An armoured sci-fi watchtower


The next piece I created for my camp was an armoured watchtower. I decided to go for a high-tech look for my viridian scenery, based of hexagons and with angled walls and such. I made a few sketches and finally made some templates of all the parts I needed.

The templates for the tower can be found here. Feel free to build you own towers following this tutorial or use it as inspiration to come up with your own ideas.

Skin- Step 1 Step 1:

Here you can see all materials that are needed for the basic tower: A base made out of plywood, a piece of mosquito net, two metal sliders from 3.5" floppy discs, pieces of a toothpick and various pieces cut out of cardboard of various thickness (1.2 mm for the white/black stuff, the thin type that e.g. breakfast cereal boxes are made of for the grey pieces). Additionally you will need some tape, white glue, premixed wood-repair putty (or something alike), scissors, a sharp hobby knife, sandpaper, some wooden sticks (e.g. the stuff you get in fast-food restaurants to stir your coffee), basing materials (sand, lichen, static grass, etc.) and some air-drying modelling clay.
Skin- Step 2 Step 2:

I began the construction with the six pieces of the main tower. I cut slightly into each of the pieces where it starts to get wider and then fold them to an angle. Next I used some tape of the inside to glue the pieces together. In the end they formed a hexagonal tower which got wider towards the base. I again used some tape to cover the gaps between the individual pieces on the outside of the tower. The use of tape here creates some nicely rounded edges.
Skin- Step 3 Step 3:

Onto this basic tower I then glued the additional armour plates and the door made out of thin cardboard.
Skin- Step 4 Step 4:

The armoured walls on the side were made out of two pieces of thick cardboard and one of the metal sliders each. I glued the tower and the side walls into place on the wooden base using white glue. The use of the metal sliders was because I entered this tower into a terrain competition where one had to use at least parts of a 3.5" floppy disc but they have the additional effect that the edges of the side walls become much stronger and resistant. I used a piece from a toothpick to create the hinge of the door.
Skin- Step 5 Step 5:

Next was the top platform of the tower. This is a pretty complex piece but making it out of one piece of cardboard makes it much stronger. I glued the piece of mosquito net onto the middle of the platform to create a texture like corrugated metal on the floor. A piece of thin cardboard was used as a trapdoor, again with a hinge made out of a piece of a toothpick.
Skin- Step 6 Step 6:

I bent the sides of the platform upwards and fixed them on the top walls using clear tape.
Skin- Step 7 Step 7:

The platform was then placed on the main tower using white glue. I used some wooden sticks to create two small platforms on each of the side walls so that models can easily fire through the openings in the walls.
Skin- Step 8 Step 8:

I used some premixed wood-repair putty to cover the base and fill all gaps on the top platform. When the putty had set on the platform I smoothed it down with some fine sandpaper. A piece out of my bitz box (actually the top of a battery from GWs heavy weapons team for 40K) made a perfect electronic lock for the door. After all has dried thoroughly I used some dark-olive spray paint to base the tower.
Skin- Step 9 Step 9:

I then painted the tower using my main camo pattern and finally sealed it with two layers of gloss varnish and a final layer of matte varnish. I then decided that it still lacks something special so I made some sandbags out of air-drying modelling clay and added those to the top platform.
Skin- Step 10 Step 10:

Not totally satisfied I added a roof made out of corrugated cardboard which is removable so that minis can be easily placed on the top platform.






 
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