it up for its potential to make into a model, and this one was made from a box that a gift came in for someone, and meant that I had to ask them some time after the thing had been unwrapped, if I could have the box back again.

Once I had it, I turned the box upside down and glued the lid to the bottom to create a walled roof space. The air-vent/hatch was made from a square of granny grid surrounded by bits of plastic sprue and the chimney/aerial was a piece from a broken Playmobil toy.

The upper storey windows were cut from a ventilation grill and those on the lower (as well as the doorframes) have frames made of sprue and card detailing or corrugated card for shutters. The awning above the front door was made from the cap on a disposable razor, and the intercom from the top of a Tic-Tac packet with a Plymobil cog added for visual interest.

The structural braces were made from packaging used to secure a kid's toy in the box and the other details were either from more Playmobil bits or taken from the rather excellent Maelstrom's Edge Terrain Sprue.

The model was based on scrap EPVC and the base textured with a mixture of budgie grit and filler, then the building was painted in texture paint and sprayed a dark grey. After that it was dry-brushed with successively lighter shades of grey emulsion and the metallic parts painted with artists acrylics and weathered using a sponge.

This building might not look like much, but then the aim of the build was to make a relatively quick and cheap piece of terrain that was almost entirely composed of bits found around the house and would blend in well with more fancy and expensive scenery on the table-top.

Knocking out three or four of these and mixing things up with only slight variations to the detailing and basic shape of the box should be pretty easy and can help to fill up a sparse table of terrain with little outlay in cost.

Let me know what you think of this in the comments below or on social media.