Tanks on the Moon

 

Tanks on the Moon?  Well, maybe tanks on a moon.  That can't possibly be our Moon with that color.

So, with a little bit of time on my hands I've decided to commit to getting a full table of terrain to go with my little future tanks, which include both my scratchbuilds shown here and commercial armor from the old Future Wars line.

At first I was going to do a terrestrial city board but then decided to do a moonscape instead, figuring it'd be quicker to build and really punctuate the sci-fi theme.

I made the big rocky outcropping piece above as a test piece.  We had some leftover "Lemongrass" house-paint from when we first moved in (8+ years ago) so I tried that out with a tiny bit of black craft paint added.  A quick ink wash left the terrain piece with a decidedly greenish tint.  I may repaint with a more gray-brown tone but as of right now I'm sticking with this shade.  As I said, the terrain represents some arbitrary cratered planetoid and not Luna.

I chose the moonscape option because it also allows me to make "futuristic" buildings, i.e. it frees me from having to make buildings that accurately replicate Main Street in one's hometown.  

Tank is 33mm long for scale

Food packaging, combined with a few techniques from sci-fi model building, like thin plastic panel add-ons and weathering, make suitable lunar outpost structures.  The greeblies and nurnies on this example Administration Building generally came from my bits box, except the rooftop machinery, which I sculpted, molded, and cast.

The building's red color was borne out of necessity.  I bought a defective can of white spray paint and totally ruined another building, as shown in the before-and-after shots below.  I knew the red spray can worked well so I just went with it.  Who knows, maybe the buildings are painted high-visibility to be spotted from space.  

I hate painting terrain.

Before: Color OK but clogged airbrush

After: Thanks Rust-o-leum