Yakult Terrain (Part II)

A few weeks back I created my first collection of Yakult container terrain elements - some sort of storage tanks, silos or what not.  Well my family hasn't given up the probiotic goodness just yet, so rather letting good 'things' languish in the landfill, I've been hoarding them for a rainy day.  Rainy days are something of a rarity in these parts; so instead I made the most of the sunshine and 40-degree days (yes, 40-degrees - even breathing can be uncomfortable) and bashed together another few stands.

There's a terrain creating competition presently happening on one of the Facebook Groups of which I'm a member - purely a 'glory only' type affair, nothing more than bragging rights.  I might enter this lot into the same whilst I work on some other little gems... maybe some clever dioramas are in order...

Yep, you might recognise Inquisitor Tylo Haariginer of Ordo Xenos in the above shots - all going to plan, he'll be looking into exactly what is being stored in the suspiciously red-coloured silos in the underhive...

All the elements together

All the silos are roughly the same height at about 3.5 inches and share a common topside, circular feature - thanks to the poker chips I found last year (they're still going strong!).  There's some variation in the number of tanks used, the inclusion of some pipes etc, all sourced from bits and bobs I've salvaged of the years.  The silos aren't solely Yakult either, no there's two Extra Chewing Gum bottles and even an old pill bottle from the Chemist.  I've also included the odd ladder and even some ooze (glue gun mistake!) that came out a rather wonderfully disgusting colour to boot.

Love the ooze - the colour is a lot more vivid in real life

I also made six walkways allowing the silos to be traversed.  Originally I was going to copy a previous design of mine that involved wrapping and gluing a U shaped piece of wire mesh to a length of acrylic.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough wire mesh on hand, so instead I tried something a little different: cutting a piece of stronger, thicker fencing mesh then inserting it into holes I had drilled into the acrylic.  Not only was it a lot easier to do, I was quite surprised by the result, so I may well make a few more for our Sectorum Ludus Bellorum collaborative project - we can always do with some more walkways.

The walkways are a uniform 5x5 by 1.5 inches.  I've got some more lengths of
acrylic in the shed, so I may make some additional pieces.

Painting wasn't too involved.  I undercoated most of the items in Cherry Red.  Then I grabbed my cheapo Aldi airbrush and loaded it with cheapo Aldi airbrush black paint - I just sprayed them blacker and blacker until they looked suitably dirty.  A drybrush with some cheapo silver paint (seriously, my kids refused to paint with the stuff, so it had been sitting in my shed for years) gave the items a little more definition and I finished off with some hexagon shapes in yellow - I've a little piece of metal that's quite malleable - it's simply a case of bending it into a suitable shape, holding it flush against the model and giving it a puff or three with (you guessed it) cheapo airbrush + yellow paint.

I sealed everything using a matt acrylic varnish (not Aldi, from Bunnings I think) that does a reasonable job - not quite up to Testors but for the price, quite acceptable and should keep them from wearing too quickly.

You can see the yellow hex stencil quite clearly in this shot

Here's a example of how the whole kit can look together - might be just right for some Rogue Planet shenanigans later this week!

My mate Brendan has a rather versatile Kill Team set-up, which provided me with at least part of my inspiration.   Similar to Brendan's kit, this whole collection packs away into a single storage crate making for a tidy addition to my sprawling collection of homemade terrain.

This weekend's haul + the five silos I made a few weeks back.
And there's still a bit of room for some more - lovely!

If you're interested in seeing more shots, including a few* work-in-progress 'in the moment' photos, you're more than welcome to check out my Yakult Terrain Album.

*I tend to concentrate on the act of creation with little regard to recording my work...  the Earth would have taken a lot longer if God was trying to take pictures with a mobile phone during Creation 😉

PS I actually did something of a spring clean today and tossed a lot of the stuff that was looking tatty or hadn't seen the light of day for a good long while.  Gulp. It is like saying goodbye to old friends.