Planetary Defense System Printer Friendly Version   By SHAMMOND42 - Dec. 31, 1969 It takes large ships to transport enough troops to conquer a planet. Missiles are a key defense against such assaults. Often, missile defenses are kept deep underground to survive an orbital bombardment. Taking these out by ground assault may be an essential prelude to a full invasion. Size: 10 x 8 x 2 Molds: #311 Skematic Pyramid I received the Skematic Pyramid mold as a Christmas present and wasn't sure quite what to do with it. I cast a bunch of blocks and realized that the patterns on them screamed Rach (one of the alien races in CAV). Just look at the Rach symbol in picture one and you will see what I mean. I needed some CD sized pieces that would work together to use as objectives in my CAV games. The idea of silos finally occurred to me. I did some searching and poking around Google Earth and decided to add a command bunker to the mix and this project was underway. All of the pieces are from mold #311, cast with Merlin's Magic casting plaster. The bases for all three pieces are old CD's. I scuffed the CD's with sand paper to make sure that the blocks and terrain would stick. The silo's are a relatively simple design, based on images I found of ICBM silo's. The three sides protect the cover, which would retract back onto the gravel prior to launch. The blocks were glued together and to the CD base with the standard tacky glue. The bunker was a little more complicated. The short pyramid covers an elevator that descends into an underground command bunker. The pyramid blocks were assembled first. Then a chunk of pink foam was carved to make the hill side that would sit around the bunker. This assembly was glued to the base. Painting the blocks was more difficult to than I thought it would be. I wanted a black and red scheme to match the Rach symbol. After painting the blocks black, the finish was too flat and dull. There wasn't really enough texture to dry brush gray over that, so I just gently brushed the gray on to simulate a texture. I tried painting a thinned red and wiping it off with my finger as described on the Hirst Arts tips page for #311. That didn't really work for me and the red streaked. I repainted one of the silos and then just carefully painted the red into the lines and that worked pretty well. A couple coats of red and a quick touch of with the black and it was all set. I finished by applying some Celluclay to the bases, painting them up and covering them with railroad ground cover. I tried dry brushing some light green onto the bushes to make them pop a little more. I made some coils of barbed wire out of 30 gauge brass wire and some anti-tank obstacles out of Plastruct I-Beam.   0 Ratings     12345      Public Comments Please log in to post a comment    You must be a registered member to post comments. You may sign-in Here.

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