Arenas (2)

Gateway without the stickers.

The first thing I noticed when my Playmobil arena arrived, was the size of it!
It really is a very large model and I would need a baseboard to mount it on which was eventually sourced by my #2 son from a piece of scrap wood that he kindly donated to the cause and he also chamferred  the edges.

Facade with the holes now covered.

There are eight pieces of identical walls, one main gateway and two 'seating' areas that make up the whole, all with their own quirks and problems (such as the various cavities left from the molding process).
The main entrance also had some slight damage to the gate , which was left as it didn't detract from the overall appearance.

I cut and shaped some thin pieces of plastic card to fit over the holes of the facade and added a couple more solely for decoration as can be seen in the photograph above.

Wall pieces showing the join and the recessed cavities.

 The eight walls that made up the bulk of the arena also had a couple of things that I didn't particularly like, namely the obvious join between them and yet another molding anomaly, the reverse cavity of external column.
I have seen these cavities and joints left as they are, but that wasn't a very satisfying solution to me.
There were three areas that needed looking at, the two mentioned above plus the top 'slot' that ran around all the walls

Section of wall with the cavities filled.

The recess of the column needed filling in, which I did with a dowel-type of stick, cut to length,  I think they're lolly-pop sticks! They dropped into the 'hole' a bit too well and were raised out a little with a matchstick inserted behind them. The top cavity, where the capital of the column would be on the outside was filled with filler (shock horror!) as was the 'slot'.

The assembled arena, sitting on its baseboard

 The join between sections would be covered with a coffee stirrer cut to length.
I'd already assembled the model, (coffee stirrers  and all) and undercoated it when other cavities came to light, which also needed filling. These were obviously as a result of the molding process too, but I also wanted to give some 'thickness' to some otherwise very thin walls.
On the photographs, luckily these areas can all been seen as white, being a combination of foamboard and filler. The back of the balcony above the gates is a prime example of the use of foamboard.

The clips than can be seen are holding the wall sections along with the coffee stirrers (for extra strength)whilst the glue sets and gave extra support whilst the model was moved around.
The photograph shows the end wall of the seating area with its cavity filled and filler where the wall sections meet on the outside. The tops of the walls were also given a thin coating of filler for both texture and to blend in with filler that was used on the sections where the walls met.
The Dias above the entrance also had another piece added to it to heighten it a little further.

 The photograph on the right shows the filler between the seating and main stand, but also shows the plastic pegs that hold the various model pieces together.
Unfortunately I didn't take that any more photographs whilst working on this, but I hope the few I did were helpful in relating what went into my version of this.

 

Next week I'll be showing how I  made the hex flooring for the model (foamboard).