Spring of Scenery 2021 - Part 4: Storage containers

Storage conainers are always handy bits of scenery to have, they block line-of-sight and can sometimes be useful as objectives for a scenario.  These are MDF, from the now sadly defunct Mad Mecha Guy, and have doors you can glue open or closed.  Quite a few of mine are painted in Interstellar Mining & Extraction Consortium livery but these ones I've done in a more generic blue colour.

Wilko emusion tester pots were used, the basic blue was quite strong but a splash of white mixed in toned it down nicely.  A light drybrush of desert sand gives a suitably dusty, used finish

 

Storage Container

Yet another item which was dug out of my old toy box while on holiday was this old Matchbox Container lorry. Although the lorry clearly isn't 15mm scale, the container itself is another matter...

Here is another view of the container. With the labels removed, you can see it has discoloured with age! There are a couple of small holes underneath which fit over metal pegs moulded as part of the lorry chassis, thus holding it in place. Incidentally, somewhere else in the toy box must be my old Matchbox forklift truck. The designers cunningly planned it so that the forklift spoons fit precisely into the lifting points on the container, allowing you to unload it using the raising/tilting forks.

Basic preparation consisted of a wipe with white spirit to remove any remaining marks from the sticky labels on the sides, followed by a quick sand with fine-grade wet & dry. After a scrub with warm soapy water & a toothbrush it was ready for painting, in this case using Inscribe acrylics. I originally painted a base coat of "Forest Green", but for some reason this just didn't look right. I re-coated it with a 50/50 mix of "Raven" black and "Ultramarine" blue, and drybrushed several successive layers, each with slightly more "Snow" white added. I'm much more pleased with this weathered effect.

The bare metal locking bars were painted with a 50/50 mix of Humbrol acrylic 64 light grey and 32 dark grey, with a slight 64 light grey highlight. I decided to go for this dull grey colour rather than a metallic finish because most containers you see are pretty weather-beaten, with no real shine on any of the bare metal parts. As you can see, the doors open, giving added play value!

Rust was added by carefully painting watered-down "Burnt Umber" brown along the base of the container and in the recessed areas on the roof, where water might gather. Extra paint was added around the fork-lift points where damage might occur, and a gentle drybrush around some of the corners/edges added some extra wear. All the rusty areas were finished off with a little "Burnt Sienna" orange, just to bring out the areas where the most recent oxidisation would have occurred.