Harriet's Triumph #3 / The Base /

The idea how to use figure of Harriet was pretty clear from very beginning, even with few options, but what kind of base to build to fit her and her Triumph was a mystery. At least until I started painting the figure... Airfix magazine came inspirational as well, especially Simca 5 Staff Car building report from latest issue. I've decided to try following tips from that article and built my base to suit my needs, but with general idea remaining the same. After few trials the idea evolved, from very simple base/car/figure set-up to little scene with 3 characters.

Before starting building base, main idea has been tried, re-tried, re-planned until I reached desired result. Base is a simple, dusty, sand covered road. I thought it would be better not to leave Harriet alone, here Tamiya Military Police Set came handy as well as Warhammer spare bits box. Two additional characters were picked and added to the scene filling up many gaps -  the dog - Dogmeat (name of the dog from Mad Max & Fallout series) and The Rat. 

Story of this scene comes down to upcoming fight between Dogmeat and Rat protecting his water source. Harriet stops in the middle of the road to replenish her supply from nearby water take, but rather hostile rat protects it. Will it end on the silver platter or will rat escape his demise into nearby drain? 

At first I wanted it to be quick dinner hunt (Dogmeat hunting rat off the rocks), reading Airfix article mentioned above changed my mind, so simple water take was quickly sorted out. As base I initially used thick card, but it proved to be far to flexible, application of PVA glue for texturing caused rippling. Plastic sheet from GW's modular movement tray was used instead.

Water source was assembled out of leftover bits from cut down barrels (for spare fuel drum in the boot), the tap has been taken out from Tamiya Sdkfz 222 kit, tied up with wire to supporting pole and fixed to the pavement (built from GW's modular tray edging with textured plastic sheet on top). When main component of the base was permanently fixed to base, road section received application of PVA glue with sand coat following. When dry, all was basecoated with white. For painting sand I used several paints from old/new Citadel range, few washes, as well as Humbrol weathering powders applied with airbrush, blowing paint off wide brush at random.