When your buddy has a 3D printer...

So a buddy of mine I met through wargaming and have been friends with for decades now, got seriously into 3D printing. The benefit for me? I don't need to worry about it. I can just place an order with him. Then one day he was telling me about some prints that failed. I said "oh save them for me!"... and so we come to this:

Garbage? No a wonderful pile of junk to hide behind!

A wonderful pile of junk to wargame around!

One of the Scifi settings I always found most interesting was a good crashed starship or just a straight junk world. Think where we first find Rey in the Force Awakens; or the planet Thor ends up on in Ragnarok. It works well on a battlefield and can have all sorts of setups. Paint it right and it can also serve as wreckage inside a space hulk or in the depths of Space Station Zero. 

Just filling in the gaps to make it look a bit more hap-hazard.

The build was simple.. just glue a whole bunch of stuff onto an MDF base. Most of the pieces you see are angled because of the printing failures. I used that strategically. Then I glued down some plastic mesh I had recovered from a broken screen to look like floor grating. Then I filled up the holes with all sorts of bits: A glue cap, a couple of wire nuts, pieces of broken MDF, bits of sprue, and some old wiring. I finished off the base with some sand in the areas that didn't have grating. 

Somewhere in the drybrushing stages.

Painting wise I went with a black base from a spray can. Hit it with spots of red spraypaint; and finished up with a zenithal highlight in light grey. Then all sorts of colors. Drybrushing of metallics, washed it all in nuln oil, hit some metallics in a couple of contrast colors. I didn't hit the big shell in the middle with anything but a drybrush of white. Then I did a blue contrast followed by a highlight of a lighter blue. I also painted the wires in red and green. (I know green is traditionally a ground; but it worked well so I stuck with it.)

Before the rust effect.

For weathering I just hit spots with some brown contrast colors. I followed some of that up with Army Painter's Rust effects paint. I also have a pot of gloss Biel Tan green wash, so I used that in spots on the floor as though some liquids seeped out. Finally, I finished the sand off with layers of grey drybrushing. 

Rust and leaky liquid stage.

I love it. In fact my buddy just brought over some more miss-prints, so I'm already planning out my next build. Here's some more shots of the completed piece:

Starsearcher and crew hide behind some wreckage while exploring an old Space Station.