MrNoNameSoldier1977
Member
So it has been a few years since I posted anything. I've been traveling with my job and my hobbies had fallen into a bit of a backlog (not that they weren't already in one!) but this last year I finally surfaced and have been getting back into my minis. I have a bit of a new found love for dioramas and have been making several very small scale ones of late, I've posted a couple here. My latest project though was something a bit larger. I wanted to put together something that would make a nice backdrop when I take pictures of my Battletech and military minis. Enter Monday Knight Resin Terrain 6mm Sci-Fi Mech Facility a terrain feature I purchased 20+ years ago, slapped some gray paint on and called it good. (Not my pic, it's from Ebay, but not far off, although my doors were blue)
Well since then I did some things in my life, primarily joining the military and spending quite a bit of time around government facilities. This had a major influence on my view of the work I had done, and after years of traveling around the world the mini had come apart and needed to be repaired. so I started by replacing the doors. Having been around large aircraft hangars I could tell the doors just weren't right, so I used some card stock and changed them out for sliding doors instead of over head garage doors. Look at the hangars on your local airport next time you're there. The only place that uses massive vertical doors are Rocket processing type facilities(See the Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida) and these are designed quite different from garage doors.
I also changed the paint job. Most government facilities are painted some generic version of Baige, Brown, Tan, and typically use "Dark Bronze" as the trim. I used Tan for the main color with brown for the trim, touched up the windows to help with the look(only 6 on the whole building) and sorted out some of the other clean up work that was needed originally. (You can see the original door color in this pic. Silver with a coat of blue over it. Hand painted the numbers, although I'm sure you can tell, anyone know of a company that makes REALLY small stencils?)
At this point I was done, or so I thought. I decided I needed to do more with this after looking at a few of the projects on this site and building out the interior of one of the bays seemed like a good idea. I have no 3D printer(so wish I did) so hand building was the order of the day. Plasticard and reference pictures in place I started building out one of the interiors. I was heavily influenced by the interior of NASA's VAB, but also from working on large steel structures I knew the building needed some interior structure. Square stock for beams, round stock for the cross supports, flat stock for doors, I even made a bridge crane and some exhaust fans. I cut some of the square, and round stock to make barrels and crates. Added a control room to the top(cant see it behind the crane) for the crane operator. I built out the interior on plasticard so that I could remove it to work on then install it back when done.(The mech comes in later.)
I enjoyed the look so much I decided that I wanted to build out another one of the hangars! In the end I built out 3 of the 4, the middle one much less detailed due to the door being mostly closed.
I also added in the bottom panel to give the building a floor. Informed by my experience in Military and government buildings I painted out the floor with some hazard yellow, built an extremely simplified turn table because in my mind if your maneuvering a multi-ton mech into a hangar you don't necessarily want them turning around in that confined space(Head cannon). Well now I needed a base, picked up a cheep wood one from Hobby Lobby.
I used plasticard again to build out concrete/tarmac for roads and maneuver areas. I decided that the back looked too plain with just a pair of closed doors and cut one out doing a very basic build out for something to look at. I used a mix of concrete dust and modpodge for landscaping. After seeing a few projects that incorporated LED's i thought that it added a nice touch, and happened to have some on hand so I lit the interior of the hangars and the garage around the back. With all of this done the interior was looking a little empty, so I felt a static mech being worked on would be a nice touch. I had an old Flea sitting around so simple paint job and a missing arm being repaired made it a little more dynamic. IGMakes a 3D print shop on Etsy had some nice touches, with small construction workers in 6mm scale, so I added some techs working on the mech.
Painted up some heavy string to make it look like temporary power cables and added it to the mech to help with the being worked on look. Heavy cabling is difficult to model as cables like that drop straight before they go in a direction, but I think I made it work pretty well.
I added in some water slide decals near the garage entrance at the back, some bollards to protect building corners as you'd find in any heavy industrial area.
Green flocking, more paint, some ink wash a few trees to add a little more to the look and I have a product I'm at least happy with.
If I had it to do over, I would definitely change some of the work I did. First I would have disassembled the hangar and sanded everything down. It is a 20+ year old resin model and the art wasn't really perfected back then. Sanding the sides down as well as the tops and bottoms to make everything perfectly flat and matching would have helped with assembly. I would also do paint work with an airbrush to help add better detail. In a dream world for the interior I would have designed a 3D file and had it printed to get some top notch detail out of it(I'm not really happy with the railings cut from plasticard) I would cut out all 4 of the garage doors and design my own out of card or 3D print simply because it would look better. It also would have helped with the interior having that opening cross over. I also would have used some of the thicker Plasticard for the rotating platform to give it more definition. I also would have planed for the lighting from the start and pre cut the routes for the wires. It was hard to retrofit everything, but still worth it as the lighting really does add something. I think I would have cut out the little windows as well to have the light come through for an added effect. Ultimately thought I love the final product, and I think it'll make a great background piece for future pictures I take. Let me know what you think.
