I apologize for the lack of frequent posts but this time there was a good reason, I had to work in secrecy on this. Now that the contest is done (and I placed 2nd!) I can share it with you all also big congrats to Asslessman over at Leadplague for his well earned firstplace entry!

I’ve never been one to pass up a challenge and have always loved kitbashing from whatever I had on hand, so when I found out Brian Roe from Roebeast’s magical house of sunshine was organizing a new edition of the Trash Bash competition I had to jump into gear. It was a bit late when I discovered it, I only had a couple weeks, but few things are as motivating as a deadline…

I knew it was going to be 28mm to fit with the rest of my miniatures and I already had a crew in mind.

The first step was to gather parts. Fortunately I always keep a stockpile of bits so all I really needed was to make sure I had enough medicine packages to fit in with the competition. I gathered all of mine, my wife contributed a bunch more and my mom even had a bag of empty bottles to kick in. Soon I was well-stocked and ready to build, so I laid out all the gathered material and laid it out on the workbench.

I began brainstorming by blocking out a shape, just getting a feel for scale with a few prescription bottles, a multipack toothbrush package, some half round  ikea hardware parts, and a few random model kit bits. I was really liking the clear canopy from the toothbrush holder, and the idea of twin side pods, a bit like the Serenity from Firefly.

Looking at the canopy I realized I wanted a free-floating pilot’s chair, and   I rescued an abandoned deffkopta body I’d started many years back from some city parts and an old epic stompa which seemed to fit the bill nicely. I considered looked at adding battleship parts to detail it, but ultimately decided againsed it,

Next I worked out the main mass around a plate from a Matrix toy, TIE interceptor wings, traintrack struts,  hatches from a broken German tank kit, and some pill blisters. also in frame a couple possible ‘grav tanks’ and a spice harvester, at this stage everything could have been something and I needed to start to focus.

Wasn’t quite feeling the main fuselage yet so I rearranged the parts, putting the Matrix toy part on the bottom as a frame and a birthcontrol package for the top, starting to see the main body as a box rather than a tube. I cut the tank plate with the hatches in half for the sides and started thinking about details in the engines. I swapped out the two engine pods for smaller medicine bottle engines and moved the bigger ones out using the TIE wings to nest the side pods;

Starting to think of the side nacelles as smaller craft themselves, like escape pods, I also roughed out another single man scavenger craft from three pill bottles, a toy animal skull and some Lego parts. Since I wasn’t sure if the big build would be finished in time at least I could have something done, so I warmed up the glue gun and started tacking stuff together!

Now the parts were coming together. All the stuff was becoming a thing and I could pick it up and look at other angles. I dropped the back of the toothbrush package off in favor of the boxy opening and started thinking it might still be possible to have an interios space after all! Two birthcontrol boxes made for good interior decking.

The escape shuttles needed a bit of love so they got some textured plates some lego worky tail bits and an indication of where the airlock attaches and disconnects;

For a bit of play-ability I magnetized the roof, so it could open and reveal the interior and  made the side escape pods removable with magnets from cabinet doors. I made the back cargo bay sliding pocket door from a birthcontrol pill box some granny grate and foamcore.

Now I had the main shape all constructed, and I was pretty excited about the features!

Once the shapes were there it was just a matter of filling gaps and greebling; platformer and chemplant sprues, some tank wheels and tread, a hinged part off a transformer toy, and a some foamcore.

I waffled about the skull quite a bit all the way up until painting, when I decided it was just too ‘feral’ and not non-com enough for the story I wanted to tell. I couldn’t keep my hands off of this at this point.

Once again, the deadline looming, I knew I could keep detailing, cleaning and playing, but I had to call it. So I brought it down to my backdrow and shot some unpainted pics;

It was hard for me to move past the priming. Theres this thing that happens with the first coat of primer, when everything becomes unified and anything else I did to it would be a distraction…

It also took awhile to settle on a paint scheme. Again the deadline pushing me, I decided for a dirty white, and construction yellow. I set up the airbrush, got a big ball of silly putty to mask with and set to work;

In hind sight I maybe should have stopped painting it there, but I have some weathering powders from Secretweapon minis and just couldn’t resist…

And here are the finished pics! I was proud of myself for the little red/white caution markings, made from glued in place strips of paper with stripes painted on before attaching.

Did you really read this whole thing! wow, thanks!