Repurposing stuff

 Oh, August has almost gone by, time flies, I guess. I've done very little actual progress on any hobby front (real life meddled in everything, you know), but haven't been totally idle. There was a thing I had thought of quite some time ago, and at last it was time to go for it.

It has to do with my vertical board project, the mining town of Qala Debdou. I thought it needed quite a few landing pads. I can't build a huge spaceport (that would be a whole board itself!), but I could add some small pads here and there. Then I came with this crazy idea:

We need to recap a few years in time. We need to go back to my oooold diorama of the Sammath Naur. There's a slight chance you don't remember, but that's what links are for! I posted it in 2013 and actually build it a few years earlier. Again, time flies.

Tiny and naive, but cute anyways XD

 I've kept this diorama for ages on my shelf, and last year, when I "finished" (ahem) the lower module of the Qala Debdou board, I had a flash in my mind and envisioned it.

I was there, Gandalf, 3,000 years ago, when he started that board...

 The end of that walkway, the top of that rock, could be a perfect vantage point to set a landing pad on. The old diorama had fulfilled it's purpose for about 15 years, it was time to give it another life.

So here are the main elements: 

The walkway, stripped of its background and already spray painted

A round piece of eva rubber

This belonged to an old eva rubber carpet from the Suberlings' room, long time gone. One man's My own trash is my own treasure. Its texture looked nice and I had kept it for something like this for a few years. Unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of the "before". You can see I have already added some landing lights and it's more or less ready to be used.

I could have filled in the space for the bases in the diorama, but I feared the result didn't feel right, so I added some kind of strange cover with cables dropping from it. Besides, to avoid the whole base being just plain, I added... well, I don't know its purpose, but I had to add some bulky stuff:

Yes, I have an endless stash of Kinder Surprise eggs. Incredibly versatile

Cables better than tentacles, I hope

You can see it's enormously basic. From this point on, it all was just a matter of adding tiny details, such as the ubiquitous posters, some weathering and a couple of hanging cables:

Oh, and the stairs, right, you'll see soon why

Greenstuff cables from the landing pad to the Kinder eggs. Some kind of... coolant?

This is the result when in place!

Small landing pad granting access to the town

Fragile, ill-designed... all I could wish for!

It's a little bigger than the other platform I already had (which ony allows for the Arvus Lighter to land on!), so I can use slightly larger ships:

This is the weight test! Fortunately, it seems to hold enough

A few miniatures for scale reference

So this is the current iteration of the finished lower module of Qala Debdou:

Could I still add another platform there in the center...?

Bonus content!

I've used the Ornithopter to test the landing pad precisely because I've been putting some work on it recently. I guess it wasn't enough for a whole blog post, but this gives me the chance to show it anyway!

I had an issue with the wings, they made it really (really) difficult to storage, so I had to magnet them. To my surprise, these commecial neodymium magnets are way more fragile than I expected. I had some large (yet thin) ones. I wasn't planning to use them, as they were way too large, but one of them broke by accident and then I had two halves... which fitted in perfectly! Then I delicately broke three other magnets and...

You can see the ugly, broken magnets there on the hull and under the wings

They work surprisingly well!

Now I can storage the Ornithopter, and thanks to a happy accident, as Bob Ross would have said :D

Then... this is it for today... No!!

Even more bonus content!! 

Another piece of scenery I had been keeping for years is this wonderful, sweet, gorgeous kit:

Ha! Unexpected, right?

It comes from the Dust 1947 game (you remember it?), it's called the Babylon Lammasu Pillar, in case you are interested in looking for it.

Pretty straightforward work: Spray painting, agrax and highlights, that's all:

I could build a whole board with stuff like this

Detachable, but I think it looks more impressive when assembled

Look at the size of this thing

Now this is finally it. You see, some small works here and there, but they look like something when put together.

Oh, yes, you are right, I have unpacked the whole Qala Debdou board out of the cupboard again. How observant of you. Plans, you say? Oh, no, we don't do that here. "Plans" is quite a strong word...

But you can expect to see some stuff  anytime soon...