The Keep of Decay (Terrain)

A little while back I watched a Netflix movie 'The Gods of Egypt'. It wasn't particularly memorable, but towards the end I did notice some to the CGI architecture - lots of Egyptian-inspired stuff, the likes of which I still remember when I was there with my family many, many years ago. It got me thinking - having a game board that was set above the table, was good fun back when I was doing such things a few years back, so... why not? I got our my pencils and sketched up this concept: 

So that was easy enough: a 6x12-inch base containing a wall section that is 6x3-inches. That could make for a variety of configurations and just be a fun project to smash out. Fortunately I had plenty of honeycomb cardboard on account of a recent Ikea purchase, so I had plenty of raw materials on hand. I especially liked using the honeycomb cardboard during recent years, so that was settled. To work!

Firstly I created two large blocks of honeycomb cardboard, simply by layering it up, sticking it together with slightly watered down PVA (it's more economical that way, and it didn't need to be super tough anyway). Once it is dry, it's that tough you can take a handsaw to it!

So that's what I did :-) I cut myself a simply template, mainly to get the angles relatively consistent then took out my timber saw and sliced the blocks up. It was actually harder work than I had anticipated.

Each section consisted of three bits - I simply stuck some long wooden skewers through the sides to stick the bits together. Here's what they look like:

Yeah, they're quite tall - something like 10 inches to the tops, but the wall was about 6 inches high. I ended up assembling 4 such sections over the course of an afternoon.

That's as far as I got over the course of the weekend. So what's next? Provided I don't lose my drive, I'm going to make a plate or two to fit over the ramparts: one 12x12 plate which would sit on top if the four bases were arrange in a square on the table, and a longer, maybe 6-inch wide version that could slot in and act as something of a roadway. It occurred to me that it could make for a rather large, unwieldy, but glorious dungeon crawler-type affair as well! Only once I'm satisfied with the large pieces will I work on the cardboard with plaster, texture etc - much like the techniques I've used for some of my other Zone Carboardis creations (like this one). The end result could, if nothing else, make for quite a cool backdrop for future photos and my miniature display cabinet.