What to do with hotel key cards...scatter terrain

You are back from your latest road trip to the gaming convention, be it AdeptiCon or NOVA Open or GenCon and you have a couple of those little hotel room key cards still in your pocket. Well you could throw them away...or you could upcycle them into bases for scatter terrain.

Living in Florida, I thought the first thing that I should put together is something with an orange tree. The basic requirements are a hotel key card, some Alene's tacky glue, Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement, Woodland Scenics Blended Turf, and a Woodland Scenics Woodland Classics Orange Tree (N, HO, O Scale).

The process is pretty straight forward and this little project should not take too long to complete. Start by locating your tree. Depending on the size of the tree that you use, you can get one to three trees on a card. I started with an easy piece for the first go and selected a solitary orange tree. Glue the tree base into the desired location and let dry completely. I didn't scratch off the surface of the key card, but may in my next go to see if the adhesion increases. I did leave the tree together when selecting the placement since it is a good guide to see the canopy of the tree.

Once set, I watered down some of the scenic cement with water to make a spray adhesive. Remove the tree from the tree base for this part. Spray the entirety of the card with the watered down scenic cement. When covered well, you will then sprinkle on the blended turf. I used newspaper as my work surface so that I could recover any turf that did not adhere to limit any loss.

After the first layer is added and had some time to dry, shake off the excess onto the news paper. Now repeat the process for additional layers. I ended up with four applications of spray cement and turf to get to the coverage and thickness that I though necessary. Once you have the coverage that you desire, apply at least one more coat of the watered down scenic cement to the surface and reattach the tree. With play, you will get additional loss but reapplication of the blended turf is quick and easy.

A cozy place to lay your head...

Retro Chic 80's Hardwood Sofa

Too clean for the wasteland

This is a quick post of a sofa that was inspired by the great Jessica Rich who showed the basement of her camper in some online game. That basement is 80's themed and had a great hardwood sided sofa within it. It reminded me of one that we had when I was a kid. Hated that thing, uncomfortable and we'd run into it constantly. Terrible idea for furniture.

Well, it seemed only appropriate that a big dangerous hunk of wood furniture would survive everything and show up in your neighborhood wasteland setting for This Is Not a Test. So here is my take on that offensive (read that both ways) furniture.

The wood is painted up with the Delta Creative Ceramcoat Drk Burnt Umber with a wash of Citadel Devlan Mud and Vallejo Model Wash Brown. The cushions are painted with Reaper MSP HD Tusk Ivory and washed with Devlan Mud, Vallejo Model Wash Tierra European Dust, and Game Color Flesh Wash. Some stops were also hit with Reaper MSP HD Maiden Flesh.

Archie's Big Comfortable Chair

 While this isn't the real model of Archie Bunker's chair, that had a bunch of plaid I believe. One of the 2018 Painting Bingo Challenge for Model's Workshop is to "Find a reference picture and try to copy it for a mini". So I started doing some searching for chairs and then wanted to follow that up for a wasteland chair. I found an image and copied the look of this oversized chair (don't worry this is not an entry for the bingo, just an inspiration). Then I started to add wear marks on the chair, with the idea that this was well worn and somehow didn't catch fire in the fallout.

The chair is painted up with a base of Vallejo Model Color Flat Blue with some depth added using Citadel Enchanted Blue. The wear coloring is a combination of Model Color Grey Blue and Vallejo Game Color Glacier Blue.

Now these are far too large for any of the wasteland shacks, but as a scatter piece they are fun and potentially moveable in the wasteland. Perhaps some quick rules are necessary for release.

Modeler

For anyone following the Geek in the Basement blog, then you know the power of converting trash to treasures. Both of these piece, though sculpted originals, came from the great mind you may know as Geeky McBasement. This is a wonderful little set of scatter terrain that will work perfectly in the wastes. 

Here is a shot of the couch (for scale) with the Bombshell Wasteland Melee that I received and posted about before.