Trash Bash Bits Pringles Competition

Last month I entered the Trash Bash Bits Facebook Group page's competition build. The task was to create something on the theme of "Defender" using a Pringles tube plus whatever trash bits you could add. This is what I made:

And this is what I made it from:

In addition to the Pringles tube, you can see a variety of pens for the gun, a CD for the base, fabric conditioner lid and yoghurt lids for the top of the turret, circuit board for the circuit board, bits of Lego, sprue and bits from an old computer for the interior and details, some lids (superglue and drink bottle) for the power generator and a contact lens case for the hatch. And some Plasticard/rods for decoration. 

As always with these kind of builds, the problem solving aspects of the task are what excite me. For example, below you can see me breaking up the surface of the tube with some incisions to represent panels and then using the small balls from a water softener embedded into pre-drilled holes for the rivets. Other plastic shapes and strips were added to create extra visual interest:

The next challenge was to keep the tower firmly based. The plastic yoghurt lid which was the perfect circumference for the size of the Pringles tube was too flimsy to support the structure. So I filled it with some resin!

The fit of the fabric conditioner lid was slightly too tight, but I managed to find another yoghurt lid that was perfect and when combined together in fact meant that I was able to retain the screw mechanism of the conditioner lid so that the turret could actually rotate. The gun was made by stacking lots of different diameter of pen lid together to create the effect of a multi layered extending gun:

From the outset I decided that i wanted to be able to see the interior of the tower too as this gave me an opportunity to use further bits of trash to make some internal computers and power generators etc. I like the idea that the exterior circuit board had been blown and that the doors had been forced open to reveal the inner workings. This involved making some steps from textured Plasticard and some computer terminals from a wire lighting connector and some old computer components

Here you can see the completed build:

The easy bit was the painting. The model was primed grey and then a series of dark washes were applied to create shadow around and in the details. The second series of acrylic washes were with a range of diluted red/browns applied in a vertical streak fashion and finally some very dilute green washes to complete the weathering effect.

The last aspect of the competition was to create a backstory and take some atmospheric photographs to accompany the narrative:

Abdul Goldberg spotted the derelict defense tower first across the debris strewn desert that is Helsreach. "That's our target" he pointed for the benefit of the gang. Nikosai inspected the rusted door system and quickly hot-wired the circuit board and with the help of the Pursuader, managed to prise open the doors. "We get this gun functional, the turret still works but we find some ammo and set up camp here. This is from where we dominate, a good mile range, before enforcement get here. I reckon we have 48 hours. Let's get it done" said Abdul.

And amazingly I was lucky enough to win the competition against some really stellar entries and was further privileged to receive some wonderful goodies for some future builds: