After Easter: Plastic Egg Sci-Fi Scatter Terrain

I ended up with a significant number of plastic eggs this past Easter.

Lacking ideas of my own, I posed the question of "how can I use these for tabletop gaming terrain" in various places online. There were plenty of helpful suggestions and I'll be exploring those ideas for as long as the supply of plastic eggs holds out. I'm grateful to everybody who took the time to reply.

Needing a quick and easy project to get back into the swing of things, I picked out one that came with a detailed build guide. Dice Mechanic Games has a comprehensive "Micro Reactor" tutorial on their website. The tutorial includes needed tools and materials in addition to build instructions. One thing that's not clear at first glance is that this build requires plastic eggs that are a bit on the small side.

Rosie scores more salvage.

Construction

The basic idea is to glue an egg half on top of a plastic bottle cap. Handling the egg halves can get tricky - the plastic is prone to cracking, but I avoided breaking either of them. This uncomplicated process results in an interesting shape that can be enhanced with any greeblies that might be on hand. I ended up playing around a little to see what techniques I could carry forward to future projects.

I might have overdone the wires, but it's good practice.

The blue one is an experiment in using short lengths of salvaged electrical wire to represent cables or hoses. The wires were added after priming and painting. The terminals and connectors are plastics beads from the craft store. It is a good way to add mechanical complexity to a model by connecting various parts.

To be honest, I'm not sure which is the front and back on this model.

I attached a few stickers to what would become the red one to represent after market panels covering up improvised "improvements" and repairs. Looking at it now, the panels seem too uniform to be convincing, but the idea works well enough. If I were to build something of more ramshackle construction, I might go for covering much of it with overlapping stickers.

The "hat" on top of the red one is the plastic valve from a bag of coffee. Here's a short video on how I wrestled it out:

Priming and Painting

I spray primed both pieces with some black Krylon from a can that I'm trying to finish off. That got followed up with some Tamiya Surface Primer (L) in gray, sprayed in a zenithal pattern from the top. Masking off the sections that would later be painted metallic, I reached for a couple more cans of Krylon I was trying to use up. The blue is Krylon ColorMaster Paint + Primer Satin Iris and the red is the same brand in Matte Poppy Red.

Don't let the name fool you - this stuff comes in all kinds of colors.

The metallic sections offered me a chance to try out something new to me. FolkArt Treasure Gold came to my attention thanks to one of the many hobby YouTubers I follow. I brushed a coat of 5554 Antique Silver over the black primer, being careful to leave some black showing in the recesses. A little 5552 Platinum worked well as a highlight layer on the metallic areas. I also brushed on both metallic paints on various places to simulate scratches and other wear.

FolkArt Treasure Gold, despite the name, comes in a variety of colors. It works well for dry brushing and similar techniques, but seems a little thick for using as a base coat. I'll have to use it some more to get a better feel for how to use the stuff.

The pieces still looked too pristine. This called for a coat of wash. I mixed up some Liquitex Matte Medium, Liquitex Soft Body Payne's Grey, and water. Despite wiping off the excess, I still spotted some pooling when I took a look at the photos I shot for this post. It's one of the dangers of photographing miniatures - every flaw becomes obvious after clicking on the photo and seeing on the screen.

"The energizer's bypassed like a Christmas tree, so don't give me too many bumps."

Wrapping Up

This was a great little project to get me back into the hobby after an involuntary break. These will make good scatter terrain for my next sci-fi game. No idea what kind of machinery they're supposed to represent, though.