P.S. I might actually buy another one of these(yup they are still out there for sale) and attempt to make the ultimate version that I describe above. I think on a second go around a lot of what I learned from this one would really make a nicely refined product.
Well since then I did some things in my life, primarily joining the military and spending quite a bit of time around government facilities. This had a major influence on my view of the work I had done, and after years of traveling around the world the mini had come apart and needed to be repaired. so I started by replacing the doors. Having been around large aircraft hangars I could tell the doors just weren't right, so I used some card stock and changed them out for sliding doors instead of over head garage doors. Look at the hangars on your local airport next time you're there. The only place that uses massive vertical doors are Rocket processing type facilities(See the Vehicle Assembly Building in Florida) and these are designed quite different from garage doors.
I also changed the paint job. Most government facilities are painted some generic version of Baige, Brown, Tan, and typically use "Dark Bronze" as the trim. I used Tan for the main color with brown for the trim, touched up the windows to help with the look(only 6 on the whole building) and sorted out some of the other clean up work that was needed originally. (You can see the original door color in this pic. Silver with a coat of blue over it. Hand painted the numbers, although I'm sure you can tell, anyone know of a company that makes REALLY small stencils?)
At this point I was done, or so I thought. I decided I needed to do more with this after looking at a few of the projects on this site and building out the interior of one of the bays seemed like a good idea. I have no 3D printer(so wish I did) so hand building was the order of the day. Plasticard and reference pictures in place I started building out one of the interiors. I was heavily influenced by the interior of NASA's VAB, but also from working on large steel structures I knew the building needed some interior structure. Square stock for beams, round stock for the cross supports, flat stock for doors, I even made a bridge crane and some exhaust fans. I cut some of the square, and round stock to make barrels and crates. Added a control room to the top(cant see it behind the crane) for the crane operator. I built out the interior on plasticard so that I could remove it to work on then install it back when done.(The mech comes in later.)
I enjoyed the look so much I decided that I wanted to build out another one of the hangars! In the end I built out 3 of the 4, the middle one much less detailed due to the door being mostly closed.
I also added in the bottom panel to give the building a floor. Informed by my experience in Military and government buildings I painted out the floor with some hazard yellow, built an extremely simplified turn table because in my mind if your maneuvering a multi-ton mech into a hangar you don't necessarily want them turning around in that confined space(Head cannon). Well now I needed a base, picked up a cheep wood one from Hobby Lobby.
I used plasticard again to build out concrete/tarmac for roads and maneuver areas. I decided that the back looked too plain with just a pair of closed doors and cut one out doing a very basic build out for something to look at. I used a mix of concrete dust and modpodge for landscaping. After seeing a few projects that incorporated LED's i thought that it added a nice touch, and happened to have some on hand so I lit the interior of the hangars and the garage around the back. With all of this done the interior was looking a little empty, so I felt a static mech being worked on would be a nice touch. I had an old Flea sitting around so simple paint job and a missing arm being repaired made it a little more dynamic. IGMakes a 3D print shop on Etsy had some nice touches, with small construction workers in 6mm scale, so I added some techs working on the mech.
Painted up some heavy string to make it look like temporary power cables and added it to the mech to help with the being worked on look. Heavy cabling is difficult to model as cables like that drop straight before they go in a direction, but I think I made it work pretty well.
I added in some water slide decals near the garage entrance at the back, some bollards to protect building corners as you'd find in any heavy industrial area.
Green flocking, more paint, some ink wash a few trees to add a little more to the look and I have a product I'm at least happy with.
If I had it to do over, I would definitely change some of the work I did. First I would have disassembled the hangar and sanded everything down. It is a 20+ year old resin model and the art wasn't really perfected back then. Sanding the sides down as well as the tops and bottoms to make everything perfectly flat and matching would have helped with assembly. I would also do paint work with an airbrush to help add better detail. In a dream world for the interior I would have designed a 3D file and had it printed to get some top notch detail out of it(I'm not really happy with the railings cut from plasticard) I would cut out all 4 of the garage doors and design my own out of card or 3D print simply because it would look better. It also would have helped with the interior having that opening cross over. I also would have used some of the thicker Plasticard for the rotating platform to give it more definition. I also would have planed for the lighting from the start and pre cut the routes for the wires. It was hard to retrofit everything, but still worth it as the lighting really does add something. I think I would have cut out the little windows as well to have the light come through for an added effect. Ultimately thought I love the final product, and I think it'll make a great background piece for future pictures I take. Let me know what you think.
P.S. I might actually buy another one of these(yup they are still out there for sale) and attempt to make the ultimate version that I describe above. I think on a second go around a lot of what I learned from this one would really make a nicely refined product.
